On the night of July 2, 1827, Maria Pedena was killed in Modena. Maria was fourteen years old, she was an embroiderer and had a boyfriend, a violinist.

The young woman knew the murderer, Eleuterio Malagoli, a luthier who lived in retirement at her parents' house. The young woman was killed by a knife blow to the throat, although the poor body was found covered in numerous other wounds, testimony to the strenuous defense that the girl had put up against her attacker. Malagoli, at the time married to Domenica Muccioli, who according to the news he had had to marry because "she had already been illegitimately mothered by him", tried to kill himself by shooting himself after having committed the crime and died a few days later. Having already died at the time of the sentence, he was condemned to the gallows "in effigy".

The tragic bloody event had a wide echo in Modena. Numerous poetic collections were composed in memory of the young victim. His image began to circulate through large-circulation prints.

This exhibition collects works and documents that illustrate how the posthumous narration of the facts surrounding the killing of Maria Regina Pedena was influenced by concomitant social, cultural and political customs, which led to interpretations distinct from those evident from the analysis of the facts alone.