The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's Day March 8th in Italy

Today 8th March in Italy was held the event which affected the whole World and which involved Women internationally. After years this day has become a collective meeting around the World of all Women who have recalled the achievements got but most of all they want to demonstrate and make their voices heard on many needs that the status of Women want to reach. An event that worldwide saw each Country take part with its own specificities: The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's day.

In Italy there are many events that every city has organized to call for unity and action their own female citizen, the more experienced, the less experienced, the young, the baby girls from Mantova to Bologna from Milan to Rome and Naples.

This year it is chosen to celebrate this day in a collective way, after so many years since the claims of the '70s, Women will be in the streets to shout that things do not go well for Women in Economy against the gender gap moreover there are also categories like Sports in which female professionalism is not recognized at all.
In home-care that is not recognized and therefore not paid but that makes go around the entire system of the Country, and the domestic violence: a Woman is killed every two days by her husband, partner, boyfriend or father. 
Futhermore in the health level Women have difficult procedures for a free abortion, there were also controversy on fertility and about the access to medical procreation.
In Education  Italian Women have no place in Literature, History, Art and even in the institutional as in everyday life speech but so also in Toponym of the public space as roads or squares and in the Mass Media.

An image from the Italian Blog of Og with Italian quotes
by Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir and Olympe de Gouges
with Mimosa the Italian eblema for the Women's Day

In particular, it was decided to march today in favor of all those Women who have suffered and suffer violence because one really do something in Italy for this which has now been called a social phenomenon, with the name of "femicide" and which is unfortunately accompanied by appalling figures of crimes that see Women brutally killed.
Italian Women will ask a real Law to protect and give concrete help to many Women who every day suffer violence within their domestic walls without anybody knows it.

The same omen had the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his institutional speech he discussed about Peace and pointed out that the presence of Women can make a difference to this condition that is necessary for humanity to progress and that only a law about violence against Women can give a tool  to denounce and achieve freedom also for children involved in acts of violence .

The Law under discussion in Parliament in fact is responsible for the first time to give assistance to abused Women and also to their children who are often witnesses and victims of violence themselves.

The march is promoted by NONUNADIMENO  ( not one less) a Women's network that began to denounce the social phenomenon of violence against Women, embracing theWomen's March and even the global strike of Women in both the public and private sectors with the slogan: 'if our lives don’t count then we strike'.

Credits: Image used under license from Freestock.com

And so in agreement with the major national Unions today has been declared the  24-hour  national strike even of the public transport to allow Women and those who want to join the strike even if there has been episodes of deterrence by the smaller Unions that do not have joined the strike.

Many are then the cultural initiatives today all Women in fact will be admitted free of charge in all National Museums throughout Italy and many events are organized in honor of famous and important Women for the Italian History but not only: readings, exhibitions, book presentations , archaeological trails all in the name of Women.

The controversy over the Mimosa, that is all an Italian matter, the flower that is the emblem of the Italian"Women's Day", because once it was natural in the streets and now instead has become a business for florists, and which was chosen by the Italian Parliamentary Teresa Mattei in 1946, remained on the corner compared to the global scope of the event that has seen after thirty years Women to return to the streets all united against violence against women, for new social, political and cultural Rights. Everyone for the occasion dressed in fuchsia and black instead of red as their American or English collegues.

"Tremble tremble, the Witches are back!"* With or without Mimosa ...

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* This is one of the most famous slogan of the Italian Femminist of the 70’s

Copyrighted material

Women Patron of Arts

Luciana Gentilini,
wife of one of the greatest painter of the XX century,
 continues to protect and promoting the Art of his husband

Traces of Women who were Patron of Art in History, especially in the ancient and modern period, did not  remained except of the few privileged such as Isabella d'Este, Caterina de' Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Isabella Gonzaga before or Catherine II and Felicita Bevilacqua later.

Yet examples of Women even in more modern times that have enhanced the Art in its forms there have been important both for the culture of their country and for the entire human heritage. The best known, perhaps, Peggy Guggenheim who with her love for Art and the novelty has managed to collect works of Art even before they were retained Art! She in fact  discovered and exploited the unknown artist  Pollock making him a listed and requested artist by collectors and Museums around the world. Even more did Johanna Van Gogh, in fact not many people know that  the fame and reputation of one of the most important and valued Artists of our time, Vincent Van Gogh, due all this to his sister in law.

