Despina Basaraba was one of many early modern Mediterranean women who left home and, by choice or by force, went to make a new life in an unfamiliar and sometimes distant place. In 1598, Despina, a Greek Christian from Constantinople (Istanbul), arrived in Rome with her husband, Giovanni Paris, a French surgeon formerly enslaved in the Levant, and their threeyear old son, Giovanni Battista. The small family had traveled over 1,300 kilometers between two cosmopolitan but very different cities, from the Ottoman imperial capital to Catholicism's center in Italy. The migrants brought some social credit and portable material assets but had no livelihood and minimal connections in Rome. From the detailed records of a Roman criminal trial in 1603, this essay reconstructs Despina's story, as the exotic migrant built and used a web of social relationships and alliances to make a way for herself and her family in a new city. Put more broadly, I use a microhistorical narrative to lay out varied common strategies for early modern women's social action. Deftly deploying what resources she had, Despina initiated a family tie with a previously unknown kinswoman, cultivated substantial male patronage, served as a godmother, and improvised ad hoc links with female servants, artisans’ wives, and gentlewomen. Such relationships brought Despina notable success for several years, but later catapulted her into sore distress. These crucial everyday negotiations and connections, especially for women, seldom surface in the records.