It was February 1906, exactly 112 years ago, when Montessori wrote an appeal in the newspaper La Vita inviting Italian women to register on the electoral roll, since no law expressly prohibited them from doing so.
The law, in fact, established that Italian citizens who had reached the age of 21, who could read and write, and who paid a certain annual tax were eligible to vote: teachers could read, write, and paid a certain annual tax!
Montessori, in line with pro-suffrage committees, invites women who meet the necessary legal requirements to register on the electoral rolls of their municipalities of residence. The “Proclamation to Italian Women” of 1906 echoes the one posted on the walls of Rome, which reads: All women: rise up! Your first duty in this social moment is to demand the political vote (M. Montessori, “Per il voto politico alle donne” [For women’s political vote], in La Vita, 1 August 1906).
Numerous women (teachers, nurses, midwives, etc.) applied to be included on the electoral roll in order to obtain the right to vote at the Courts of Appeal of Ancona, Palermo, Brescia, Cagliari, Florence, Naples and Venice. All the rulings were unanimously unfavourable, with the exception of the city of Ancona.
In particular, in the province of Ancona, ten teachers fought for registration on the electoral roll. In the chambers of the Town Halls of Senigallia and Montemarciano, anticipating the conquest of the right to vote by forty years, ten female teachers obtained their electoral cards thanks to Lodovico Mortara, the first president of the Court of Appeal of Ancona, known as “the judge of women”. Hence Montessori’s declaration to the city of Ancona, which she called her homeland.
Mariangela Scarpini
Educationalist and teacher specialising in Montessori teaching methods
Purchase HERE the poster inspired by Maria Montessori’s famous proclamation ‘Women of the world, arise!’
