Among the autumn’s most eagerly awaited returns is Teresa Battaglia: the beloved character portrayed by Elena Sofia Ricci returns—from October 12 2026 in prime time on Rai 1—to solve complex and intricate cases in Daughter of the Ash, with the help of psychology, criminology, and above all her deep intuition.
Fans will again encounter in this third season of The Cases of Teresa Battaglia the characters they loved most, the same suspense and the same tension that kept viewers glued to the TV in previous seasons, and settings even more steeped in mystery. The locations of Daughter of the Ash, among imposing Romanesque basilicas, rivers that appear placid only on the surface, and modern urban views, seem to participate rather than simply witness the unfolding of events on screen.
What it’s about
Five years after the last case, that of the The Sleeping Nymph, Teresa Battaglia finds herself investigating the discovery of a man’s body in which the killer, after death, has cut off part of his fingers and fractured his sternum. When other corpses are found in the same state, the Udine profiler becomes convinced that the cases cannot be separated as they initially seemed. With the trusted help of Inspectors Massimo Marini and Giacomo Parisi she thus reaches the conclusion that the serial killer acts according to a precise code: he selects victims who have a secret to hide and for whom death must be the price. In addition to the killer’s perverse logic, in The Cases of Teresa Battaglia 3 Elena Sofia Ricci’s character will have to confront the return of her ex-husband, who in the past has already tried to kill her and to prevent her from seeing her children.
Where the series was filmed
The main locations for Daughter of the Ash are once again in Friuli Venezia Giulia, as confirmed by the FVG Film Commission, which supported the production of the fiction. The bond with the city of Udine and, more generally, with the Friulian territory has always been a defining feature of the profiler.
Udine
In the city, filming mainly involved the historic center: elegant and rich with architectural curiosities, yet lively and daily frequented by a large number of out-of-town students and tourists, lending the Rai series with Elena Sofia Ricci a decidedly contemporary atmosphere.
Aquileia
The same cannot be said for Aquileia, another location where Daughter of the Ash was shot. Here the remains from Roman and paleocristian times together with the famous Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta and the splendid mosaics it houses recreate a sense of majesty and mystery that even the series’ lead — as she described at the press conference — was particularly struck by during filming.
Cividale del Friuli
A storyline tied to the protagonist’s past led to Cividale del Friuli being among the locations where the third season of The Cases of Teresa Battaglia was filmed. The town perched on the Natisone River is famous for preserving the most numerous traces of the Lombard civilization (so much so that UNESCO chose it as the starting point of a thematic itinerary).
Other locations
Among the other locations are also several picturesque villages in Friuli Venezia Giulia: San Pietro al Natisone, nestled in the green valleys of the eponymous river, Reana del Rojale, with its water channels and water mills that have endured through time, and Magnano in Riviera, an important agricultural-industrial center on the hills.
