Blackwell Reference Online

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Margherita Sarfatti (née Grassini), perhaps best remembered for her romantic involvement with Benito Mussolini , made important contributions to politics, art – including her renowned salon, patronage of writers and artists, as well as her support of the Novecento Italiano movement – journalism, literature, and feminism in Italy. In Adrian Lyttelton's words, “she was active on her own account in feminist journalism and politics … if Sarfatti had never been Mussolini's mistress, she would still have been an influential critic, connoisseur, and patron of modern art. No other woman had achieved a comparable position in the Italian art world in this century” ( Lyttelton 1993 ). She participated in the women's movement in Italy by writing for La difesa delle lavoratrici ( Women workers' Defense ) and was associated with the Feminist League of Milan. As Lyttelton notes, Sarfatti was “a liberated woman in both theory and practice … [who] campaigned for sex education in schools and for a law to make fathers responsible for their illegitimate children … a belief in the inherent equality of the sexes and in the need to win greater freedom of action for women were convictions deeply rooted in her own character and experience, and which she never entirely abandoned, although in her Fascist period those ideals were severely compromised” ( Lyttelton 1993 ). Sarfatti's personal associations ... log in or subscribe to read full text