The subtle revenge of a betrayed woman.



 Lina Cavalieri and Donna Franca Florio had few things in common: the undisputed beauty and attentions of Ignazio Florio, a wealthy Sicilian entrepreneur, owner of a vast financial empire as well as Donna Franca's traitorous husband.


Lina Cavalieri, the famous singer, was considered one of the five most beautiful women in the world: a rose in which Donna Franca was also included.


It was Ignazio Florio, crazy with passion for the beautiful Lina, who had made sure that she could perform in all her splendor at the Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house building in Italy, one of the largest in Europe, whose construction had been strongly desired by Ignazio himself.


Ignazio Florio, unfortunately, had never been a faithful husband and his wife suffered a lot from the attention he dedicated to other women, who, in the days before the debut, sent the beautiful singer hundreds of flowers that often only framed precious jewels.


All of Palermo talked about nothing else and in the Florio house the quarrels were continuous and stormy.


After two weeks of rehearsals, finally, the evening of the Cavalieri's debut arrived.


It is said that Ignazio had hired a large claque in the gallery to applaud Lina during her performance.


Informed of the matter, Donna Franca did not stand idly by and, in turn, instructed a fierce and much larger group of spectators to boo her rival


Lina Cavalieri thus found herself at the mercy of the public who, in the face of some consensus, expressed an undisputed dissent for her performance of Puccini's La Boheme.


It was the subtle revenge of Donna Franca Florio, who, composed and smiling, applauded and innocently asked in her box: "Why are they booing her, poor thing, she's so good!"


Lina Cavalieri, realizing the defeat, literally fled from Palermo, to the great relief of Donna Franca, and retired to the villa near Florence received as a gift from Florio himself.


It was there that he died, on March 9, 1944, under a bombing, among the dust and rubble of that villa that he had furnished with the relics of an unrepeatable career.


Even the fate of Donna Franca was not happy, she knew many sorrows for the premature deaths of her three children and suffered the total financial collapse of the Florio family, whose memory is still alive throughout Sicily and beyond .

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