13 Incredible Italian Women who made History. Pioneer women in the fields of politics, sciences, arts, medicine, mathematics or education.
Over the years, women have fought against all odds to contribute significantly to various historical courses. The pioneers of the struggle for women’s equality in society endured a harsh environment to achieve the accomplishments that modern women can enjoy.
In Italian history there was no exception. There are numerous Italian women whose contribution to the shaping of history will be remembered for the rest of time. In modern Italian society, some are following in the footsteps of their ancestors by achieving great things and inspiring Italian women to be better.
Hortensia
The first Italian woman to make history must be Hortensia, daughter of the Roman orator Quintus Hortensius. Hortensia is probably considered the first woman lawyer in history thanks to the famous oratory she delivered in the Roman Forum in 42 BC.
During the civil war against Brutus and Cassius (who assassinated Julius Caesar), the triumvirate formed by Mark Antony, Octavian and Lepidus proposed to raise money for the war by taxing the properties of 1,400 wealthy Roman women, who, being women, could not defend themselves against this decision.
Hortensia took the floor in the Forum declaring that women should not pay for a war they had neither asked for nor participated in. Women, she said, would help fight the enemies but would not pay the cost of the war.
Her speech worked and the number of women subject to taxation was reduced to 400 and the same taxation was extended to men.
Trotula of Salerno
Trotula of Salerno was a physician who worked in Salerno, the epicenter of medieval medicine in Europe. Trotula was one of the most famous physicians of the time and a pioneer of women’s health.
She was a doctor and a master of the art of healing who taught others. She is often called Trotula, although her real name was Trota or Trocta. For three centuries, medical works on women’s health and treatment circulated under her name: “La Trotula”. Either she has been praised as one of the best physicians of the European Middle Ages, or she has been so forgotten that it has been said that she did not even exist. It was only at the end of the 20th century that her true practice of medicine was recovered.
She is considered the world’s first gynecologist. She is credited with several writings on women’s health, such as Diseases of Women, Treatments for Women and Women’s Cosmetics.
In medieval Europe, these texts were an important source of information on women’s health, especially for male physicians, who at the time had little knowledge of the female body. She was also the first to believe that women should not suffer unrelenting pain during childbirth, advocating the use of opiates to ease the pain of childbirth.
Catherine of Siena
Catherine of Siena, whose original name is Caterina Benincasa (March 25, 1347 – April 29, 1380), a lay member of the Dominican Order, was a mystic, activist and writer who had a great influence on Italian literature and the Catholic Church. She was canonized in 1461.
From a very young age she wanted to dedicate herself to God, against the will of her parents. She joined the “mantellate”, a group of pious women, mainly widows, informally dedicated to Dominican spirituality.
She is one of the two patron saints of Italy, along with St. Francis of Assisi. She was also a woman of action, acting as ambassador and advisor to Popes Gregory XI and Urban VI. She was charged with bringing the pope back to the eternal city after the papal residence was moved from Rome to Avignon.
She dictated to the secretaries her set of spiritual treatises The Dialogue of Divine Providence. The Great Western Schism prompted Catherine of Siena to go to Rome with the Pope.
The Pope then sent Catherine to negotiate peace with Florence. After the death of Gregory XI (March 1378) and the conclusion of peace (July 1378), she returned to Siena.
Dorotea Bucca
Dorotea Bocchi (1360-1436) (also sometimes called Dorotea Bucca) was an Italian noblewoman, physician, and one of the first scientists to open the field of science to women in Europe.
She was the first woman professor to be accepted on the council of the University of Bologna, where she held a chair of medicine and philosophy for more than forty years beginning in 1390 (although there are differing beliefs about the extent of her involvement at the university, from whether she taught or held a position there).
Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome on July 8, 1593, although her birth certificate from the Archivio di Stato indicates that she was born in 1590, being the eldest daughter of the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudenzia di Ottaviano Montoni.
Artemisia started painting in her father’s workshop, showing much more talent than her brothers, who worked alongside her. She learned to draw, to mix colors and to paint.
She was known for her ability to convincingly depict the female figure, both nude and clothed. Artemisia was also famous for her skill and talent in the handling of color, both in the overall composition and in the construction of depth.
Probably the first great Italian painter, Artemisia Gentileschi was a reference in the development of painting in the 1600s. She was the first painter to join the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence, at a time when women were not allowed to study anatomy or draw from life (it was considered unacceptable for a lady to see nudes).
According to the custom of the time, it was impossible for women painters to hire models or masters, as their mere presence in the painter’s studio could ruin her reputation. Today she is considered one of the most accomplished painters of the post-Caravaggio generation.
Elena Cornaro Piscopia
Elena Cornaro Piscopia
was a Venetian mathematician and the first woman in the world to officially obtain a university degree.
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was born into a noble Venetian family on June 5, 1646 in Venice, Italy. Her father, Giovanni Baptista Cornaro, was the procurator of San Marco and a highly esteemed Venetian. Elena’s mother, Zanetta Giovanna Boni, did not belong to the privileged upper class before her marriage.
From the age of seven, Elena Piscopia was taught classical languages such as Latin and Greek, as well as grammar and music. In addition to being fluent in Latin and Greek, Elena was fluent in Hebrew, Spanish, French and Arabic. Her mastery of languages earned her the title of Oraculum Septilingue.
