A Body in Pieces – 9 Women

by various authors

The 9 women: the Sabine woman – the captive woman of the Bible – St. Catherine of Alexandria – Caterina the witch – Enrichetta Caracciolo, follower of Garibaldi – Cleonice Tommasetti, partisan – an anonymous wife – Teresa Caporale – Piccarda Donati

It is for some thousands of years that woman has been “done violence to” in our part of the world. That is to say all sorts of power are exercised over her. Apart from the primary act of brutal rape, the other kinds of violence are culturally refined. But above all violence has always been exercised against the cultured and intellectually gifted woman. It is against these women, secular or religious, scientists or artists, that the worst atrocities have been committed.

The woman has always found a way to escape the violence done to her: long oppression has strengthened her; it has developed her capacities and imagination; it has confirmed her role as a positive driving force of the world.

Nine women, from antiquity to the present day, lead us through a panoramic exploration of their millenary experience, and invite us to take them as an example for a better future in which freedom is understood as the harmonious development of what each one of us is. They encourage us to put back together “the body in pieces” handed down to us by the brutality of the last few thousand years.

The 9 women: the Sabine woman – the captive woman of the Bible – Saint Catherine of Alexandria – Caterina the witch – Enrichetta Caracciolo, follower of Garibaldi – Cleonice Tommasetti, partisan – an anonymous wife – Teresa Caporale – Piccarda Donati

To finish: an example of counter-violence against men

Texts Livy, Deuteronomy, Jacobus de Varagine, Franco Fava, Kris Celsi Gallo, Dante Troisi, Dante Alighieri, Martial