Ada Negri

The recorded working language is Italian. The field of work recorded is poetry. Thérèse of Lisieux is recorded as an influence. Work by Ada Negri is recorded in the collections of Museum De Lakenhal. Distinctions recorded are Premio Giannina Milli.

• Name — Ada Negri • Born — 3 February 1870 • Birthplace — Lodi, Lombardy, Italy • Died — 11 January 1945 • Place of death — Milan, Italy • Occupation — Poet

Ada Negri was born in Lodi, Italy on 3 February 1870. Her father, Giuseppe Negri, was a coachman, and her mother, Vittoria Cornalba, was a weaver. After her father's death in 1871, Negri's childhood was characterized by her relationship with her grandmother, Giuseppina "Peppina" Panni. Panni worked as a caretaker at the noble Barni family's palace, in which Negri spent much time alone, observing the passage of people as described in the autobiographical novel Stella Mattutina (1921). She attended Lodi’s normal school for girls and earned an elementary teacher’s diploma. At eighteen, she became a schoolteacher in the village of Motta Visconti near the Ticino river, in Pavia. In her spare time, Negri would write poetry and submit it to local newspapers. Her early work appeared in the Milanese periodical L'Illustrazione Popolare. She was encouraged to continue her education by her teacher Paolo Tedeschi, who recognized her precocity and talent. Negri's inaugural volume of poetry, Fatalità (1892), was well received by readers and critics, earning her the "Giannina Milli" prize which provided Negri with a small stipend. These accomplishments led to an appointment as a professor at the normal school in Milan. Here she became engaged to the young socialist intellectual Ettore Patrizi and met members of the Italian Socialist Party, including Filippo Turati, Benito Mussolini, and Anna Kuliscioff. Her second book of poems, Tempeste (1896), was published the same year Negri broke off her engagement to Patrizi. The book contains reflections on heartbreak and a continued focus on social inequity. On 28 March 1896, she married industrialist Giovanni Garlanda of Biella, who had fallen in love with Negri after reading her poetry. By 1904, they had two daughters named Bianca and Vittoria. Vittoria died in infancy. In 1913, Negri separated from her husband and moved to Switzerland to live in Zurich with Bianca. Negri remained in Zurich until the outbreak of the First World War, after which she returned to Italy. She was a frequent visitor to Laglio on Lake Como, where she wrote her only novel, an autobiographical work titled Stella Mattutina (Morning Star). The book was published in 1921 and translated into English for publication in 1930. In March 1923, Negri began an extended stay on the island Capri, where she wrote I canti dell'isola. Mussolini nominated Negri for a 1927 Nobel prize, but it was subsequently won by fellow Italian poet Grazia Deledda. During this period, Negri often stayed at Palazzo Cornazzani in Pavia, the same building Ugo Foscolo, Contardo Ferrini, and Albert Einstein inhabited at different points in history. In 1940, Negri was admitted as the first female member of the Italian Academy. However, this achievement stained her reputation later in life because members of the Academy had to swear loyalty to the Fascist regime. They were rewarded by the government with various material benefits. Negri was one of the contributors to Lidel, a nationalist women's magazine published between 1919 and 1935. Her work was widely translated during her lifetime, with individual poems published in newspapers in the U.S. and elsewhere. On 11 January 1945, her daughter Bianca found Negri dead in her studio in Milan. She was 74 years old.

• Fatalità (1892) • Tempeste (1896) • Maternità (1904) • Dal profondo (1910) • Esilio (1914) • Il libro di Mara (1919), • The Book of Mara, translated into English by Maria A. Costantini, Italica Press (2011) • I canti dell’isola (1925) • Songs of the Island, translated by Maria A. Costantini. Italica Press (2011) • Vespertina (1930) • Il dono (1936) • Fons amoris (1946), published posthumously

• Le solitarie (1917) • Orazioni (1918) • Stella mattutina (1921) • Morning Star, translated by Anne Day. Macmillan Co., (1930). Republished, Sublunary Editions (2021) • Finestre alte (1923) • Le strade (1926) • Sorelle (1929) • Di giorno in giorno (1932) • Erba sul sagrato (1939) • Oltre (1947) published posthumously

Ada Negri is recorded as poet and writer.