Laura Orvieto

Laura Orvieto, born Laura Cantoni (7 March 1876 - 9 May 1953) was a Jewish Italian writer, intellectual and women's rights activist. Many of her most known works were written for children to teach them ancient Greek and Roman myths.

Early life and education

Laura Cantoni was born on 7 March 1867, in Milan, daughter of Achille Cantoni and Maria Cantoni.^[1] The family was Jewish and her father, who was originally from Mantua, was a banker, a collector of antiquities, and an expert on Islamic art and history.^[2] She was descended of Abramo Errera, a Venetian legislator and banker, who had worked to create socio-political equality for the Jewish community of Venice when it was freed from Austrian rule.^[3]^[4] She attended a girls' school which provided her with the traditional superficial education given to middle-class girls of her era. As a teenager, her parents hired a Scottish tutor, Lily Marshall, who introduced Cantoni to English literature as well as the social issues that were the focus of women's rights organizations.^[5]

Cantoni became committed to women's issues and befriended women like teachers and writers Rosa Errera and Lina Schwartz. She volunteered as a teacher at the Associazione Scuola e Famiglia (School and Family Association),^[5] an organization founded by the sisters Paola [it] and Gina Lombroso as an after-school program and nursery for working-class mothers and supported by the Unione Femminile Nazionale [it] (National Women's Union).^[6]^[7] Her work at the association often involved telling stories to children and she became adept at inventing impromptu narratives by merging plots from various fairy tales with her own imagination. She moved to Florence in 1899, after marrying poet Angiolo Orvieto. Having insufficient intellectual stimuli after giving birth to Leonfrancesco in 1900 and Annalia in 1903, she was encouraged to write by her husband.^[1]

Career

Orvieto began collaborating with the magazine "Il Marzocco" under the name of "Mrs. El".^[1] The pseudonym was necessary because many of the articles she wrote addressed taboo topics like gender relationships, women's labor problems, and rights for women to have education and be politically engaged.^[8] In 1909, she published her first book, Leo and Lia and two years later Storie della storia del mondo ("Stories of World History"), which would become her most known work.^[9] Several of her books for children were translated into other languages and had multiple editions.^[1] She was a friend of the Italian writer Amelia Pincherle Rosselli and of the actress Eleonora Duse, who she met through the Florentine Lyceum.^[1] Lyceum clubs were organized throughout Europe as professional networking organizations for women. Membership was limited to women who had university qualifications or had published original art, music, writing, or scientific works.^[10]^[11] She joined the Florentine branch of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane (CNDI), (National Council of Italian Women) and became friends with Bice Cammeo, Ernestina Paper and Mary Nathan Puritz.^[8] During World War I, she worked as a volunteer nurse, which inspired her to write a biography of Florence Nightingale.^[1]

Initially when the fascist regime came to power in Italy, Orvieto's work was not overly impacted. But beginning in 1929, her publisher Enrico Bemporad [it] required that she make significant changes for new works and new editions, omitting references to Jews. Bemporad was Jewish, but an agreement between the fascist state and the Catholic Church meant that libraries and schools could no longer carry works in which Jews were protagonists.^[12] Introduction of the Italian racial laws and legislation restricting women's right to work in 1938, further curtailed her activities.^[13]^[14] Those statutes required Jews to be expelled from various clubs, and officially women were excluded from working or contributing to culture or social services as volunteers.^[13]^[15] During this time, she intentionally focused on Jewish topics, writing an autobiography and an unpublished novel, Leone Da Rimini.^[16] Between 1943 and 1945, Orvieto and Angiolo went into hiding, living in an elder care home in Mugello.^[17] When the war ended, she founded a children's journal, La settimana dei ragazzi (The Children's Week), which she operated until 1947.^[1]^[18]

Death and legacy

Orvieto died on 9 March 1953, in Florence.^[1] She is most remembered for her series of works on the myths of the Greeks and Romans, writing the stories in clear plain language directed at children.^[19]

