Vittoria Aganoor ( hy, Վիկտորիա Աղանուր, 26 May 1855 – 9 April 1910) was an Italian poet with
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
ancestry. She is considered a "minor but important figure in nineteenth century poetry".
Biography
She was born in
Padova
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, the seventh child of Edoardo Aganoor and Giuseppina Pacini. Her father's family was wealthy
Armenian nobility
The Armenian nobility ( hy, Հայ ազնվականություն) was a class of persons which enjoyed certain privileges relative to other members of society under the laws and customs of various regimes of Armenia. Governments which recognized o ...
. They had moved to Persia in the eleventh century, settling in
Julfa. Later on, acting on the advice of
Mechitarist
The Mechitarists officialy named as the Benedictine Congregation of the Mechitarists ( la, Benedictina Congregatio Mechitarista) abbreviated CAM is an Armenian Catholic Church Monasticism, monastic order of Pontifical Right for men founded in 1701 ...
fathers, the family migrated to live in Paris. In France, they founded two notable educational institutions for Armenian nobility: The Collège Raphaël in Paris, followed by the Collegio Moorat in Venice.
Vittoria's parents married in 1847 and moved to Padova. There they took up residence in the 'Casa degli Armeni', or 'House of the Armenians', in Prato della Valle. It was here that Vittoria, along with her four sisters, spent her childhood and adolescence.
Many Italian celebrities, such as
Andrea Maffei
Andrea Maffei (1798 – 1885) was an Italian poet, translator and librettist. He was born in Molina di Ledro, Trentino. A follower of Vincenzo Monti, he formed part of the 19th-century Italian classicist literary culture. Gaining laurea in juris ...
or
Antonio Fogazzaro
Antonio Fogazzaro (; 25 March 1842 – 7 March 1911) was an Italian novelist and proponent of Liberal Catholicism. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.
Biography
Fogazzaro was born in Vicenza to a wealthy family. In ...
, visited their home when she was a child. In 1876 she went living to
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, where she met Enrico Nencioni, who helped her with her poetry, although she wrote letters more often to
Domenico Gnoli.
She was very emotionally dependent on her family because of her depressive moods and although she was a precocious writer, she did not publish her first book, ''Leggenda eterna'', until 1900. In 1901, she married Guido Pompilj, a well-known member of parliament,
and later the Italian Undersecretary of State.
Together they went to
Perugia
Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia.
The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...
. She died from surgery in Rome on 9 April 1910, aged 54.
Her husband, heartbroken by her death, committed suicide shortly thereafter next to her corpse.
Works
*''I cavalli di San Marco'', Venezia, Stab. Tip. C. Ferrari, 1892;
*''A mio padre. Versi'', Venezia, Stab. Tip. Lit. C. Ferrari, 1893;
*''
Leggenda eterna'', Milano, Treves, 1900
*''Nuove Liriche'', Roma, Nuova antologia, 1908;
*''Poesie complete'', Firenze, F. Le Monnier, 1927;
*''Nuove liriche'', a cura di John Butcher, Bologna, Nuova S1, 2007;
References
External links
Vittoria Aganoor's biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aganoor, Vittoria
1855 births
1910 deaths
Writers from Padua
Italian women poets
19th-century Italian poets
19th-century Italian women writers
19th-century Italian writers
Italian people of Armenian descent
Deaths from cancer in Lazio