In The White Devil, the two women romantically entangled with Brachiano—Isabella and Vittoria—are foils for each other, serving as a model for female virtue and female vice respectively. Vittoria is highly ambitious, and stops at nothing in order to carry out her goals. Despite being married to Camillo, she conducts an affair with the wealthy Brachiano, conspires with him to arrange the deaths of their spouses, and ultimately even betrays her own brother for selfish gain. Isabella, however, behaves in the manner expected of a wife and mother in Renaissance thought. When Brachiano announces his plan to divorce Isabella, she demonstrates her self-sacrificing nature:
No, my dear lord, you shall have present witness
How I’ll work peace between you. I will make
Myself the author of your cursèd vow;
I have some cause to do it, you have none.
Conceal it, I beseech you, for the weal
Of both your dukedoms, that you wrought the means
Of such a separation. Let the fault
Remain with my supposèd jealousy,
And think with what a piteous and rent heart
I shall perform this sad, ensuing part.
Isabella, who still loves Brachiano despite his cruel treatment of her, is horrified by his plan to seek a divorce. Further, she recognizes that this divorce might provoke war between Brachiano’s dukedom and that of her brother, Francisco. In order to prevent this, she volunteers to take blame for the divorce and therefore maintain peace between her husband and father. Further, she notes that she performs this “sad” role with a broken heart. Isabella’s commitment to her husband and willingness to sacrifice her own happiness in order to prevent fighting stand in stark contrast to Vittoria, who is conversely willing to sacrifice others for her own happiness.
