She witnesses the Duchess's wedding and delivers her children. She dies tragically by strangling following the murder of the Duchess and the youngest children. Her name plays on the Italian carriolo, meaning "trundle-bed", where personal servants would have slept. Julia – Castruchio's wife and the Cardinal's mistress. She dies at the Cardinal's hands from a poisoned Bible. Malateste – A hanger-on at the Cardinal's court. The name means 'headache'. Referred to as a "mere stick of sugar candy" by the Duchess, he is yet another interchangeable courtier serving the sycophantic court. Doctor – Sent for to diagnose Ferdinand's madness and his supposed "lycanthropia". There are also minor roles including courtiers, servants, officers, a mistress, the Duchess's children, executioners, etc. Synopsis The play is set in the court of Malfi (Amalfi), Italy, from 1504 to 1510. The recently widowed Duchess falls in love with Antonio, a lowly steward. Her brothers, Ferdinand and the Cardinal, forbid her from remarrying, seeking to defend their inheritance and desperate to avoid a degrading association with a social inferior. Suspicious of her, they hire Bosola to spy on her. She elopes with Antonio and bears him three children secretly. Bosola eventually discovers that the Duchess is pregnant but does not know who the father is. Ferdinand, shown by now to be a depraved lunatic, threatens and disowns the Duchess. In an attempt to escape, she and Antonio concoct a story that Antonio has swindled her out of her fortune and must flee into exile. The Duchess takes Bosola into her confidence, unaware that he is Ferdinand's spy, and arranges for him to deliver her jewellery to Antonio at his hiding-place in Ancona. She will join them later, while pretending to make a pilgrimage to a nearby town. The Cardinal hears of the plan, instructs Bosola to banish the two lovers, and sends soldiers to capture them. Antonio escapes with their eldest son, but the Duchess, her maid, and her two younger children are returned to Malfi and die at the hands of Bosola's executioners, who are under Ferdinand's orders. This experience leads Bosola to turn against the brothers, and he decides to take up the cause of “revenge for the Duchess of Malfi” (5.2). The Cardinal confesses his part in the killing of the Duchess to his mistress, Julia, then murders her with a poisoned Bible. Bosola overhears the Cardinal plotting to kill him, so he