She was a student of science and languages, and studied mathematics and astronomy, as well as philosophy and theology. Elena’s greatest love was philosophy and theology. In 1672 Elena’s father sent her to the distinguished University of Padua to continue her studies.
Elena applied for the degree of Doctor of Theology at the University of Padua. Her application met with resistance. Officials of the Roman Catholic Church refused to grant the degree of Doctor of Theology to a woman. Elena applied again, at her father’s insistence. This time the Church relented and allowed Elena Piscopia to apply for a doctorate in philosophy.
On June 25, 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Padua. In addition to the degree of doctor, Elena Piscopia received the Ring of Doctor, the Master’s Ermine Cloak and the Poet’s Laurel Wreath.
Clelia Grillo Borromeo
Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese
(also known as Celia Grillo Borromeo or Countess Clelia Borromeo) (Genoa 1684 – Milan August 23, 1777) was an Italian noblewoman fond of natural sciences and mathematics, organizer of a scientific meeting room in her palace in Milan.
Celia Grillo Borromeo was a Genoese mathematician and scientist famous for her ability to solve all mathematical problems presented to her.
In 1728, Borromeo discovered the so-called Clelie curve : q = mƒ. She was also versed in linguistics and spoke eight languages.
Clelia Grillo maintained a meeting room in her residence at Palazzo Borromeo, known as the Academia Cloelia Vigilantium, formalized in 1719 with the establishment of its statutes drawn up by Antonio Vallisneri. Its aim was the diffusion of experimental sciences and the liberal arts. The academy favored research on rare animals and plants, and disseminated scientific knowledge such as Newtonian theories.
Most of her manuscripts have disappeared, but the testimonies of Italian and foreign visitors document the scientific and linguistic knowledge of the countess: she would have even received lessons in mathematics and physics, and she frequently handled at least eight languages (Tuscan, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, German, English and Arabic). However, nothing that is known about her education can explain these laudatory testimonies. His only known training is that which he received at the Monastery of Mercy, which hardly justifies his supposed level in languages and sciences from the age of twenty.
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan into a wealthy and educated family. Her father, Pietro Agnesi, a wealthy silk merchant, wanted to elevate his family to the Milanese nobility. To achieve his goal, he married Anna Fortunato Brivio, of the Brivius de Brokles family, in 1717.
Maria was soon recognized as a child prodigy; by the age of five she spoke Italian and French. By the time she was eleven, she had learned Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German and Latin, and was known as the “speaker of the seven languages”.
Agnesi is credited with writing the first book dealing with differential and integral calculus. She was an honorary member of the faculty of the University of Bologna. Some important mathematicians consider her the first important mathematician since Hypatia (a Neoplatonic philosopher of the 5th century AD and the first notable woman in mathematics).
By the end of her life she was famous throughout Europe as one of the most able women scientists of the 18th century. A crater on Venus is named in her honor. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan houses her unpublished works, which occupy twenty-five volumes.
At the age of fourteen, he was already studying ballistics and geometry. At fifteen, her father began to gather regularly in his house a circle of the most erudite men of Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions.
Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel
Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel was an Italian poetess and revolutionary linked to the Neapolitan revolution and one of the few personalities capable of importing to Italy the values of the French Revolution.
She became a reference of the Neapolitan culture and one of the leaders of the revolution that overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and established the republic in January 1799.
Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori was a physician, humanitarian and educator, best known for the philosophy and system of education that bears her name. Montessori education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for the natural psychological development of the child. Montessori’s ideas were well received internationally, and Montessori societies were formed to promote her work in many countries. Famous people educated in Montessori schools include: Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon.com), and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Nobel Laureate in Literature), among many others.
On a more trivial note, Maria Montessori is also the only Italian woman to have had the honor of appearing on the banknotes.
Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda was an Italian writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 and one of the leading figures of the verismo movement in literature. She brought out the dialect of her region, elevating it from the domestic sphere to the level of literature and, as such, contributed to the evolution of Italian literature and language. She is also the author of the Italian translation of Honoré de Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet.
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was the most celebrated Italian actress of the post-war period. With her fierce intelligence and sensuality, she was an exception at a time when most Italian actresses, in order to achieve international success, were voluptuous and glamorous sex symbols. She won the Oscar for best actress, in addition to four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Tattoo of the Rose, a role that Tennessee Williams had written for her.
Rita Levi Montalcini – Science and Medicine
Rita Levi-Montalcini was born on April 22, 1909 into a Jewish family in Turin. Despite her father’s objections that women should not study, she graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of Turin in 1936.
After graduating, she began working as a research assistant in neurobiology, but lost her job in 1938 when the Italian fascist regime passed laws prohibiting non-Aryan Italians from entering universities and other public institutions. Defying Fascist persecution, he continued to work and conduct revolutionary experiments in a makeshift laboratory in his own room.
His discoveries are of fundamental importance to the understanding of cell and organ growth and play an important role in the understanding of cancers and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
In 1968, Dr. Levi-Montalcini became the tenth woman elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2001 she was made a senator for life, one of Italy’s highest honors. She was also a pioneer in the social field. Together with her twin sister Paola, she created the Levi-Montalcini Foundation, which awards scholarships and promotes academic education programs for women in Africa to get more women into scientific and social leadership positions.
Rita Levi-Montalcini was a neurologist and a leading Italian scientist who, along with biochemist Stanley Cohen, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986 for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).
