General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Trial (2019 TV series)

The Trial (Italian: Il processo) is an Italian legal-thriller television series created by Alessandro Fabbri, with Laura Colella and Enrico Audenino, directed by Stefano Lodovichi, and produced by Lucky Red with RTI for the Mediaset network Canale 5¹. It was broadcast in eight episodes of about 50 minutes from 29 November to 13 December 2019 and was described by Italian critics as the first legal thriller, or legal drama, produced for Italian television²^•³. The series streams internationally on Netflix under the English title The Trial⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Original title / format	Il processo, Italian-language legal thriller, 8 episodes of roughly 50 minutes over 3 prime-time Friday nights¹^•²
First broadcast	Canale 5, 29 November 2019; final episode 13 December 2019⁵
Lead cast	Vittoria Puccini as prosecutor Elena Guerra, Francesco Scianna as defense lawyer Ruggero Barone, Camilla Filippi as defendant Linda Monaco⁶
Premise	The murder of 17-year-old Angelica Petroni, whose body is found on the banks of the Mincio river in Mantua, brings prosecutor, lawyer, and accused into a trial that reshapes each of their lives⁶
Setting	Filmed in Mantua and the surrounding area, with the Sala dei Giganti of Palazzo Te among the courtroom locations⁶
Premiere audience	2.138 million viewers and a 10.22% share; the schedule was cut from four to three nights after the debut⁵
Reception	IMDb 7.2/10 from about 4.6 thousand votes; Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 85% from 2 reviews⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The story begins when the body of Angelica Petroni, a 17-year-old girl, is found on the gravel bed of the Mincio river at Mantua⁶. The investigation is assigned to Elena Guerra (Vittoria Puccini), a public prosecutor, or pm (pubblico ministero), who had planned a sabbatical year to save her marriage to Giovanni, and who discovers she is linked to the victim in a way she cannot break⁹.

The first suspect is Claudio Cavalleri (Michele Morrone), one of the most powerful men in the city and a central figure of Mantuan high society, suspected of having had a relationship with the victim⁹. The wealthy Linda Monaco (Camilla Filippi) is the only defendant, and she insists on her innocence⁶. She retains Ruggero Barone (Francesco Scianna), an ambitious and apparently unscrupulous criminal lawyer for whom the trial is the opportunity of a lifetime⁹.

Between Guerra and Barone opens what the promotional material calls a ruthless war fought with witnesses, evidence, missteps, and continuous investigations; each time one appears to prevail, the situation reverses⁹. The show's tagline, spoken by Barone in the trailer, sets the tone: "La verità non esiste. È quella cosa finta che viene costruita in aula" ("The truth does not exist. It is that fake thing built in the courtroom")¹⁰. The trial reconstructs, hearing by hearing, the truth behind the murder of the young woman⁹.

The supporting cast includes Simone Colombari as Giacomo Andreoli, Maurizio Lastrico as Giovanni Malaguti, Alessandro Averone as Stefano Lanzoni, Euridice Axén as Mara Raimondi, Marco Baliani as Ottavio Arrigoni, Pia Lanciotti as Fabrizia Furlan, Tommaso Ragno as Gabriele Monaco, Roberto Herlitzka as Giancarlo Guerra, Giordano De Plano as Vittorio De Grandis, and Margherita Caviezel as Angelica Petroni⁶^•¹¹.

Production

Lucky Red, the film company founded by Andrea Occhipinti, expanded into audiovisual production from 2016, and Il processo was its fiction production for Mediaset¹². The production had the support of the Comune di Mantova and involved the Mantova Film Commission; the mayor announced that filming would begin in March 2019, between Mantua and Rome, with locations including Palazzo Te and the city's squares¹³. Castings for small parts and extras took place in Mantua in February 2019¹⁴.

Fabbri had previously written the Sky series 1992, 1993, and 1994 and the Italian adaptation of In Treatment, and Lodovichi had directed Il cacciatore²^•¹. Lodovichi described the intent as telling a news-style crime case and the discovery of the relational and family dynamics of the upper-middle-class north, through a trial that rebuilds the truth of the murder like a puzzle⁹.

In an interview about the series' sale to Latin America, Occhipinti said the project was brought to Lucky Red by creator Alessandro Fabbri and found by editorial manager Serena Sostegni. He also recounted a conversation with Netflix about a different project: Netflix advised against producing in English, saying that English-language series were abundant while other languages had become a value, an exoticism that interests audiences¹⁵.

Broadcast and performance

The series premiered on Canale 5 on Friday 29 November 2019 in prime time². The opening episode drew 2.138 million viewers, a 10.22% share, against Rai 1's 20 anni che siamo italiani with Gigi D'Alessio and Vanessa Incontrada, which won the evening with 3.866 million viewers and a 19.3% share⁵. Reporting on the ratings described the result as disappointing for the network, and Canale 5 responded by compressing the schedule from four prime-time nights to three, adding second-run evening airings, and closing the series on Friday 13 December 2019⁵^•¹⁶.

Netflix added the series internationally under the title The Trial; the Brazilian catalog records it as added on 18 December 2019¹⁷. As of 2026 the series streams in the United States on Netflix and Netflix Standard with Ads⁴.

Reception

On IMDb the series holds a 7.2/10 rating from about 4.6 thousand votes⁷. On Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomatometer of 85% rests on only 2 reviews, both from April 2020: Marcelo Stiletano of La Nación (Argentina) wrote that the series takes full advantage of the natural beauty of Mantua, and Joel Keller of Decider called it a good-looking, well-acted show that starts out shaky⁸. The Italian review in Movieplayer judged that the series borrows the language of famous American legal dramas such as American Crime Story and Law & Order and adapts it, without forcing, to the rhythms of Italian courtroom reality³. A Spanish-language review in La Nación (Argentina) credited the show as an effective Italian legal drama while noting teleteatro-style plot twists among its conventions¹⁸.

Significance in Italian television

Italian commentary treats Il processo as the first legal drama made for Italian television, a step away from the soap-opera dynamics and polished family sagas that had dominated domestic fiction³. An academic study published in 2024 in the journal Cinergie analyzed the figure of the female detective in Il processo alongside Circeo (2022) and La legge di Lidia Poët (2023–), reading Elena Guerra as a character developed to subvert the traditional female victim status within a male sphere of power¹⁹. The series remains a single season of eight episodes and is recorded as ended²⁰.

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026