Comparison between the description of la Monaca di Monza and the Wife of Bath

This short paragraph contains a comparison between two famous characterizations: the first one is that of la Monaca di Monza, provided by Manzoni in his famous work "I promessi sposi"; the second one is the description of the Wife of Bath, that is part of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Even if they regard different figures, you can find a lot of similarities in these two descriptions.
Both the narrators (Manzoni and Chaucer) start providing information about the social status of the character: the reader knows that la Monaca di Monza is a powerful nun, while the Wife of Bath is a married business woman, belonging to the middle-class. Subsequently, you get information about the characters' origin: la Monaca di Monza comes from a famous and rich Spanish family, while the Wife of Bath, as her name suggests, comes from Bath.
What's more, both the characterizations give information about the character's reputation and the relation between the character and the other people. In fact, the reader is told that the Monaca di Monza is never called with her name: she is known as "the mistress" because, even if she is not the most important figure in the convent, she is powerful and worthy of respect. On the other side, the Wife of Bath is well-known in the parish because she always wants to be the first (for example she gives a lot of money to the Church during the almsgiving) and nobody tries to precede her or to take her primacy.
In addition, both the narrators pay close attention to the details (sometimes unusual) of the physical appearance of the characters: Manzoni describes the nun's eyes, lips, cheeks and eyebrows; Chaucer focuses his attention on the woman's teeth, face, and hips. In fact, both these descriptions reveal something about the character's nature or life-style: the physical appearance of the Monaca di Monza makes the reader think about a mysterious, restless, prig but also sad person: it seems as if she had a secret painful story that you absolutely want to know. Similarly, the beauty of the Wife of Bath explains her numerous marriages and her widely spaced teeth are connected to her experience in love matters; as a consequence, the Wife of Bath seems to be a revolutionary character, an emancipated and ambitious woman that catches the reader's attention.
The description of the characters' clothing is detailed and meaningful: the veil of the Monaca di Monza doesn't fit her properly and doesn't cover all her hair: so, as a nun, she doesn't seem to pay attention to the monastic rules; farther more, her black veil is in contrast with her white face: this may be an allegoric opposition between sin and good or between two different personalities of the character. On the other side, the Wife of Bath wears precious, bizarre and outlandish clothes: indeed she is a revolutionary woman, she likes drawing the other people's attention and, for example, her red stockings may represent her excitable character.
So, even if different and created by different poets in different time and space, the characterizations I have just analyzed seem to have a lot in common: they both appeal to various categories and keep the attention and the curiosity of the reader high.