«Le jour des lettres». Un foglio disperso dall’Archivio Sismondi

Abstract

The fortunate discovery of an unpublished letter lost from the Fondo Sismondi (Pescia, Archivio di Stato) gave me the opportunity to go back once again the the study of the correspondence between Sara Sismondi, married to to Anton Cosimo Forti, a nobleman from Pescia, and her brother Jean-Charles-Leonard Sismondi. Through this material I could also draw a portrait of a learned and cultivated woman, deeply tied to her Genevan extraction and culture and forced to live in a provincial and foreign environment, such as Pescia, a small Tuscan city. This essay also deals with the affectionate correspondence between Sara and Pierre and Jean-Pierre Vieusseux and with the Evangelical milieus flourishing in Livorno (Leghorn) around 1810-1820.