From interviews, documents and more, the events that abolished the limits for going to the polls and being elected emerge
Unpublished photographs, video interviews and graphics will accompany the history of the vote for women in Italy and San Marino in an exhibition set up in the San Francesco Pinacoteca Museum, in the historic center of Titano.
The exhibition, organized by the University of the Republic of San Marino together with the Cultural Institutes, will be inaugurated on Thursday 21 September at 18 pm to celebrate 50 years since the law which, in 1973, gave rise to the possibility, for women, to be elected for public offices, jobs and functions. This development followed the first elections in which not only men voted, in 1964.
“What occurred in the republic is a very different path compared to Italy – explains Valentina Rossi, main curator of the exhibition and exponent of the San Marino Center for Historical Studies of the University – compared to which even materials such as photographs were very rare. From my activity – he continues – documents, images and details emerged which allowed me to trace, in the eight panels on display, the main events and their meaning in the San Marino context, starting from the Arengo of 1906 up to almost the present day”.
The research activities focused in particular on oral testimonies, some of which were collected in a video of approximately 20 minutes in which there are extracts from 24 interviews with San Marino women: "Twelve of them - specifies Rossi - voted in 1964, while the other half were elected from 1974 onwards”. The analyzes also involved the collection of numbers on female representation in the Great and General Council, as well as in the government: "Until today, for example, only nine women have held the role of Secretary of State".
The material exhibited also saw the participation of the director of the Cultural Institutes, Paolo Rondelli, while the dynamics that characterized the Italian experience were retraced by Patrizia Gabrielli, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Siena. The academic, who is part of the San Marino Center for Historical Studies and was supported by her collaborators Giulia Cioci and Maria Antonietta Serci, also acted as scientific consultant for the initiative.
Entrance to the inauguration is free. The exhibition can be visited until November 19th.
Photo by Davide Minghini. It is preserved in the Gambalunga Library in Rimini. The shot dates back to March 18, 1981, the day of the election of the first woman as Captain Regent, Maria Lea Pedini. To her right Fausta Morganti.