Ernesta Bittanti Battisti, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetErnesta Bittanti Battisti
Italian writer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Brescia, Lombardy, Italy
About Ernesta Bittanti Battisti
- Ernesta Bittanti Battisti (5 May 1871 – 5 October 1957) was an Italian journalist and educator. The daughter of a school principal, she was born Ernesta Bittanti in Brescia and grew up there and in Cremona and Cagliari.
- She enrolled at the University of Florence in 1890.
- Her dwelling there became the center of a circle of intellectuals which included Gaetano Salvemini, Ugo Guido, Alfredo Galletti, Assunto Mori and Cesare Battisti.
- She graduated in 1896 and began teaching.
- However, in 1898, Battisti was banned from teaching because of her political activities.
- At the second congress of the Italian Socialist Party, she suggested that a socialist newspaper be created and the daily Il Popolo appeared in April 1900 with Battisti and her husband as editors.
- In March 1906, she began a campaign advocating divorce, which was in direct opposition to the views of the Catholic Church.
- In August 1914, the Il Popolo ceased publication and Battisti left Trento and returned to teaching.In 1911, she wrote the lyrics to Inno al Trentino, a popular song in the province of Trentino, with music by Guglielmo Bussoli, who also recorded it in the same year.
- The song was suppressed by the Austrian authorities when it was first published.She married Cesare Battisti in an 1899 civil marriage and moved to Trento.
- The couple had three sons.
- Her husband was executed by the Austro-Hungarian Army in July 1916.
- She took on the task of editing his political writings, which were published in 1923.In 1930, she moved to Milan with her sons.
- She was opposed to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and its racial laws which discriminated against Italian Jews.
- Following the Badoglio Proclamation in September 1943, the family fled to Lugano in Switzerland.
- They returned to Trento at the end of the war.Battisti died in Trento at the age of 86 following an extended illness.
- She continued to write till the end.Her son Gigino served in the Constituent Assembly of Italy and was mayor of Trento.
- He died in a rail accident in 1946.
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