Paola Drigo (1876–1938)

Paola Drigo, née Bianchetti, was born in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, to an aristocratic family. Her father Count Giuseppe Valerio Bianchetti had fought with Garibaldi and later became a minor literary and political figure. Paola attended the Liceo Canova in Treviso, where she was the first female student in the school's history, and completed her education at the Scuola Normale in Padua. In 1898, she married Giulio Giovanni Drigo, an engineer and agronomist, with whom she had two children. Her baby daughter died only a few days after her birth, an episode later alluded to in Drigo's 1936 autobiographical novel, Fine d'anno. In 1900, the couple moved to the villa of Ca' Soderini in Mussolente, on a farming estate with one of the largest and most important parks in the Veneto region. Until World War I, Paola Drigo spent winter seasons in Rome, where she was active in several literary salons. She contributed stories and novellas to the leading periodicals of the day, including La Lettura, Nuova Antologia, L'Illustrazione italiana, and Corriere della Sera. She published her first collection of stories, La fortuna, in 1913. Another collection of stories, Codino, was published in 1918. After her husband's death in 1922, she assumed the administration of their estate, while making frequent trips to Rome, Milan, and Padua. Her third collection of stories, La signorina Anna, was published in 1932, followed in 1936 by the publication of her two novels, Fine d'anno and Maria Zef. The latter caused a sensation when it appeared and has twice been adapted into Italian films. She eventually settled in Padua, and died there on her 62nd birthday.