Matilde Fentler-Ferluga is one of those women who, in the vast field of Italian literature, truly knew how to make herself stand out. An author of many short articles, in which the liveliness and vivacity of her writing are clearly highlighted together with the wit of various poems which are a pleasure to read due to the spontaneity of the verse. She also produced an accurate and well written biography of Tommaso Campanella, which was published in the book Italian Martyrs. From the thousands and thousands of pages of our history, Fentler selected one, magnificent both for its lavish ceremonies and its deep mournings; that page which remembers the Medici family, a family whose fame would prevail within the Italian history books for another four centuries.
Her focus on Lorenzo the Great was particularly notable, for reasons which do not warrant explanation; and it was through this that the title of her book was born, Lorenzo del Medici (Trieste, tip. Àpolonio e Gaprin, 4872). And her work was arduous and difficult since she knew how to draft stories and characters quickly and energetically; with evidence, cohesion and grace to narrate adventures and true stories; to judge without bias and not stray from the truth, all whilst finding ways to embellish the stories with her style, elegant in itself, and with accurate and useful observations, through which she maintains its simplicity, so that the general public would be able to understand it; in the act which she keeps away from blatant vulgarity and instead elevates with more dignity than ever, noble and proud.
Many of us have books that are obviously based on common cliches; our libraries are saturated with books that narrate certain events of our nation, our history, but it is the popular historical books in which our Italy is completely lacking, where people can focus on the good without realising and therefore become better for it; with which their simple, but almost always generous heart can be educated and their love for their homeland ignited. Since it is precisely this goal which she accomplishes, Fentler’s work is utterly remarkable.
