Between Biography and Gender History. A Life beyond Ordinary: Luisa Villani Usellini (1910-1989), Artist, Educator, Political Militant

The theme of my study, essentially a biographical work, is the human and intellectual development of Luisa Villani Usellini (1910-1989). She is still little known to scholars and to the general public despite her lifelong commitment to the cultural, political and social activism and her acquaintance with some of the most significant people in the Italian and European panorama of her time. Her life, intense and adventurous, her artistic talent and her commitment to education and anti-fascism, which earned her the Iron cross of Resistance, must take the deserved spotlight in history.

The methodological point of view chosen is that of “gender history”, which allows researchers to make the most of a plurality of documentary sources still unpublished. Such viewpoint is not necessarily complementary to the official record of history, which is mostly accounted from a predominant “masculine” perspective.