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– the sweet girl morphed into an angry, demanding woman. Her beauty was worth more than a wretched room in a cramped house. She was worthy of a grand palace boasting dozens of servants in gorgeous livery. Her courtyard should be stuffed with gilded carriages and matched teams of proud horses instead of chickens, pigs, and their dung. Her wardrobe should consist of a rainbow of bejeweled gowns of velvet and silk, trimmed with fur.
    At the dining table, as she daubed her shapely mouth with a napkin gracefully embroidered by herself, Vittoria saw that she was surrounded by country bumpkins. The cardinal uncle, despite his two decades of hobnobbing with the most eminent men in Rome, retained his rural ways. Years later, when foreign ambassadors carefully observed his manners, they wrote of his digging into his food and gulping his wine with dishonorable gusto. He had the alarming habit of dribbling food on his chin and then wiping it off with the back of his hand. And he had made sure his nephew retained the humble habits of the countryside lest he succumb to the sin of pride.
    Rome was full of up-and-coming country bumpkins hoping to win the patronage of a cardinal or powerful nobleman. Europe’s first etiquette book, Il Galatheo, written in 1559 by Giovanni della Casa, attempted to teach them good manners so they would not disgrace themselves when spending time with the better bred. Reading the instructions, perhaps we can understand some of Vittoria’s frustrations.
    “And when thou hast blowne thy nose,” della Casa advises, “use not to open thy handkerchief, to glare uppon thy snot, as if thou hadst pearles and Rubies fallen from thy braynes.” 9
    Though della Casa stated that it was impolite to urinate in front of others, many men stepped away from the dinner table to pee nonchalantly into the fireplace or in a bowl in the corner. The author considered it bad taste in company to fart, belch, pick one’s teeth, nose, or ears, or thrust a hand down one’s breeches to scratch at fleas devouring the private parts.
    The poorly bred were known to cough and sneeze loudly, without so much as covering their mouths with their hands. “So there be some kinde of men, that in coffing or neesing [sneezing], make suche noise, that they make a man deafe to here them, and spray upon all those nearby. Besides these there be some, that in yauning, braye and crye out like Asses.” 10
    Della Casa was disgusted by those who dine “like swine with their snouts in the washe, all begroined, and never lift up their heads nor looke up, muche lesse kepe their hands from the meate, and with both their cheeks blowne, as if they should sound a trumpet or blowe the fier, not eate but ravon: who, besmearing their hands almost up to their elbowes, so bedawbe the napkins, that the cloaths in the places of easement [toilet paper] be other while cleaner… Neither is it good maner, to rubbe your gresie fingers uppon the bread you must eat.” 11
    Understanding the vast gulf of breeding that yawned between themselves and this prodigy of beauty who had condescended to join their family, the Perettis bent over backwards to keep her happy. According to Cardinal Maffei, Vittoria “had youthful feminine inclinations, so that the cardinal, as well as Camilla, both known as frugal people, satisfied her with happy liberality, almost without being asked, and almost competed to spoil her and enrich her with much, and rich pearls, and jewels, and splendid things much superior to their state.” 12 Unfortunately, although the family stretched its budget to accommodate her expensive tastes, it was never enough.
    Despite Vittoria’s improved wardrobe, she found to her grinding chagrin that when she attended banquets and balls, noblewomen far less attractive than she outshone her in gorgeous gowns and blazing jewels. It was a great injustice, this dimming of her God-given beauty, and Vittoria was determined to see justice done. And so, while Camilla was