Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.32728/tab.22.2025.4
Female authorship in Varietas magazine (1904–1912): presence, contributions, reception, and cultural mediation
Tanja Habrle
; Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, Hrvatska
Abstract
The article examines the presence and publication of women writers in the illustrated monthly Varietas. Casa e famiglia (1904–1912), a representative family periodical in early twentieth-century Italy. Although not a specialised women’s magazine, Varietas opened itself to contributions by women writers and journalists, thereby enhancing the cultural visibility of female authorship in the public sphere. Drawing on primary sources from the digital collection of the National Central Library of Rome and on copies held at the University Library of Pula, the study highlights several forms of women’s participation: literary production (Ada Negri, Vittoria Aganoor, Grazia Deledda, Virginia Piatti Tango Agar), journalistic-publicistic and fashion-aesthetic pieces (Anna Franchi, Enrica Grasso, Cesarina Lupati, Fidelia), as well as contemporaneous male reception (Giannino Antona Traversi on Neera; Riccardo Sonzogno on Irma Gramatica). The article presents bilingual quotations (it // hr): the original Italian passages are taken from the magazine, while the Croatian translations are by the author. These citations demonstrate that the women featured in Varietas act as poets, narrators, critics, and protagonists in theatrical-literary debates, while male critics co-construct the framework of their public valorisation. The analysis shows that the magazine functions as a space of cultural mediation in which female voices are integrated into the broader literary and social context of the early twentieth century.
Keywords
Varietas; illustrated family periodical; female authorship; women writers; cultural mediation; reception; fashion and theatre; Sonzogno
Hrčak ID:
341901
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2025.
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