The Sign of Women, Rai's new series chronicles six female protagonists from the past

Kicking off Oct. 6 at 9 p.m. on Rai Storia is the new docu-fiction series Il segno delle donne (The Sign of Women), entirely dedicated to female protagonists in art, politics, sports, history and religion. Six Italians who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries will be featured in particular: Margherita Sarfatti, Ondina Valla, Adele Faccio, Vera Vergani, Chiara Lubich and Lalla Romano. Their public and private lives will be narrated and interpreted by six actresses, respectively Sonia Bergamasco, Eleonora Giovanardi, Monica Nappo, Matilde Gioli, Anita Zagaria, and Pamela Villoresi, interviewed by art historian and critic Rachele Ferrario.

The latter, author also of the book Margherita Sarfatti. La regina dell’arte nell’Italia fascista (The Queen of Art in Fascist Italy), told Ansa, “These are women who have left a mark: with their lives, talent and independence they have contributed decisively to our culture. We recount them with great fidelity to the bibliographic sources, using the same words they spoke, thanks also to a formidable teamwork with the authors.” “Everything I would have expected,” she continues, “except to lead a program in which I interview six extraordinary actresses. Sonia Bergamasco cast herself perfectly in Sarfatti, allowing me to complete a work begun with the book: dragging her out of Mussolini’s bed to restore her to her greatness as an art critic who helped create the ecstatic during Fascism, in a male world that later disowned her: she was Jewish and had to flee Italy to save her children.”

Sonia Bergamasco, in the first installment of the series, will in fact be Margherita Sarfatti.

Eleonora Giovanardi will instead be Ondina Valla, the first Italian woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics, in 1936 in Berlin. “Very young, she shook Hitler’s hand, not even realizing it,” Ferrario explained. “She had extraordinary physical endurance in an era when sports was not attentive to the needs of athletes: she used shoes that were not hers, she won without training.” Monica Nappo will play Adele Faccio, “a woman to whom we are all indebted, not only for her battle for abortion, but also for claiming the freedom of people to decide about their own lives, an extraordinarily topical issue.” Matilde Gioli will be the theater and film actress Vera Vergani, among the most important of her time: “She was also a forerunner,” commented Ferrario, “and she struck me for the strength of claiming her private life, retiring from the scenes at age 35 to go live in Procida with her husband, a commander of large ships known in South America.” Anita Zagaria will instead tell about Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, “able to fascinate with her eloquence Muslims, Buddhists, in the name of interreligious dialogue.” Finally, Pamela Villoresi will give the face to Lalla Romano, “a writer beloved by many generations, among the few women to win the Strega Prize with the novel Le parole tra noi leggere (The Words Between Us), which cost her the break with her son, because it narrated the discomfort of women in front of motherhood.”

The account of the six protagonists is also based on the advice of historian Silvia Salvatici and will be enriched by unpublished images from family archives, archive footage and testimonies.

“What the protagonists have in common,” concludes Rachele Ferrario, "is the ability to claim the role of women without mincing or facilitating, carrying out their thinking. They are not necessarily militant feminists, rather they claim female sensibility."

In the image, Sonia Bergamasco plays Margherita Sarfatti.

The Sign of Women, Rai's new series chronicles six female protagonists from the past

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