Ada Negri was born in Lodi on February 3, 1870, into a family of humble circumstances.

Her father, Giuseppe, died when she was only one year old, and it was thanks to her mother, Vittoria Cornalba, that Ada was able to complete her studies and obtain her elementary school teacher’s diploma.

Parallel to her teaching activities, she began to publish her first poems. First in local magazines and then, in 1892 saw the light of her first collection, Fatality, which brought her immediate success.

Moving to the Lombard capital, she came into contact with the Socialist Party, intensifying her commitment to various social causes. Following her marriage to Giovanni Garlanda and, above all, the birth of her two daughters, Bianca and Vittoria, the latter of whom died after a month of life, social issues gave way to other, more introspective and autobiographical ones.

The collections Maternità (1904) and Dal Profondo (1910) date from this period.

Separating from her husband in 1913, she moved to Zurich.

It was, compositionally, a prolific period in which he wrote about exile, patriotism and autobiographical events.

Returning to Italy, she reached the pinnacle of her career with her nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1927 – later won by Grazia Deledda – and the award by the Duce of the “Mussolini Prize,” which consecrated her as the “intellectual of the regime,” becoming the first woman member of the Academy of Italy.

Ada Negri died in Milan on January 11, 1945, at almost seventy-five years of age.

You can consult the death certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Milano > Stato civile italiano > Milano > Registro 7440, Parte I (1-398), Registro 3

The original is kept at the State Archives of Milan

Personal archive of Ada Negri is preserved in several institutions. The largest fund (5500 letters, 30 documents, 30 photographs) is at the Banca Popolare di Lodi foundation. The fund has been digitized and is freely available on Manus online.

For more on the figure of Ada Negri, see the entry of the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani edited by Rossana Dedola.