"Proto-Citizens": Lombard Women during the Italian Unification Process

In 1861, a group of Lombard women submitted a petition to the Parliament of the new Kingdom of Italy, demanding that the civil and voting rights they had been granted under the Hapsburg domination be acknowledged and extended to all Italian women. This episode was one of the first public acts of protest against a new nation-state that did not recognize women’s involvement in the Italian Risorgimento, and denied them the access to the public sphere they had contributed to build. Through the analysis of some case studies, this paper will investigate the historical background in which such a claim emerged. The experiences of Luigia Cusani Confalonieri and Teresa Ghirlanda Trecchi will enlighten why and how these Lombard women became “proto-citizens”, aware of their rights and prepared to struggle for them as early as the Restoration period (1814-1859). I will achieve this purpose through in-depth archival research, with special focus on the women’s private letters, and comparing Hapsburg legislation to the pioneering practices of active citizenship carried out by these women. Specifically, it will be shown that maternity was a very important factor in helping them to deal with citizenship, as in Lombardo-Veneto wealthy mothers had to gain a new awareness of the laws that would influence their existence in order to protect the relationship with their children. This perspective is crucial to grasp the contradictions triggered by the Italian Unification and to reach a greater understanding of why Lombardy played a key role in the Italian emancipatory movement till the twentieth century, thanks to figures of international reputation like Anna Maria Mozzoni. Finally it offers new sources to examine the complex interaction between maternity and citizenship in nineteenth-century Europe.