There lived in Rome in 1679 Pietro and Violante Comparini, an elderly couple of the middle class, fond of show and good living, and who in spite of a fair income had run considerably into debt.  They were, indeed at the period in question, in receipt of a papal bounty, employed in the relief of the needy who did not like to beg.  Creditors were pressing, and only one expedient suggested itself:  they must have a child; and thus enable themselves to draw on their capital, now tied up for the benefit of an unknown heir-at-law.  The wife conceived this plan, and also carried it out, without taking her husband into her confidence.  She secured beforehand the infant of a poor and not very reputable woman, announced her expectation, half miraculous at her past fifty years, and became, to all appearance, the mother of a girl, the Francesca Pompilia of the story.

When Pompilia had reached the age of thirteen, there was also in Rome Count Guido Franceschini, an impoverished nobleman of Arezzo, and the elder of three brothers, of whom the second, Abate Paolo, and the third, Canon Girolamo also play some part in the story.  Count Guido himself belonged to the minor ranks of the priesthood, and had spent his best years in seeking preferment in it.  Preferment had not come, and the only means of building up the family fortunes in his own person, was now a moneyed wife.  He was poor, fifty years old, and personally unattractive.  A contemporary chronicle describes him as short, thin, and pale, and with a projecting nose.  He had nothing to offer but his rank; but in the case of a very obscure heiress, this might suffice, and such a one seemed to present herself in Pompilia Comparini.  He heard of her at the local centre of gossip, the barber’s shop; received an exaggerated estimate of her dowry; and made proposals for her hand; being supported in his suit by the Abate Paul.  They did not, on their side, understate the advantages of the connection.  They are, indeed, said to have given as their yearly income, a sum exceeding their capital, and Violante was soon dazzled into consenting to it.  Old Pietro was more wary.  He made inquiries as to the state of the Count’s fortune, and declined, under plea of his daughter’s extreme youth, to think of him as a son-in-law.

Violante pretended submission, secretly led Pompilia to a church, the very church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, where four years later the murdered bodies of all three were to be displayed, and brought her back as Count Guido’s wife.  Pietro could only accept the accomplished fact; and he so far resigned himself to it, that he paid down an instalment of his daughter’s dowry, and made up the deficiency by transferring to the newly-married couple all that he actually possessed.  This left him no choice but to live under their roof, and the four removed together to the Franceschini abode at Arezzo.  The arrangement proved disastrous; and at the end of a few months Pietro and Violante were glad to return to Rome, though with empty pockets, and on money lent them for the journey by their son-in-law.