Cristina Belgiojoso (1808–1871)

Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso was born in Milan, Italy, to an ancient patrician Italian family. Her parents were the marchese Girolamo or Jerome Trivulzio and his wife Vittoria dei Marchesi Gherardini. Her father died soon after her birth, and her mother remarried to marchese Alessandro Visconti d'Aragona, an Italian patriot. At age 13, she witnessed her stepfather's arrest and trial by the Austrians, which marked the beginning of her own political consciousness. In 1824, at age 16, a wealthy heiress, she married Prince Emilio Barbiano di Belgiojoso. They separated soon afterwards but never officially divorced. She supported the Italian independence and unification movement known as the Risorgimento, which brought her to the attention of the Austrian authorities, and she had to flee to France. At a salon in her home in Paris, the Princesse Belgiojoso welcomed some of Europe's most famous politicians, musicians, and writers, including Camillo Cavour, Alexis de Tocqueville, Honoré de Balzac, Alfred de Musset, Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine, Franz Liszt, and George Sand. During her career, she founded several newspapers, including the Gazetta Italiana and L'Italie. Francesco Hayez painted her portrait three times. In the 1848 Italian uprisings against Austria, she organized and financed a troop of soldiers and fought in Milan. After the insurrection failed, she returned to Paris and published articles in the influential magazine Revue des Deux Mondes describing the struggle in Italy. In 1849 she returned to Italy to support the Roman Republic formed in the Papal States and managed the hospitals. When the republic was suppressed by French troops, she fled with her daughter to Constantinople, where she wrote articles published in the French magazine Le National in 1850. She then traveled to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, and published accounts of her experiences there. She published the book Della Condizione Delle Donne e del Loro Avvenire (Of Women's Condition and of Their Future, 1866). The hostilities of 1859 drew her back to Milan, where she again worked in the hospitals. She finally saw the creation of an independent, united Italy in 1861. Her final years were spent between Milan and Lake Como, and she continued to write and publish until her death at age 63.