Carla Capponi

Carla Capponi, aka The Little English Girl (7 December 1918 – 24 November 2000), was an Italian partisan and politician who received the Gold Medal of Military Valour for her participation in the Italian resistance movement.

Biography

Youth Carla Capponi grew up in Rome, where she was the eldest of three children. She attended the Ennio Quirino Visconti Liceo Ginnasio in the same class as Carlo Lizzani and Piero Della Seta, the future Communist city councillor Piero Della Seta. In 1940 her father who was a mining engineer died and the three sisters had to work, forcing Carla Capponi to abandon her studies of law.

On 19 July 1943, immediately after the bombing of San Lorenzo, Carla rushed to the Policlinico Hospital in search of her mother and remained there as a volunteer; subsequently she allowed clandestinely communist activists to gather in her apartment in front of the Trajan's Forum, including Gioacchino Gesmundo, Luciano Lusana, Adele Bei, Carla Angelini and Mario Leporatti. In one of these meetings she met Rosario Bentivegna, three years younger medical student; while in via Margutta instead, in the studio of the sculptor Nino Franchina, she met the activist Filiberto Sbardella (one of the leaders of the Red Flag).

Italian resistance Around the time of the German occupation of Italy (1939–1945), she joined the Italian Communist Party and began her involvement in the resistance. A comrade in the struggle described her as "this young blonde woman who went out at night to shoot Germans... with arms in hand, first among the first, she participated in dozens of actions, distinguishing herself in a superb way." During the war, she was known as the "little English girl" (Inglesina).

Post-war On 22 September 1944, Capponi married Rosario Bentivegna, with whom she had fought in the resistance. In 1945, she gave birth to a daughter named Elena. The couple later divorced in 1974.

In 1953 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the Italian Communist Party. She served two terms, from 1953 to 1958 and later from 1972 to 1976. in 80 centimetres of earth in the non-Catholic cemetery of Rome at Testaccio, as desired by themselves, respected their will, as a second hypothesis, to have scattered their ashes in the Tiber river.

Capponi one of only sixteen Italian women to be awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valour.

Electoral history ElectionHouseConstituencyPartyVotesResult 1953 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 13,691 Elected 1958 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 5,629 Not elected 1972 Chamber of Deputies Rome–Viterbo–Latina–Frosinone PCI 40,585 Elected