Women of Rome, women in Rome. The Pigna quarter and its protagonists (16th-19th centuries

SERIES: One square, so many stories - Under the aegis of Edith Gabrielli, director of VIVE 
SPEAKER: Marina Formica
DATE: Thursday 9 February, 6 pm
PLACE: Sala del Refettorio

This talk offers food for thought on the social structure of the Pigna quarter in the long modern era and more specifically on the female presence in a central area become more important  after Pope Paul II’s decision to make today’s Palazzo Venezia the seat of papal power. 

Making the most of the latest historiographic acquisitions, it will show that the vision of Rome as a “male” city was by this time outdated. It focuses on the activities of the women living there to highlight the multi-ethnic components of a population strongly marked by immigration (paupers, tertiaries, pilgrims and prostitutes), as too by the presence of Roman and Romanised noblewomen. After examining the 16th-17th centuries, it will illustrate the dynamism of the capital city in the 18th and 19th centuries. Looking at the French experiences (the 1798-1799 Republic and Napoleonic period) and extending the gaze to the final years of papal Rome, it will also highlight the characteristics of an area with a strong political and cultural drive thanks precisely to the role played by certain female-managed spaces (Palazzo Bonaparte, Palazzo Caetani).

Biography

Marina Formica is a professor of modern history at the Macroarea di Lettere e Filosofia of the Università degli studi di Roma Tor Vergata. President of the Società italiana per gli studi sul secolo XVIII, she is on the editorial committee of the magazine Diciottesimo secolo and of the Biblioteca di Diciottesimo secolo series. She is currently organising the Convegno mondiale Antiquity and the Shaping of the Future in the Age of Enlightenment (Rome, 3-7 July 2023). A member of the steering committee of the Fondazione Roma, she is on the executive board of the Fondazione Camillo Caetani, the Conseil d’administration de l’École française de Rome and the  Comité asesor de la colección de la Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma-CSIC (EEHAR).  A  member and board director of the Istituto di Studi romani, she is a minority shareholder of the Centro Studi Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, the Società Romana di Storia Patria. She coordinates the Roma 800 research centre.

 

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