Definition of "baronessa"

Professor Hartt recalled that, at one of what Berenson liked to call his Sunday afternoon “tea fights,” he was surrounded by contessas, baronessas, and principessas in true Don Giovanni style.

1979, Meryle Secrest, Being Bernard Berenson: A Biography, New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, page 391

By five o’clock, contessas, baronessas, ministers, ambassadors, fashionistas, and local goddesses of Cinecittà began streaming across the huge piazza in front of the Farnese.

1998, Manuela Hoelterhoff, Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, page 243

“Oh, these Italian mothers,” replied Ciceri distractedly. “They’re all the same, baronessas or not. Their first concern is that their son eats enough for three people. Everything else is of lesser importance.”

2014, Marco Malvaldi, translated by Howard Curtis, The Art of Killing Well, MacLehose Press, Quercus Editions Ltd