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Hysteria's upheavals: emotional fault lines in Cristina di Belgiojoso's health history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Susanna Ferlito
Susanna Ferlito*
Affiliation:
Department of French and Italian, University of Minnesota, USA
*
∗Email: ferli001@umn.edu
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Abstract

This article examines a series of ‘patient-letters' that Cristina di Belgiojoso (1807–1871) wrote to her doctor, Paolo Maspero (1811–1895) over the span of three decades. Belgiojoso's notoriously frail health has been crucial to the construction of her unique and heroic position in the panorama of female patriotism in the Risorgimento. This article focuses on Belgiojoso's ‘patient-voice’ as represented in her letters to Maspero and foregrounds her self-diagnosis of hysteria. This diagnosis provides insight into the emotional and physical upheavals of a woman torn between transgression of and compliance with normative female gender behaviour of her time.

Keywords

emotionsBelgiojosohysteriapatient–doctorRisorgimento
Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Special issue: Emotions , May 2012 , pp. 157 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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