Angelika Palli

Anghelikì Pallis (1798–1875), daughter of the consul, as well as director of the Greek school of Livorno, was born from Hellenic parents. She studies with Maestro de Coureil (of French origin but who died in Livorno). She inherits from her father the love for literature and the classics and she begins to versify in her adolescence. She writes poems, short stories, tragedies, novels. Her “Tieste”, dated 1814, deserves Monti’s praise. In 1919 she becomes a member of the Labronica Academy, with the name of Zelmira.

Her interests, as well as artistic ones, are political and social. She is an active supporter of the ideals and struggles of the Risorgimento, she is dedicated to the cause of the Greek people against the Ottomans (the same for which Byron dies). The only woman to be admitted to the Vieusseux cabinet — the club founded in Florence which, in addition to serving as a newspaper and circulating library, also serves to put the intellectuals of the future united Italy in contact with each other — she is offered a collaboration but refuses not feeling up to the task.

The angelicapalli.blogspot.com site is a valuable source of information for learning about the private life of the Livorno-based writer. It is said that, in 1970, in the attic of a country house in the Benedetta valley, a chest containing letters from Angelica to her father was found.

We are in 1830, Angelica is thirty-one, a face of a classic and clean beauty. She meets the nineteen year old Giovan Paolo Bartolomei, a noble of Corsican origin and patriot, and falls in love with him. He is Catholic, she is Orthodox, he is a boy, she is a grown woman. His family opposes the relationship. The two flee, aided by Angelica’s brother, Michele, with the intention of asking for the papal dispensation to get married. They then fall back on Corfu, where they are united in marriage with an Orthodox rite. The following year Angelica writes heartfelt letters to her father, begging for forgiveness, explaining that she has received so much but has also suffered. They are, in fact, the letters found in the box.

From the marriage a son was born, Lucianino, and the three finally return to Livorno. Palazzo Palli — Bartolomei, on the Scali del Pesce in Venice, becomes Mazzini’s main salon, between 20 and 40, frequented by Lamartine, Champollion, Niccolini, Guerrazzi, Bini and Manzoni. The latter immortalizes Angelica in an ode written for her, where he defines her as “Chosen offspring of Heaven, the new Sappho”.

During this period, Palli’s political activity intensified, she collaborated with magazines and newspapers, wrote poems and short stories on civil matters and in 47 she dealt with the organization of Tuscan volunteers. Her husband and teenage son leave together with a group of Leghorn patriots to fight in Milan during the riots of 48 and Angelica joins them and then returns to Livorno in 49.

During the autumn months, she stays for a few years in Fauglia, in corso della Repubblica 47 (where a plaque commemorates her). Here she writes the famous “Speeches of a woman to the young married women of her country”, in which she re-evaluates the role of women in society in a feminist sense. She also writes “Hints on Livorno and its contours”, where she shows that she appreciates the fighting spirit of the Labron women, describing them as good, generous but disrespectful and irreverent. Pietro Vigo also refers to this text in his historical research.

In 53 she was widowed and moved to Turin but later died in Livorno in 1875. Her remains rest in the Greek cemetery in via Mastacchi.