Margarida Priolo

Margareta Priolo pictured on the cover of her book wearing the Limousin folk costume. Margareta Priolo (14 March 1890 – 13 March 1955) (sometimes spelled Marguerite or Margarida) was an Occitan folklorist and teacher from the Limousin region in southern France. As a young woman, she was named Queen of the Félibrige celebration in 1913, which was held to defend and promote the literature and customs of the Occitan language (locally called the langue d'Oc).

Biography Priolo was born in Brive, France, in 1890 into a well-off family. Her father, Dr. Priolo, was president of the Society of Geography and belonged to the school of the troubadour Bertran de Born. Previously, her mother had served as Queen of the Félibrige in Limousin for about fifteen years.

Events of the Félibrige were reported in publications throughout the Occitan and wider region in southern France. In illustrations, the Queen was depicted wearing the traditional Limousin headdress known as the goatee.

Until Priolo died on 13 March 1955 in Manzac-sur-Vern in Dordogne, she remained active with the Limousin Félibrige and continued to participate locally in disseminating the Occitan language.

Her stories were inspired by the oral heritage of her region and written in the language of the lower Limousin. Legendas Lemonzinas (1915) and Countes del Meirilher (1916) earned Priolo positive reviews from the 1927 Occitan Almanac saying "two volumes of prose, brilliant result of a fruitful intellectual work, as a perfect mirror of a rare feminine temperament."