Let’s talk for one minute about this triangle Bianca/Cosimo/Contessina
Cosimo was forced to give up on his dreams by his father, and the woman he loved (or more likely, he thinks he loved) was sent away from him - enters the picture Contessina, whom has been chosen for her title, and she gets on his nerves because of the way she tries to engage him in a conversation and talk freely about the fact that he’s unconfrtable in the situation they’re in. He realizes that she’s as loyal to her family as he is to his own, so he sets things straight with her, that once they’re wed she’s going to be loyal to him and only to him. And then he kisses her.
And the kiss is exactly the moment he decides he’s done with her. Because though he will be a banker, on the inside he is an artist, and on the inside he belongs to Bianca (whom he has idealized, quite frankly) and he is harsh and cold towards his own wife from that day on. Contessina represents the chains imposed by his father, and he resents her because he cannot resent his father (and he took it out on her during their first night, after the confrontation with Giovanni about Bianca), and he resents her because he kissed her and he was not supposed to, not like that at least. During the years sometimes the facade cracks, the mask slips ever so slightly and you can see he’d like to reach for her but he holds back, and anyone’s heart would grow cold at being treated the way he treats her so he just supposes that her loyalty is a matter of duty. I saw the trailer for the episodes of next week, and he looks so stunned to see her come to him while he’s imprisoned, to see that she truly cares for him though he has never let himself show any affection towards her. Basically he’s forced himself, and her too, into 20 years of loneliness because he was scared that if he gave in to the temptation of being emotionally close to his wife he would lose the idealistic boy he was trying to save from his father’s plans for his future. And while he tortured them both she loved him all the same.
shit man
