Teresa Gnoli

Teresa Gnoli Gualandi ( Gnoli; ; ; 23 August 1833 – 14 November 1886) was an Italian poet, noblewoman, and educator. Born into a cultured Roman family during the final years of the Papal States, she displayed a precocious gift for verse from childhood. Her first poems were published when she was ten years old.

As a young woman, she wrote patriotic hymns in support of the Risorgimento during the upheavals of 1848–1849, before the political and personal losses of the following decade drew her toward Classicism and, eventually, devotional verse. She joined the Academy of the Arcadians and the Tiberian Academy, writing under the pastoral pen name of Irminda Aonia.

At the invitation of Pope Leo XIII, she turned to educational and charitable work in her later years, directing a girls' school in Rome and helping to establish an institute for the deaf. Her younger brother Domenico Gnoli and sister Elena Gnoli also became noted poets.

Early life

Gnoli was born in Rome, then capital of the Papal States, to a family of the Italian nobility on 23 August 1833. Her father was Count Tommaso Gnoli, a lawyer for the Papal consistory, who had seven children with Maddalena, Dini. Teresa's father also entrusted the education of his daughters Teresa and Elena to the poet Rosa Taddei, who was celebrated in Rome for her improvised verse at public events such as the Carnival of Venice.

Her younger brother Domenico Gnoli, who later wrote a biography of his elder sister, recorded that at the age of seven she was already capable of writing sweet, musical verse in the manner of Pietro Metastasio, and produced complete poems by the age of ten. Her younger sister also became a poet. Two lyrics by the young Teresa, Alla rosa (To the rose) and La vera patria (The true homeland), were published by Orresti Raggi in 1844, when she was ten years old. Some of her poems were also published in celebration of the amnesty that Pope Pius IX granted to political prisoners in the Papal States following his election in 1846, when Teresa was just twelve years old.

Literary career

Roman Republic Much of Gnoli's early work was shaped by the turbulent events of the Risorgimento.

Her father, anxious to avoid being compelled to swear allegiance to the short-lived Roman Republic (1849–1850), moved the family to Montepulciano in Tuscany on 16 May 1849, where they stayed with his wife's relatives for three months. Around this time her "quick and fresh" verse began appearing in pamphlets for weddings and social occasions throughout Lazio. In this period she produced some of her most celebrated works, including L'incontro di Beatrice e Laura (The Meeting of Beatrice and Laura), Teresa La notte (Teresa the Night), Il pellegrino e la speranza (The Pilgrim and Hope), and Una madre indiana (An Indian Mother).

An important patron during these years was the poet and Duke (1831–1858), who in 1856 addressed an ode to Teresa and invited her to study German philosophy with him. He actively promoted her work among his circle of Roman intellectuals and included her poems in two anthologies he edited: I fiori della Campagna romana (Flowers of the Roman countryside) in 1857 and Strenna Romana (Roman Strenua) in 1858. a celebrated improviser of verse who toured the Italian peninsula to wide acclaim. When the remains of the Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso were transferred to the church of Sant'Onofrio in Rome, Gnoli composed verse for the occasion, and she also wrote a lyrical drama that was set to music by the Roman composer Giuseppe Branzoli.

This productive period was shadowed by personal loss. Her sister Elena died on 15 November 1857 after a prolonged illness, and the following year Torlonia also died.

Gnoli died in Rome on 14 November 1886, aged 53. Her great grandnephew was the Italian painter Domenico Gnoli (painter) (1933–1970). A street in Rome was named Via Teresa Gnoli in her honor.

Poetry La Notte (1844)

La mia dimora bruna Sorgeva in mezzo ai campi: io la rammento. Al raggio della luna, Quando taceva il vento; L'acque parean d'argento, Biancheggiavan confusi a noi dinante I sentieri e le piante!The Night (1844)

My brown and humble dwelling Rose in the midst of fields: I still remember. Beneath the moonlight's swelling, When winds would cease their tremor; The waters shone like silver, And there before us, pale and undefined, The paths and trees entwined!