Selected works

Leo e Lia (1909, short story collection)
Storie della storia del mondo. Greche e barbare (1911)
Principesse, bambini e bestie (1914)
Storie della storia del mondo. Il natale di Roma (1928)
Storie della storia del mondo. La forza di Roma (1933)
Storie di bambini molto antichi (1937)
Storia di Angiolo e Laura (1939, ed. in 2001)
Viaggio meraviglioso di Gianni nel paese delle parole (1930, ed. in 2007)

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Del Vivo 2003.
^ Nattermann 2015, pp. 163–164.
^ Nattermann 2015, p. 164.
^ Arbib 1961, p. 223.
^ ^a ^b Nattermann 2015, p. 165.
^ De Majo 2018.
^ Lollo 2013.
^ ^a ^b Nattermann 2015, p. 170.
^ Nattermann 2015, p. 174.
^ Doughan & Gordon 2006, p. 54.
^ Thomas & Duck 2019, p. 131.
^ Nattermann 2015, pp. 178–179.
^ ^a ^b Nattermann 2015, p. 180.
^ De Grand 1976, p. 966.
^ Malagreca 2006, p. 75.
^ Nattermann 2015, pp. 180–181.
^ Nattermann 2015, p. 181.
^ Nattermann 2015, p. 182.
^ Misano & Paruolo 2019, pp. 268=269.

Bibliography

Arbib, Bianca Nunes Vais (July–August 1961). "La comunità israelitica di Venezia durante il Risorgimento" [The Jewish Community of Venice during the Risorgimento]. La Rassegna Mensile di Israel (in Italian). 27 (7–8). Rome, Italy: Unione delle Comunità israelitiche italiane: 343–354. ISSN 0033-9792. OCLC 6733538524. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
De Grand, Alexander (December 1976). "Women under Italian Fascism". The Historical Journal. 19 (4). London, UK: Cambridge University Press: 947–968. ISSN 0018-246X. OCLC 5548943691. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
De Majo, Anna Maria (4 July 2018). "Paola Lombroso e le favole di zia Mariù" [Paola Lombroso and the Fairy Tales of Aunt Mariù]. imPagine (in Italian). Bari, Italy: Simploché. ISSN 2611-3678. Archived from the original on 9 December 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
Del Vivo, Caterina (2003). "Orvieto, Laura (Milan, 7 March 1876 - Florence, 9 March 1953)". Italian Women Writers. Translated by Hill, Sarah Patricia. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Library. Archived from the original on 9 August 2022. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
Doughan, David; Gordon, Peter (2006). Women, Clubs, and Associations in Britain. New York, New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-20437-3.
Lollo, Renata (2013). "Schwarz Lina [lina Schwarz]". In Barausse, Alberto; Borruso, Francesca; Fava, Sabrina; Meda, Juri; Montino, Davide; Morandini, Maria Cristina (eds.). DBE: Dizionario biografico dell'educazione, 1800–2000 [BDE: Biographical Dictionary of Education, 1800–2000] (in Italian). Milan, Italy: Editrice Bibliografica. ISBN 978-88-7075-727-9. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023.
Malagreca, Miguel (May 2006). "Lottiamo Ancora: Reviewing One Hundred and Fifty Years of Italian Feminism". Journal of International Women's Studies. 7 (4). Bridgewater, Massachusetts: Bridgewater State University: 69–89. ISSN 1539-8706. OCLC 8092952099. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
Misano, Grazia; Paruolo, Elena (2019). "Laura Orvieto et l'histoire. Une intellectuelle florentine dans l'histoire et pour l'histoire" [Laura Orvieto and History: A Florentine Intellectual in History and for History]. Ondina~Ondine (in French) (3). Zaragoza, Spain: Universidad de Zaragoza: 264–280. doi:10.26754/ojs_ondina/ond.201934422. ISSN 2605-0285. OCLC 9456375962. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
Nattermann, Ruth (November 2015). "The Italian-Jewish Writer Laura Orvieto (1876-1955) between Intellectual Independence and Social Exclusion" (PDF). Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History (8). Milan, Italy: Foundazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea: 159–183. doi:10.48248/issn.2037-741X/745. ISSN 2037-741X. OCLC 8539409536. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
Thomas, Adrian; Duck, Francis (2019). Edith and Florence Stoney, Sisters in Radiology. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-03-016561-1.