3. Model women and physical training before Fascism
3.1.4 Sports pioneers of the 19th century
By the end of the Nineteenth Century the way of women's achievements in sports did not pass through scholastic institutions or central government, but through the existing male gymnastics societies, as will be seen later.
The prevailing patriarchal culture of the country which exalted women's role within the family - also confirmed by Pope Leone XIII's Encyclical Arcanum in 1880 - the moralist vision of female body that emphasised womanly decency, together with the biological outlook on female population mainly as race producers, did not help in urging women to take up competitive physical activities. In brief, by the turn of the century modern sports were still a masculine 'preserve'.
Exceptions to this trend can de found by turning the pages of newspapers of the time. There, the few Italian women's sporting enterprises were depicted as an amazing and unusual phenomenon to be looked at with special attention. Not surprisingly, a number of sportswomen were aristocratic ladies following the current European habits of their class, but there were also students and workers of middle and even lower class who enjoyed taking part in sporting events, bravely challenging common opinion.
A magazine reports that the first 100m female foot-race was held on 8 September 1889 in Arona, a little town of Lombardy, within Ludi Aronesi [Games of Arona]. The winner of the race, organised by the local Pro Patria Society, was a certain Miss Colombo, who competed against Miss Radice and Zaccheo.38 In the next year, 1890, a foot-race was performed in Verona by girls in decent bathing-costume, and about 10,000 spectators were present. There is also evidence of two working women from Lombardy - Anna Pozzi and Maria Tamburini - who challenged each other to a long distance foot-race of about 3 km, in 1898. This race, disputed in Milan from Garibaldi Gate to Venice Gate, was followed by most citizens with astonishment.39
From local newspapers we also know that a female fencer, a certain Miss Giulia De Luca, had marvellously performed against a man during a fencing meeting held in Rome at the Exhibition Palace, on 21 November 1889. Two years later, in 1891, Giulia had newly performed against men in Rome and Catania, and finally, in the Politeama theatre of Naples, she competed against men together with her pupil Siena Rocchetti.40
In 1881, at a national gymnastics and fencing contest held in Naples, male and female gymnastics teams displayed together; for the occasion, a special female regatta contest had been scheduled, but insistent rain did not allow this amazing women's show.41
Italian target-firing societies enrolled women from 1895. The first was Margherita Magagnini, who competed in a Roman contest on September of the very same year, the rest became members of northern societies.42
Mountaineering was a passion for Margherita of Savoy, the Queen of Italy.
She started climbing Piedmontese Alps in 1885, and her example helped common women to try this difficult activity as well. As far as we know, in 1894 a group of men, and for the first time 8 Italian women, climbed the Monte Rosa [Pink Mountain] jointly.43
On 6 April 1893, the Lawn-Tennis Club of Rome organised its first female contest, where the participants were exclusively aristocrats, and in Milan the first female tennis contest was held in 1896. It was reported that in the same year Miss Franca Florio competed in a tennis match together with three men.44
As far as cycling is concerned, a number of aristocratic ladies, such as Princess Agnese Hercolani and Countess Clementina Bastogi, tried to popularise female cycling in Italy, by following the enthusiasm of Queen Margherita of Savoy who enjoyed cycling as well as pedestrian sport and mountaineering, as has been already said.45
As a matter of fact, we know about a famous cycling challenge held in 1893 around Doria Square of Milan, between the florist Adelina Vigo and the beautiful actress and singer Lina Cavalieri.46 In addition, there is evidence that in 1983 and 1894 a number of mixed cycle races were organised in Milan, Genoa and Lugo of Romagna, and the female cyclist Alessandrina Maffi competed many times against men, successfully.47
These women cyclists provoked scandal or at least malicious comments, and in 1894 the Unione Velocipedista Italiana [Italian Cycling Union]
decided to officially ban any female competitive cycling race. But, the prestigious Audax prize, instituted in 1897 for cyclists who covered 18 km in no more than 18 hours, was given to Alessandrina Maffi in 1898.48
In the same 1897, in the famous La Scala Theatre of Milan, female dancers had to learn how to get on a bicycle and perform, for an original ballet titled
Sport, choreographed by Luigi Manzotti. This ballet, which presented sports such as horse-riding, fencing, tennis, target-firing, rowing, football and gymnastics, involved not only dancers and acrobats, but members of Pro Patria and Forza e Coraggio gymnastics societies.49
Actually, Italian female pioneers were early examples not only in Italy but in the whole world. Their extraordinary enterprises should be placed beside the most celebrated British ones, through a number of eccentric ladies competing in athletics, archery and boxing, at about the same time. But in many sports, such as the future national game of football, women were later entrants in Italy than in many other nations.
3.2 Emancipated women at the start of the Twentieth Century
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Italian politics were characterised by a progressive democratisation of the Liberal-State. Among the leading liberal class some politicians had a positivist faith and championed the rights of the lower classes, but social change had to take place without any social disorder, according to a strategy which did not 'dramatise' ideological conflict but allowed its course to be followed, all the while, evolving with it.
This was now the era of Giovanni Giolitti, an eminent statesman of positivist thought, who encouraged and carefully controlled the industrial transformation of Italian society for a number of years. Women were also involved in this process, constituting half of the workers engaged by industry, because of the lower salary they were given.50
In the first years of the century the process of democratisation of the country brought a new law concerning work and production, which reduced working time. From 1902, workers were encouraged by the government to practice physical education in their spare time. This trend helped their early emancipation from the most traditional womanly roles, and also helped their emancipation in the field of sporting activities. In fact, working side by side with men, female workers became aware not only of their duties but their right to have a social life, and enjoy their choices.
However, in the years preceding the First World War a strong nationalistic and anti-feminist stream was opposed to women's emancipation and cast them back to the home again.