Clotilde Marghieri: The Forgotten Writer of 'Vita in villa'

Clotilde Marghieri (Naples, 1897 – Rome, 1981) was an Italian writer who gained fame with her 1960 book 'Vita in villa', a memoir of her life in a villa in Santa Maria la Bruna, a hamlet of Torre del Greco. Born Clotilde Betocchi, cousin of poet Carlo Betocchi, she studied at the Collegio delle Montalve alla Quiete in Florence. In 1920 she married Gino Marghieri. Through her friend Pellegrina Rosselli, she met art historian Bernard Berenson in 1926, beginning a long correspondence. In the 1930s she left Naples for Santa Maria la Bruna, where her villa La Quiete became the setting for her 22 stories. Writer Giovanni Battista Angioletti praised her depiction of Vesuvian people. In 1939 she moved to Rome with her two children but kept the villa until 1963. She later published 'Le educande di Poggio Gherardo' (1963), 'Il segno nel braccio' (1970), and 'Amati enigmi' (1974), an epistolary novel with critic Luigi Baldacci that won the Viareggio Prize. The book, structured as a New Year's letter to a mysterious Jacques, was staged by Licia Maglietta in 2018. Marghieri frequented figures like Sibilla Aleramo, Corrado Alvaro, and Rocco Scotellaro. Journalist Camilla Cederna recalled her Rome salon. After her death in 1981, her correspondence with Berenson was published as 'Specchio doppio (1927-1955)'.