Alice Galimberti (née Schanzer; 18 November 1873, in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

– 4 January 1936, in

Cuneo Cuneo (; ; ; ) is a city and in Piedmont, Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the fourth largest of Italy’s provinces by area. It is located at 550 metres (1,804 ft) in the south-west of Piedmont, at the confluence of the ri ...

) was an Italian poet, scholar of English literature, and art historian. She was a winner of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

Rose Mary Crawshay Prize The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize is a literary prize for female scholars, inaugurated in 1888 by the British Academy. Description The prize, set up in 1888, is said by the British Academy to be the only UK literary prize specifically for female sc ...

in 1927 for her study of

Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...

Life

Alice Schanzer was born in Vienna, third of four children of Luigi Schanzer, a financier, and Amalia Grunberg, a pianist. One of his brothers was

Carlo Schanzer Carlo Schanzer (18 December 1865 – 23 October 1953) was a Vienna-born Italian jurist and politician. He held several cabinet posts from 1906 to 1922. Early life and education Schanzer was born in Vienna on 18 December 1865. His father was a Po ...

, a politician and jurist. A polyglot, she was fluent in German, Italian, French and English from childhood. She lived in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, where she attended high school and university. At

La Sapienza The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is as such one of the ...

she studied literature. She married Tancredi Galimberti, then Minister of Posts in the Zanardelli government, in 1902. The following year she moved with him to

, where their sons, Carlo Enrico and Tancredi (Duccio), were born. In 1901, her first collection of verses ''Motivi e Canti'' appeared, praised by

Giosuè Carducci Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was noticeably influential, and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906, he became ...

. She began her studies of English literature, in particular the poetry of Swinburne,

Watts-Dunton Theodore Watts-Dunton (12 October 1832 – 6 June 1914), from St Ives, Huntingdonshire, was an English poetry critic with major periodicals, and himself a poet. He is remembered particularly as the friend and minder of Algernon Charles Swinbur ...

, and

Spenser Spenser is an alternative spelling of the British surname Spencer. It may refer to: Geographical places with the name Spenser: * Spenser Mountains, a range in the northern part of South Island, New Zealand People with the surname Spenser: * Dav ...

. In 1919 she started teaching language and English philosophy at the Faculty of Letters of the

University of Messina The University of Messina (; Latin: ''Studiorum Universitas Messanae''), known colloquially as UniME, is a state university located in Messina, Sicily, Italy. Founded in 1548 by Pope Paul III, it was the world's first Jesuit college, and today it ...

. Her works on the

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

and

Giuseppe Mazzini Giuseppe Mazzini (, ; ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the ...

were well-received. She also wrote on the

Pre-Raphaelites The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti ...

and the Rossetti family. She contributed numerous essays to

Adolfo Venturi Adolfo Venturi (3 September 1856, Modena – 10 June 1941, Santa Margherita Ligure) was an Italian art historian. His son, Lionello Venturi, was also an art historian. Biography He received his education in Modena and Florence, and in 1878 ...

's ''History of Italian art''. She also published articles on Piedmontese artists - Bistolfi, Delleani, Grosso, Gaidano, Olivero - whose works she and her husband collected. Her important work on Edmund Spenser was published posthumously in 1938 by her son Duccio. Galimberti maintained several set of diaries, covering not only her own personal life and moods, but also from the point of view of her children. She kept travel diaries, in particular that of her only trip to England - in 1933 - after a life spent studying English literature, which detailed her itineraries and the people she met - some of whom she had corresponded with for years but whom she hadn't personally known. The Galimberti family archive in Cuneo, which she was primarily responsible for assembling, preserves documentation of her critical and literary activity and her dense network of relationships with Italian and foreign intellectuals. Alice Galimberti died on 4 January 1936, after a brief illness.

Selected works

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

Bibliography

* * {{Authority control Writers from Vienna 1873 births 1936 deaths Sapienza University of Rome alumni Academic staff of the University of Messina Rose Mary Crawshay Prize winners 20th-century Italian poets 20th-century Italian historians Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to Italy