Matilde Serao
Matilde Serao was an influential Italian journalist and novelist born in 1856 in Petras, Greece, to an Italian father and a Greek mother. After receiving her education, she began her professional career by teaching in Naples and writing articles for newspapers. Serao married Eduardo Scarfoglio in 1885 and had five children, all while building a prominent literary career. Her early works included the short-story collection *Dal vero* and the novel *Cuore infermo*. She gained significant acclaim for her romantic novel *Fantasia* and the socially observant *Il ventre di Napoli*, which shed light on everyday life in Naples.
Serao's most renowned work, *La conquista di Roma*, explores the complexities of political ambition through the character Francesco Sangiorgio, who learns the harsh realities of social climbing in late 19th-century Rome. Beyond her fiction, she is notable for being the most successful female journalist in Italy during her time, founding multiple newspapers and periodicals, including *Il Mattino* and *Il Giorno*. Matilde Serao's literary contributions reflect her deep engagement with the themes of urban poverty and the struggles of the lower-middle-class in a newly unified Italy, making her a significant figure in Italian literature until her death in 1927.
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Matilde Serao
Journalist
- Born: March 7, 1856
- Birthplace: Petras, Greece
- Died: July 27, 1927
- Place of death: Naples, Italy
Biography
Italian journalist and novelist Matilde Serao was born in 1856 in Petras, Greece, where her Italian father was a political exile. Serao’s mother was Greek. After completing her education, Serao accepted a teaching job at the Scuola Normale in Naples, Italy. She also worked in a telegraph office, where she began her writing career by publishing newspaper articles. She married Eduardo Scarfoglio in 1885, and the couple had five children.
After publishing a short-story collection, Dal vero (1897), Sereo published her first novel, Cuore infermo (1881), and began working as a journalist for a Rome newspaper while continuing her career as a novelist. Her romantic novel, Fantasia (1883; Fantasy, 1890), and Il ventre di Napoli, which focuses on everyday life in Naples, were met with great critical success. Her most popular novel, La conquesta di Roma (1885; The Conquest of Rome, 1902), chronicles the intricacies of political and social life in late nineteenth century Rome.
In that novel, Francesco Sangiorgio, a newly elected parliament member, travels from southern Italy to Rome by train. During his trip, he envisions how he can advance his career by conquering Rome. However, he is disappointed when he realizes that Rome cares little for him and he is merely one of many aggressive social climbers. In time Sangiorgio manages to gain attention among his parliamentary colleagues, and step by step he climbs Italy’s social ladder until he becomes a man of great prominence. He eventually encounters trouble when a mysterious woman enters the picture and threatens to destroy his career.
In addition to her fiction, Serao is remembered as the most successful Italian woman journalist of the nineteenth century. She founded four newspapers and several periodicals with her husband, and after their separation in 1904 she continued this work alone, founding the journals Il Mattino and Il Giorno. By the time she died in 1927, Serao had published numerous novels that focused on the lower-middle-class population of Naples and the problems of urban poverty in a recently united Italy.