Fiorenza Marchegiani, who played Marta in Troisi's 'Ricomincio da tre', has died.

Fiorenza Marchegiani, an actress born in Osimo in 1953 and the protagonist of a long career in theater, film, and television, has died at the age of 73. Osimo's mayor, Michela Glorio, also paid tribute to her, expressing the community's condolences on social media and emphasizing the actress's connection to her hometown.

Marchegiani began his career in theater at the Teatro Stabile di Genova, performing in plays by Ostrovsky and Goldoni under the direction of Luigi Squarzina. After some television experience with RAI, 1981 brought the meeting that would define his career: Massimo Troisi and his film debut, Ricomincio da tre.

Marta, the woman who changes Gaetano's life

In the film, Marchegiani plays Marta, a nurse whom Gaetano meets at the mental health center in Florence. She is a modern, independent, and outspoken woman with a passion for writing. Her relationship with the young Neapolitan quickly becomes the emotional heart of the film.

Marchegiani's choice proves particularly apt because Marta isn't portrayed as the classic female protagonist of a comedy. She's not simply the girl Gaetano falls in love with: she's a woman capable of overcoming his shyness, his hesitations, and above all, his irresistible tendency to complicate every situation.

It's precisely through Marta that Troisi brings to the screen a comedy made not just of jokes, but of silences, hesitations, misunderstandings, and small emotional short circuits. A comedy that, as critics have also observed, often arises more from the looks and the timing of conversations than from the joke itself.

"When there's love, there's everything." "No, that's good health!"

One of the first memorable moments in the relationship between Marta and Gaetano is precisely the dialogue about love.
Marta argues, "When there's love, there's everything." Gaetano, with his unsettling logic, retorts that no, that's health.

It's a seemingly simple gag, but Troisi's entire philosophy is already there: taking a cliché, seemingly unassailable, and dismantling it with a lateral response, naive only in appearance.
The comedy stems from the way Gaetano eschews the conventions of sentimental language. Marta speaks of love as an absolute feeling; he responds by bringing everything back to the concreteness of everyday life.

Lello's phrase that Gaetano tries to pass off as his

Another of the tastiest scenes comes when Marta asks Gaetano why he left Naples.
Gaetano brings up the famous line: "He who leaves knows what he's fleeing from but doesn't know what he's seeking." It's one of the lines Lello had just given him.

Marta looks at him and points out that he's using other people's phrases. Gaetano, instead of admitting the obvious, tries to figure out how she could possibly know Lello. When she explains that the phrase is Montaigne's, he's taken aback.
It's one of the most typical comic mechanisms of Ricomincio da tre: Gaetano would like to appear deeper than he is, but he is continually unmasked by reality.

And Marchegiani, in these scenes, works precisely because he doesn't try to overwhelm Troisi: he gives him space, watches him, waits for his response and becomes an integral part of the comic rhythm.

Love, jealousy and the suspicion of betrayal

Marta and Gaetano's relationship progresses through tender moments and constant misunderstandings. The two end up living together, and their relationship becomes increasingly serious.

But it is precisely when it seems to have reached an equilibrium that the crisis arrives.
Marta is writing a novel and tells a story of betrayal. Lello begins to suspect that there might be something autobiographical behind those pages and tries to warn Gaetano. He initially categorically rejects the idea.

When Marta returns after a few days spent at a friend's house, however, she herself manifests a jealous reaction towards Jeanne, a woman who had shown interest in Gaetano.
At that point the tables are turned: Gaetano, suspicious of Marta's jealousy, asks her if she's had other men since the beginning of their relationship.
The answer is yes.

The film thus shifts from romantic comedy to a relationship crisis, while maintaining its ironic tone. Troisi constructs Gaetano as a man who longs for certainty but continually ends up in situations he doesn't know how to handle.

The ending: the child and the doubt that overwhelms Gaetano

The relationship between Marta and Gaetano reaches its most surreal moment when she tells him she is pregnant.
The news should represent the culmination of their story. But there's a problem: Marta isn't sure that

Gaetano is the father.
This is where Troisi takes his comedy to the extreme: Gaetano doesn't react as dramatically as one might expect, but even begins to think about the child's name.
“Massimiliano?” asks Marta.

Gaetano immediately rejects the idea and looks for alternatives, even going so far as to discuss the names Massimiliano and Ugo.
It's one of the film's most famous scenes precisely because, behind the gag, lies Gaetano's entire character: a man who, faced with the greatest uncertainty of his life, still tries to control what he can, even the child's name.

From Troisi to television: a career that extends beyond Marta

After Ricomincio da tre, Fiorenza Marchegiani continued to work in film, television, and theater.
In 1982, he released Crimes, Love and Jealousy and Sorry if It's a Little Thing, followed over the years by other films such as Notturno, D'Annunzio, Via Paradiso and Luisa, Carla, Lorenza and... the Affectionate Distant Times. His filmography also includes The Naive Wife and the Sick Husband, Give Him My Regards – Jail Leftovers, Racket, I Want to Stay Under the Bed, Christmas in New York and The Second Time You Never Forget.

However, television has become a key aspect of her career. In 1999, she joined the cast of Vivere, playing Letizia Visconti Gherardi; she later starred in Incantesimo. In 2009, she appeared in Distretto di Polizia, in 2011 in Un amore e una vendetta, and from 2012 to 2015, she played Livia Monforte in Le tre rose di Eva.
But for the audience who loved Massimo Troisi, his face will inevitably remain linked to Marta.

That first Troisi who changed Italian comedy

Ricomincio da Tre, released in 1981, was not only Troisi's film debut: it was also his directorial debut. The film won two David di Donatello Awards and four Nastri d'Argento Awards and established a new form of comedy, far removed from traditional caricature and folklore.

In this universe, Fiorenza Marchegiani played a far from marginal role. Marta is the woman with whom Gaetano can finally face adulthood, love, jealousy, and the possibility of becoming a father.

And much of the film's strength comes from their dialogue: Troisi plays a man who can never quite say what he wants; Marchegiani plays a woman who, on the other hand, seems to know exactly what she wants.

It's from this distance that some of the best comedy in Ricomincio da tre is born. And today, remembering Fiorenza Marchegiani, it's impossible not to go back to 1981, to that Marta and that young Gaetano who, with a smile, a hesitation, and an unfinished sentence, were changing Italian comedy forever.