Guglielminetti, Amalia (1881–1941)

Italian author whose erotic poetry and novels created a sensation in the first four decades of the 20th century. Born in Turin, Italy, on April 4, 1881; died in Turin on December 4, 1941; daughter of Pietro Guglielminetti and Felicita (Lavezzato) Guglielminetti; had a brother Ernesto and sisters Emma and Erminia; never married.

Born into a wealthy family in the Northern Italian industrial city of Turin, Amalia Guglielminetti experienced several tragedies in her early years. She lost her beloved father when she was still a child, and in 1909, after years of lingering illness, her sister Emma died. In both instances, Amalia's response was to write verse expressing her feelings. In 1903, she published Voci di giovinezza (Voices of Youth), poems that received enthusiastic reviews. Four years later, in 1907, she published another volume of verse entitled Le vergini folli (Mad Virgins). In part reflecting her experiences from a girls' school run by Roman Catholic nuns, this book solidified the already substantial literary reputation she enjoyed while still in her early 20s.

A woman who was both aware of and unafraid of displaying her physical attractions, Guglielminetti was tall and slender with a mass of dark hair (the critic G.A. Borgese called her "Sappho with violet hair"). A famous painting of Amalia, by the artist Raviglione, depicts her half-reclining on a divan, wearing a dark formfitting dress that contrasts with her bare arms and neck; Amalia's face reflects an ambiguous mix of melancholy and assertiveness. Dressed in the latest Parisian fashion, she was a striking figure in Turin's world of elite parties and literary coffeehouses.

Choosing never to marry, Guglielminetti was romantically involved with many men, but her most important love affair took place while she was in her early 20s, with the poet Guido Gozzano. Their relationship evolved from mutual admiration to passion and tumult. Their letters to each other, published in 1951, document not only the emotional intensity of young lovers but also provide details of both writers' daily lives as they intersected with the tensions of European intellectual culture on the eve of World War I. In one letter, Guglielminetti responds with amusement to the prejudices of male writers and critics toward female authors like herself, simply exclaiming: "Oh, how wonderful to be a woman and write verses!" The lovers' correspondence also serves to document Gozzano's apprehensiveness, whose patriarchal stereotypes were directly challenged as he entered into a relationship with a woman who was not only physically beautiful but whose intellectual talents made her his artistic equal, if not indeed his superior.

With the publication of her third volume of verse in 1909, entitled Le seduzioni (Seduction), Amalia Guglielminetti continued to enhance her image as "a woman dominated by Eros." Many critics saw her work as the female counterpart to the exhibitionistic eroticism of the notorious playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio. While her erotic experiences are clearly reflected in this volume, the literary historian Barbara Turoff has pointed out that other seductive aspects of existence are

exposed here as well, including an exquisite gemstone or a perfectly formed, ripe fruit.

Guglielminetti wrote only two novels, both of them brimming over with irony and sarcasm, but it was the second of these, La rivincita del maschio (The Male's Return-Match), that became the center of a public scandal after its publication in 1923. Charges of obscenity and immorality were hurled at the novel's author by a local morality league. The trial, in Turin, became a local event with Amalia's friends and literary colleagues in constant attendance. She felt vindicated when the defendants were acquitted of all charges.

Although Guglielminetti was highly regarded by feminists as a woman who had succeeded in leaving her mark in a largely male domain, she did not regard herself as a feminist. After attending some sessions of one of the first feminist congresses to be held in Italy, she informed her lover Gozzano of having been deeply disappointed by witnessing an "assembly of people without any grace or elegance of spirit… Women… so unwelcoming, so lacking in fraternal feelings… that they awaken in me a dull sense of disdainful aversion." While she found it difficult to warm up to assembled feminists or their abstract agendas, in practice Guglielminetti often urged Italian women to speak out for themselves, praising both ancient and modern women such as Sappho and Karin Michaëlis as examples of writers who had revealed female voices that were strong and confidently assertive.

Encouraged by early successes as a poet, Guglielminetti turned her attention to the novel and other literary forms. She quickly mastered the short-story format, publishing prolifically in popular periodicals such as Il secolo XX (The Twentieth Century). In 1913, she published her first collection of short stories, I volti dell'amore (The Faces of Love), followed by four subsequent collections that appeared in print between 1915 and 1924. Attracted to the theater, she wrote a tragedy that was not a success, then turned to creating comedies. Her comedies, particularly one entitled Nei e cicisbei (Beauty Marks and Gallants), were both frothy and thought-provoking. Premiering in 1920, the play shows two statues of the 17th century coming to life at a masked ball early in the 20th century. With this device, Guglielminetti points out the many changes brought by the passage of time to relationships between men and women, noting all the while her own preference for a more romantic past that can still give lessons in love to an ostensibly "progressive" modern epoch.

Amalia Guglielminetti was in many ways a private and, as she grew older, solitude-seeking artist. Yet at the same time she was capable of intense relationships, not only with her many lovers but with countless friends as well. Although she never married or became a mother, Guglielminetti both appreciated and understood children, publishing four children's books between 1916 and 1925. She also was drawn to the dissemination of ideas on a mass basis, often lecturing throughout Italy on such topics as "Napoleon and His Women" and "Talismans of Beauty," which provided audiences with an overview of cosmetics that was as amusing as it was historically accurate.

Confident of her literary skills, Guglielminetti became editor of a new literary journal, Le Seduzioni (Seduction), in 1926. Making its debut in August, this bimonthly was such a sensation that its first issue sold out in three days. She celebrated her success proclaiming: "To found a literary review is, for a woman, a more momentous event than that of taking a husband." Despite the journal's success—it was able to attract as contributors such literary stars as Luigi Pirandello—Guglielminetti chose to cease its publication after only two years, most likely because she simply grew tired of the tedious routine that is part of the life of any editor.

In the final decade or so of her life, Amalia Guglielminetti was no longer the center of literary attention. Nevertheless, she continued to write and publish. Her last book, I serpenti di Medusa (Medusa's Serpents), appeared in print in 1934, and she remained active as a respected journalist. Countless Italian readers looked forward to the appearance of her short stories and essays on the terza pagina of their newspaper; the third page was customarily reserved for articles by noted intellectuals on topics of general cultural interest. Although Guglielminetti continued to live for her writing, life increasingly became a struggle as she suffered from bouts of depression. She was more and more reclusive, and when she died in December 1941, at age 56, from complications following a fall suffered during an air-raid alarm, many younger Italian intellectuals needed to be reminded how famous she had been at the turn of the century.

Amalia Guglielminetti's reputation was in eclipse for a generation after her death, but by the 1980s it had begun to rebound as a result of scholarly reevaluations of her work. Her poetry and other writings were now seen by some critics as not only being spectacular celebrations of sensuality but as often subtle insights into other facets of the human condition. Guglielminetti's deep awareness of the "tedium of life," and her art of uncovering the precise words for describing humanity's painful and perennial search for love (which she called "the beautiful deception"), has come to be regarded as her single most important contribution to modern Italian literature.

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John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia