FERMOMAG SPECIAL WONDER WOMEN

• Editorial – Marta Santacatterina
• “Magna Comitissa” between two Titans – Marta Santacatterina
• The Power of the Word: Hildegard – Laura Dabbene
• In a group of elected: Mary Shelley – Laura Fornasari
• Coco Chanel. A Determined Woman – Petra Cason
• Queen of artists: Peggy Guggenheim – Barbara Picci
• Margherita Sarfatti: she led the “Return to order” – Michela Alessandrini
• Agatha, an unfinished portrait – Elide La Vecchia
• Nothing but Divina: Maria Callas – Lara Ferrari
• Moana, a sex mystic – Lara Ferrari
• The obligation of the word: Oriana Fallaci – Salvo Taranto
• A Pixel with mustache – Cecilia Mistrali

Editorial by Marta Santacatterina

They have been really a Wonder. And women, as well. It had been so long that we had this idea buzzing in our heads of dedicating an issue to special creatures, to extraordinary women, who in their own way have changed the world, history, or simply the way of living. It was easy to draw up a schedule, but then that list was discussed, revised, reconstructed, and even adapted to the preferences of those who have taken part in this little project for women. In fact the list at one point had become twice the expected… The choice was painful, especially when we have temporarily set aside Elizabeth II, with her Sapphire Jubilee, with the wonderful world of gadgets that revolve around her and that, by themselves, justify one hilarious as very serious tribute to the Queen.

Starting point, therefore, just being “Wonder”: not only good, not just important. In short, girls with superpowers, whatever that means. From a more or less recent past we found a list of memorable names and we have dedicated to them a delicious cover, a Wonder Woman designed by Chiara Berta, passionate artisan that for pleasure outlines long long legs and few elements that tell immediately a story with so much, pleasant, irony.

But let’s come to the protagonists of the pages that you can browse in this special Fermomag: she forced the emperor to wear the dress of humility and wait outside her castle, in the middle of a blizzard, the door of forgiveness to be opened. We could not begin this journey into the wonderful feminine world without Matilda of Canossa. Next to her, and we are more or less in the same age, Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic saint who, to describe her otherworldly visions, even invented a new language, the only one able to communicate the Divine. But if we inflect the latter term in the feminine version, Maria is the only one who can wear it: “As if she could have a rival…” writes Lara Ferrari, because Callas is unattainable, and that’s it; RadioTre, in the weeks between the two centuries, did a survey that crowned her “voice of the century”, verdict with which we full agree. Then I would match here two women of art: the well-known, celebrated, adored and adorable Peggy Guggenheim, an icon of a revolutionary and refined collecting, and the almost unknown Margherita Sarfatti, that in such a tough and complex period as that of the Italian Fascism knew how to gather around her the best artists, directing them towards an art of regime, but also leaving them freedom of expression, promoting and coordinating them in the group Novecento, which only recently is being rediscovered.

Book lovers, in this issue, writers find even three areas: Mary Shelley and Agatha Christie, almost the polar opposite in the imagination, but both with their strength, their imagination, and their life spent for the invention of stories. The third could only be Oriana Fallaci, the one who before Ayatollah Khomeini had the resounding courage to remove her veil, an unforgettable piece of history of journalism.

Women, however, are also bodies, so we could not miss who has undressed those bodies of the inconvenience of the past, making them freer with practical clothing that we still wear or dream: Coco Chanel was a fashion giant. And we close this issue with THE Body. Moana. By talking between us – daring because with her you have to dare – we have defined her “mystic”. Incarnation of the sex soared to myth when she was still alive, like Maria, like Elizabeth, like Peggy, like Cleopatra. A wonder, so many wonders.