Once Johanna become a widow, inheriting all the collection from her husband Theo, realized the talent of Vincent and began to promote it. Back in the Netherlands when her husband was already very ill, to his death opened a guess-house where she have the idea to expose all the canvas of her brother in law, Vincent. It was already a first step to make them known, but it was not enough ...She began to read the letters that the two brothers had written over time and taking the suggestions that Vincent himself gave to Theo: few exhibitions and sell only the necessary. The first results will come soon,  Maus offers a first exhibition in Brussels where, however, the pictures of Vincent were cut off without mercy.  

Isabella d'Este one of the most
important Patron of her time.
 Paint by Titian 1534
Credits WikiCommons

But Johanna did not give up and look for new opportunities: small galleries, art critics open to the new, small exhibitions, new artistic friendships and so little by little, inspired by a sentence read in a feminist newspaper according to which it is necessary to seek a success but a long lasting success rather a quick but fleeting one, Johanna is not discouraged and therefore, hand in hand, exhibitions multiply, reviews vivify, and Museums called so at the end the Art of Vincent Van Gogh was imposed to the World.

A similar story is one that sees more than three decades of the work of recovery, archiving, preservation and exhibition of the works by Franco Gentilini by his wife Luciana. Her latest initiative is the exhibition which took place in Pontassieve, near Florence, entitled "Franco Gentilini- works of Luciana Gentilini's collection" which was in show until early March.

One can relieve some analogies with the story of  Johanna Van Gogh, but this is true only in the commitment and art promotional success of their loved ones, but the similarities end there, because when Franco Gentilini, one of the most important Italian artist of the '900, disappeared he was already an artist well known and appreciated in Italy and abroad of world famous, quoted.
 It will be exactely his art that will bring Luciana in life after losing her husband: "the agony of his death stole my mind. (...) Inertia and silence. Endless days until nightfall, endless nights waiting for it overlooked the new day ... 'severe depression' is the medical term "[1]. The request to organize an exhibition in memory of her husband, however, showed her the right way: "From that moment the uncontrollable inertia that had gripped me for so many months turned into an equally uncontrollable frenetic activity, which does not it is more arrested "[2]. And actually Luciana Gentilini since 1984 has organized over one hundred exhibitions in Italy and abroad, travelling from Venice to Brussels from Marrakech to Budapest, from Paris to Cairo, from Turin to Halle ... and not only to organize exhibitions but also to protect her husband's work against counterfeiters who now fear her like a ghost in the night because she force them to cut themselves with strong scissors the incriminating canvans!
In recent years she has then recovered, thanks to a grueling thirty-year work, the precious artistic work of the Maestro Gentilini even from his earliest youth work, organized it in the "Luciana Guintoli Gentilini Fund" and conveyed successively in the "Gentilini Archive" which also collects correspondence and biographical documents from the 30s to the 80s' of the XX century, and finally donated to the Quadriennale of Rome and declared in 2013 by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage "of particularly important historical interest"[3].

Stories of Women involved in the Art of their loved ones who have found their realization no longer as artistic subjects but as advocates of an artistic memory; rare witnesses of an unprecedented journey into the History of Art.

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[1] A. Natali, A. Bimbi, “Franco Gentilini- Opere della collezione di Luciana Gentilini”, catalogo della collezione, Ed. Polistampa, Firenze, 2016, pag. 27

[2] Idem

[3] L. Gentilini, "Continuare il Tempo", Ed. De Luca, Roma, 2013, pag. 

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Sign it, sign it!

a young Italian Women glad to have vote for the first time in 1946.
Credits: mammeonline.net

We are in December and the end of the year is near so we can do a final report of the campaigns undertaken in Italy, certainly the one to elect March 10th as a national holiday to celebrate the Women's vote in 1946 is among the most significant that there was even if it is passed mostly unnoticed in the main media.

The petition, born to elect this date as "National day of Women's vote", has been thought by important Italian Women who have always dealt with these issues from different point of view such as Silvia Costa, Fiorenza Taricone, Roberta Agostini and Livia Turco President of the most important Foundation dedicated to an extraordinary Italian politician: Nilde Iotti, mother of the Italian Republic. Precisely this Foundation supported the initiative launching a petition on the well-known Change.org website.

The Petition was addressed to the President of the Italian Republic: Sergio Mattarella, to the nowadays former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, to the Minister for Equal Opportunity: Elena Maria Boschi and to the major Italian Institutions as Laura Boldrini the former Chief of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

This exact day, 10th of March, was choosen because it was right the day when for the first time the Italian Women voted and the promoters have choosen it "as emblematic moment to continue to explore the theme of civil and political rights for Men and Women".

