Enrichetta Caracciolo di Forino

Enrichetta Caracciolo di Forino was born in Napoli, Italy, on 17 February 1821, the fifth daughter (of seven) of Fabio Caracciolo di Forino (1764–1839), himself the second son of Gennaro (1832-1888), 8th Duke of Belcastro and 12th Prince of Forino. Her mother was Teresa nee Cutelli, of a minor noble family in Palermo, Sicily, married at a very young age to the 40 year old nobleman. Enrichetta was named after an aunt who was in religious life, one of the many Caracciolo family members who had entered the Church. While still young, the family moved frequently due to the nature of her father's occupation first in the armed forces of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and later in government service. At the age of three months, his father was made Marshal and named governor of the province of Bari. Under Francis I, her father fell under suspicion, and was stripped of both influence and income. The family lived in dire circumstances until Fabio was restored in 1827, promoted as governor of Reggio. There, her autobiography tells of a life of splendid balls and the life of the Neapolitan elite, mixed up with frustrations in love and relationships. After her father's death in 1839, financial difficulties forced her mother in 1840 to remarry, and to send Enrichetta to the Benedictine convent of San Gregorio Armeno in Naples, where several aunts had been cloistered, and where one aunt was at the time the Abbess. It was not a happy condition - she found the convent a prison, the conversations trite, the clergy corrupt and oppressive. Before taking final vows, she managed to break out several times, only to be returned.

She was not able to regain her freedom until 1860. In 1846 Enrichetta sent pleas to Pius IX, pleas which were dismissed due to the opposition of the newly appointed archbishop of Naples, Sisto Riario Sforza (1810-1877), to whom her family was distantly related. As Sforza rose in the church, he used his power to oppress Enrichetta's republicanism in ways she found spiteful, as part of his larger involvement in anti-unification and pro-ancien regime repressions. In the convent, Enrichetta worked as a sacristan, batting back the outrageous proposals of priests; in 1848, she caused a stir by reading out aloud the liberal press, demonstrating her anticlerical and republican leanings. In the wake of the Bourbon repression on May 15, 1848, she burned her written memoirs, fearing repercussions for herself and her family. Though in 1849 she was given Papal dispensation to leave the monastery on health grounds, in 1851 she was 'arrested' and forcibly detained in a retreat at Mondragone, on the Poggio delle Mortelle in Naples' Spanish Quarters. She nevertheless forged close ties with the rising liberal revolutionary forces in the Kingdom, living a life of cat and mouse with the Bourbon police. In 1860 she met with revolutionary troops at the Cathedral of Naples at a Mass in celebration of the flight of the King; here, on 7 September 1860, she shook Garibaldi's hand, and placed her black nun's veil on the Cathedral's altar.

Garibaldi intended Caracciolo to be made inspector for Naples' seminaries for girls, but left for the siege of Capua before signing the decree appointing her. She married -- with Protestant rites -- the journalist Giovanni Greuther, himself a cadet member of the family of the Princes of Sanseverino and Dukes of Santa Severino (who included in their history Ferdinando (Ferrante) Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, a condottiero who resisted Papal overlordship and eventually became a Huguenot in France after he was dispossessed). The following years saw her author dramas and poetry collections, work as a journalist (with various newspapers including La Rivista Neapolitan di Napoli, La Tribuna di Salerno and Il Nomade di Palermo) and take up membership of various associations such as l'Associazione della gioventù studiosa di Napoli (the Association of studious youth of Naples) and the Italian Society for the emancipation of the woman of Larino (la Società italiana per l'emancipazione della donna di Larino).

In 1866, during the 'third war for liberation', she was the author of the Proclamation to Italian woman, a sort of national appeal to all the women of Italy to take an active part in the struggle towards freedom. It was widely distributed in the newspapers of the time thanks to the mediation of her husband. The following year with her sister Giulia Cigala Caracciolo, she was part of the Neapolitan women's committee to support Salvatore Morelli's bill for women's rights and access to the franchise, and worked to develop a women's branch of the Masonic organizations which (in Italy) were heavily intertwined with the national liberation movement.

The first edition of Misteri del chiostro napoletano was reprinted six times; it also appeared in English, French, Spanish and other translations, was reprinted eight times, and drew the attention of readers such as Manzoni, Settembrini and the Prince of Wales. She also published two plays Un delitto impunito: fatto storico del 1838 (1866) and Un episodio dei misteri del Chiostro Napolitano (1883).

Her husband, Giovanni, died in 1885. Largely overlooked among the 'captains and the kings' who dominated the increasingly successful national unification of Italy, Caracciolo herself worked as a journalist and lobbied for women's rights until her death in Naples, on 17 March 1901, at the age of 80. Her biographer, the Methodist pastor Francesco Sciarelli (himself a former priest), described her latter years as "ignored by her fellow citizens, modest and solitary", a stark contrast to the beatification procedures which were opened in Naples on behalf of her oppressor, Sforza. It was after her death that she came to be considered a founding figure in Italian feminism, and even a 'pop culture' character, in such works as Silvio Mestranzi's fictional Enrichetta, monaca per forza.

Fonti e bibliografia:

Chiabrando, M., 'La monaca di Napoli', Corriere della Sera, 03 febbraio 2011, https://www.corriere.it/unita-italia-150/donne/11_febbraio_03/enrichetta-caracciolo_423e9838-2fb1-11e0-a474-00144f02aabc.shtml.

'Caracciolo Forino Enrichetta', Dizionario Biografico dell'Educazione 1800-2000, online, http://dbe.editricebibliografica.it/cgi-bin/dbe/Scheda?469

Cuccia, A., Dieci Tavole Architettoniche sulla Massoneria, Catanzaro, Rubbettino, 2005.

Cutrufelli, M.R., Nota critica, prefazione a E. Caracciolo, Misteri del chiostro napoletano, Firenze, Giunti, 1998

Fabris, F., La genealogia della famiglia Caracciolo, riveduta e aggiornata da A. Caracciolo, Napoli, s.e., 1966.

Roccella, E., and L. Scaraffia (eds.), Italiane. Dall'Unità d'Italia alla prima guerra mondiale, Roma, Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 2003, vol. I, pp. 28-31.

Sciarelli, F., Enrichetta Caracciolo dei principi di Forino: ricordi e documenti, Napoli, Morano, 1894.

Scirocco, A., 'Il dibattito sulle soppressioni delle corporazioni religiose nel 1864 e i Misteri del Chiostro napoletano di Enrichetta Caracciolo', in Clio, 1992, n. 2, pp. 215-233

Soldani, S. (ed.), L'educazione delle donne. Scuole e modelli di vita nell'Italia dell'Ottocento, Milano: Angeli, 1989.

Villani, C., Stelle femminili, Napoli, Albrighi, Segati, 1913.