Reti femminili di filantropia patriottica nella Milano del Risorgimento

Abstract

Azzurra Tafuro’s research, on the projects and initiatives taken by Laura Solera Mantegazza in Milan between 1850 and 1873, relies upon an approach based on the idea of “patriotic philanthropy”. According to the author, such initiatives have their roots in the reshaping of the concepts of gender as argued by Rousseau and the Enlightenment which, as far as women were concerned, led to the enhancement of the educational and formative role of mother and motherhood in the family as well as at the social and national spheres. Tafuro, however, takes her enquiries beyond such a model and strives to show, via the analysis of “practices” and “networks of interaction”, the “performative” nature of the model itself. This approach also entails an investigation into the importance and innovative nature of those initatives which cannot, however, be labelled neither pre- nor proto- feminist.