In few days the petition got more than 400 signatures and was presented to the Italian Chamber of Deputies to be argued. Right after the Nilde Iotti Foundation organized a Conference in Mestre to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Italian vote of Women, held by the President of the Foundation, Livia Turco.

In this same period some books were pubblished that retrace that issue such as "Laws of women who have changed Italy" and "Milestones and content of legislative achievements - from the beginning of the Republic to the end of the last legislature- that have changed the lives of Women and the economic, social and cultural development of our Country ".

Unfortunately the current Italian Political situation does not leave hope that the suggestion would be considered in a short time.

Giulia who composed the Baptism of the Feminism, reach regal decorations and become “Commendatore” of the Italian Republic

A. Renoir, "At  the Theater", 1876- 1877.

She was the first and sometimes the only woman whose music compositions  were played in the most important theaters all over the world, who was produced abroad and decorated for her fine compositions even from the former and last Italian Royals, she was Giulia Recli.

She was born on 4^th December  1884 in Milan, her father was the “Commendatore” Luigi Recli, who was among the founders of the Ambrosiano Bank and her mother was the pianist Luisa Biancardi [1]. Her musical studies was carry on by the most important teachers of her  time  as Alessandro Bonci , her vocal coach, or as Giovanni Maria Anfossi, her piano coach, and Ildebrando Pizzetti, her composition coach.

Her first plays are from the 1910s and in 1914 the Scala of Milan commission her a composition which will become the symphonic  poem entitled “Alba dell’anima”  (The Sunrise of the Soul), in 1919 one of her tone poem, which lyrics were written by her sister Maria, poetess, was played at the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste [2].

Her symphonic poem, played at the Augustus Theatre in Rome, and directed by the magnificent Master Tullio Serafin with the Santa Cecilia’s Orchestra, was defineted by the "Giornale d’Italia" (The Newspaper of Italy) “such as a baptism of the Feminism in music” because for the first time on the theatrical table there was the name of a female composer [3]. 

In the 30’s she met and established  with the Director of the Scala Choir, Vittore Veneziani [4], a long lasting collaboration which will be interrupted only with the world war but will restart at the end of that one.

In the 50’s she was eletted Vice President of the Italian Musician Trade Union, in Italian SMI Sindacato dei Musicisti Italiani [5], and won few international awards as that one for women composers  in Basilea and that one in Trieste with Campanelle  (Little Bells) Song [6]. In the USA she won the second and First award in the New York Musical Association with the composition for piano and singing called “Villereccia Song” [7]. Her lyrics were too much appreciated in the USA and even produced by the Schirmer  right from the 30’s but were also appreciated all  over the world if they were played in the most important world’s theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Royal Albert Hall of London, the Scala in Milan, the Opera in Brema and also in the Opera in Budapest.

From 1951 to 1966 she became Principal of the Lyceum of Milan and therefore she  decided to organized classes, concerts, awards [8]  to give  talented young people the opportunity to learn and to be noticed.

In 1965 the execution of one of her composition by the Orchestra of RAI (The Italian National Television) was celebrated even by the “Bible of the Music”: Billboard [9]while in this same years, her last, she was honoured also by the Italian Republic for her artistic and philanthropic engagement as in the past years she was also decorated for her high merits for her compositions by the Italian Queen [10]. Now the Italian Republic too glorified her work with two awards, the only female composer to receved the Ordine di Commendatore of the Italian Republic [11] in the 1964 and in 1969 just one year before she died, on 19^th December 1970,  in Brivio which has founded a local band called “Giulia Recli” in her honour. 

[1] “Chi è?: Dizionario degli italiani di oggi”, FORMIGGINI A. F., Ed. Formiggini, 1928, pag. 403.

[2] “Le Lombarde in musica”, Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica, Colombo, 2008, pag. 136.

[3] Ivi, pag. 135.

[4] Ivi, pag. 138.

[5] Ivi, pag. 141.

[6] Ibidem.

[7] Il Carroccio- The Italian Rewiev, vol. 18, pag. 70.

[8] “Le Lombarde in musica”, Op. cit., pag. 141.

[9] “Gal Writers are honored”, Billboard”, edizione del 4 dicembre 1965, pag. 22.

[10] “Women of notes: 1000 women composers born before 1900”, LAURENCE A., Ed. R. Rosen Press, 1978 , pag. 79.

[11] “Donne in Musica”, ADKINS CHITI P., Ed. Armando, 1996, pag. 177.