Targioni Tozzetti, Fanny |
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BORN 9 May 1801, Firenze, Toscana - DIED 29 Mar 1889, Firenze, Toscana BIRTH NAME Ronchivecchi, Fanny GRAVE LOCATION Antella, Firenze, Toscana: Cimitero Monumentale della Misericordia di Santa Maria, Via di Montisoni |
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Fanny Ronchivecchi was born into a noble family. Her parents were Luigi Ronchivecchi and Teresa Manzi. In 1821 she married Professor Antonio Targioni Tozzetti, a physician and a botanist. They had three surviving daughters, Giulia (1824-1891), Adele (d.1900) and Teresa (1826-1880). Adele married Marco Tabarrini and Teresa remained unmarried. Their fourth daughter died after two months. Fanny hosted a literary salon at their house in the Via Ghibellina that was visited by many authors and artists, both residents of Florence and cultured foreigners. She was charming and elegant and a good painter. She had many admirers. Shortly after the poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) arrived in Florence he was introduced to Fanny by the poet Alessandro Poerio (1802-1848) on 10 May 1830. Leopardi remarked how beautiful she was and how well she spoke her languages. Fanny and her husband collected autographs of famous people and Leopardi provided her with autographs of Vittorio Alfieri, Alphonse de Lamartine and others. Leopardi stayed in Florence until 1833. He was in love with her, but his love was not openly returned. She probably was the inspiration for his cycle of Aspasia, a series of poems, but she refused to be identified as the 'learned allureness' in Aspasia. She was a infatuated with Leopardi's friend Antonio Ranieri and Leopardi provided her with news about him when Rainieri away from Florence from 1831 to 1833. Rainieri had a love affair with the actress Maria Maddalena Pelzet and he followed her to Rome and Bologna. From a letter to Rainieri it becomes clear that she was deeply saddened by Leopardi's death in 1837. From 1835 to 1837 she supported her husband, who was a member of the health commission of Florence during a cholera epidemic. Together with her husband she participated in several philanthropic activities. In 1855 another cholera epidemic hit Florence. Antonio was once more a member of the health commission, but his own precarious health deteriorated. He died in 1856 and like his father and his grandfather he was buried in the Santa Croce in Florence. Fanny lived until 1889 and she died in Florence. She was buried in Antella near Florence. |
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 The grave of Fanny Targioni Tozzetti at the Cimitero Monumentale della Misericordia di Santa Maria, Antella. Picture by Androom (20 Feb 2018) |