When considering the novel’s societal setting in Sicily in the late 1500s, it is important to remember that Radcliffe wrote for an English readership in the late 1700s. By placing her characters at such a remove from her readers, she freed them to imagine elements of romance and danger that were distant from their everyday lives. By setting her novel so far into the past, readers could also look at the rigid social structures and savage passions as the concerns of another time and place from which their own society had progressed–despite the fact that aristocracy, patriarchy, and superstition also characterized Georgian England. In the novel’s setting, Italian aristocrats live a life of luxury, while everyone else is a servant, peasant, monk, or bandit. These inherent class structures are apparent throughout the novel.

The physical setting in the novel is an essential element of Gothic fiction and is highly characteristic of the genre: The ruined mansions, a seemingly haunted castle, dark woods, and mountains all represent darker aspects of the human psyche and help to develop a sense of dread and confusion. The Mazzini castle’s primary trait is isolation, and this reflects what Julia and Emilia have experienced growing up away from the bustle of Naples: “A melancholy stillness reigned through the halls, and the silence of the courts, which were shaded by high turrets, was for many hours together undisturbed by the sound of any foot-step” (5).