The Paris AtlasCharting the artists, works, and places worth returning to.

A character in Valperga

Castruccio Castracani

A Ghibelline exile from Lucca who becomes a great general and then the city's ruthless prince.

What they want

He wants power and fame, and to command armies of his own one day.

The book

ValpergaMary Shelley, 1823

Mary Shelley's second novel: a real fourteenth-century tyrant of Lucca, and the two invented women who love him and refuse to be ruled by him.

View the book

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Castruccio is clever, brave and charming, and the novel lets the reader like him. The novel then shows, chapter by chapter, what his ambition costs the people who love him.

How Castruccio Castracani Is Portrayed

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • An exile at elevenIn Volume I, Chapter I, the Guelphs drive his family out of Lucca in 1301, when he is eleven. The scenes of that expulsion stay with him.
  • A soldier in Flanders, a guest in ParisIn Volume I, Chapter V, he fights for King Philip of France under Alberto Scoto and wins a name for courage. He spends some weeks of the winter at the court in Paris.
  • Coming home to ValpergaIn Volume I, Chapter IX, he rides up to Euthanasia's castle and remembers their childhood there. He also notices, as a soldier would, how easily the steep path could be defended.
  • Leaving BeatriceIn Volume II, Chapter IV, he tells Beatrice he must go back to Lucca. He promises they will meet again. She answers that they never will.
  • Refused by EuthanasiaIn Volume II, Chapter XII, after his soldiers take Valperga, he asks her once more. She refuses, forgives him, and gives him her hand. He tells her he will always be ready to protect her.
  • Judge of the conspiracyIn Volume III, Chapter XI, he learns that Euthanasia is among the plotters against him. He orders the others put to death and says he will be her judge himself.

Castruccio Castracani quotes

Lines spoken by or about Castruccio Castracani, each verified verbatim against the text and located in the book.

I had rather woo the lion in his den to be my husband, than become the bride of a conqueror.
— Euthanasia · Mary Shelley, Valperga (1823), Volume II, Chapter XII
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

In Volume III, Chapter XII, he visits Euthanasia's cell at night and sends her by ship to Sicily. The ship is lost in a storm. The conclusion follows him to Rome, where the Emperor Louis honours him. He dies of fever in Lucca on 3 September 1328.

If you like Valperga

Four books that share themes, tone, or setting with this one.

If you like Mary Shelley

Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.

  • Illustrated portrait of Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.

    View author
  • Illustrated portrait of Henry Miller

    Henry Miller

    The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.

    View author
  • Illustrated portrait of Mark Twain

    Mark Twain

    The Missouri newspaperman who became America's most famous writer, and whose first book made its reputation partly out of Paris: in 1867 he arrived with a shipload of American tourists, renamed his guide Ferguson, watched the high-kicking can-can through his fingers and wrote it all down. He kept coming back — and was living in Paris in the mid-1890s, broke, while finishing the novel he considered his best, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

    View author
Back to Valperga