Giulietta Pezzi

Giulietta Pezzi (10 February 1810 – 31 December 1878) was an Italian writer and journalist whose work included poetry, four novels, and a five-act play. Born and educated in Milan, she was a devoted follower of Mazzini and active in the Italian republican and unification movements. In her later years she wrote for several newspapers and dedicated herself to the establishment of free public schools in Italy based on Mazzini's educational philosophy. She died in the city of her birth at the age of 71. During her lifetime several art songs were dedicated to her, including Bellini's "Vaga luna, che inargenti".

Life and career Giulia Giuseppina (Giulietta) Pezzi was born in Milan to Giuseppa Quon and , a prominent journalist and theatre critic of Venetian origin and founder of the Gazzetta di Milano. She grew up in a culturally vibrant but unconventional family. Although Francesco Pezzi recognized Giulietta as his legal daughter, at the time of her birth he was married to Chiara Dorigo, by whom he had a son, Giovanni Giacomo Pezzi (1805–1869). When she was 15 she began contributing short stories and verses to her father's paper and continued to collaborate with her brother when he took over the Gazzetta di Milano on their father's death in 1831. She also formed early friendships with Domenico Ronconi and Vincenzo Bellini, both of whom dedicated art songs to her.

From the 1830s Giulietta and her brother were active in the Milanese salon of Clara Maffei where she came into contact with many artistic and literary figures of the day whom she charmed with her vivacious personality, beauty, and long blond curls. Honoré de Balzac, who frequented the Maffei salon in the late 1830s referred to her as "The Angel". In 1841, three of her poems were published in the Turinese journal Museo scientifico, letterario ed artistico. The following year, she published her first novel and gave birth to her daughter and only child, Noemi. According to Raffaello Barbiera, the child's father was Hermann Cohen, an eccentric German-Jewish pianist ten years her junior who later converted to Catholicism and became a priest of the Discalced Carmelite Order.

Death and legacy Giuseppe Mazzini in 1846. Pezzi dedicated her play Carlo Sand to him two years later. Giulietta Pezzi died at her home in Milan in 1878 at the age of 71. Her tomb in the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano is adorned with a marble portrait by Giovanni Spertini and an epitaph written by her daughter Noemi. A public nursery school and street in Milan are named in her honour.

Works by Giulietta Pezzi "La pellegrina", "Foglia d'autunno", and "I fiori", three poems published in Museo scientifico, letterario ed artistico (1841) Gli Artisti: Sentimenti e impressioni, epistolary novel (1842) Egberto, novel (1843) Une fleur d'Israel, novel written in French under the name Juliette Pezzi (1847) Carlo Sand, five-act play dedicated to Mazzini (1848) Il nido delle rondini, novel published posthumously (1880)

Works dedicated to Giulietta Pezzi "Arietta veneziana", music and text by Domenico Ronconi (1833) "Vaga luna, che inargenti", music by Vincenzo Bellini to an anonymous text (1833) "Romanza dedicata a madamigella Giulietta Pezzi da Ferdinando Facchini", music by Angelo Savinelli, text by Metastasio (1836) "Il cielo", music by Elisabetta Beltrami Barozzi, text by Giacomo Sacchèro (1844)