Mastro don Gesualdo

Mastro don Gesualdo is the second work of the planned cycle of "The Vanquished", after "The House by the Medlar Tree". It is a costume novel that tells the story of Gesualdo Motta, who goes from being a "mastro" (mason) to becoming a "don" (wealthy bourgeois). The novel describes the failure of a life entirely devoted to the cult of "roba" (material possessions), but completely alienated from genuine and sincere affections. In the cacophony of voices that undermine every social value, Verga seems to have identified the expressive rhythm of humanity conditioned by money and condemned to solitude.

It is a condition of which the characters are not aware, and this makes "Mastrodon Gesualdo" the first Italian novel of bourgeois alienation.