Women, History, Books and Places

Marianna Bussalai, the poet and anti-Fascist activist of the Barbagia region, wrote that she felt humiliated at school 'wondering why, in the history of Italy, Sardinia was never mentioned. I deduced that Sardinia was not Italy and had to have a separate history'. It is not surprising that islands tend to be different from the country to which they are in some way attached. But Sardinia's personality differs even more from that of Italy than one might expect. This book explores that difference through the island's women.Sardinia has been inhabited for longer than many European countries; of its earlier peoples, the best-known are the pre-historic Nuraghic. The hundreds of tall and mysterious megalithic towers which still grace the landscape are the most outward distinctive remnants of their civilisation. But it is from the myriad and tantalising clay statuettes found in ritual wells that it is possible to suggest aspects of women's lives. These are now in archaeological museums, such as that of Cagliari; many of the wells still exist.There followed invasions, colonisations and settlements - often bringing women exiles or landowners - by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Muslims, Catalans, Genoese, Pisans, Spaniards and Savoyards, until finally the island became part of a united Italy, But, as the Swede Amelie Posse-Brazdova, sentenced to exile in Alghero during the First World War, was to write, 'For many centuries the Sardinians had been so fooled and exploited by the Italians, especially the Genoese merchants, that in the end they began to look upon them as their worst enemies.'However much that enmity is now little evident, Sardinia is still very much its own place, with its own languages. This is true of Alghero with its distinctive aura of Catalan occupation, of Marianna Bussalai's always intransigent Barbagia, and of Oristano where perhaps Sardinia's only well-known historical woman, Eleanora d'Arborea, ruled as Giudicessa in the fourteenth century. Although still particularly revered, she epitomised the strong and advanced women, from peasants to political activists, who emerge here from those often turbulent centuries.

The Isle of Wight: Women, History, Books and Places does not contain a chapter about Queen Victoria and Osborne House, which are, perhaps, all some know about the Island. But somehow she sneaks into several chapters. If her daughter, Princess Beatrice, is known as her mother's companion, she may be less familiar as Governor of the Island, living in Carisbrooke Castle and responsible for the foundation of the Carisbrooke Castle Museum, one of the Island's jewels. She has her place in its history, as does her sister, artist and rebel Princess Louise. Given more space is Isabella de Fortibus, known as 'Lady of the Isle'. She was the last Lord of the Island, ruling almost as a queen from Carisbrooke Castle in the 13th century, in defiance of the king the other side of the Solent. Before her was 9th century Queen Osburga, of Arreton Manor, mother of Alfred the Great. But the book is not only about royalty, even though it includes visits from Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and French Empresses. The Island had earlier withstood French invasions, following Romans who left their villas, two of them now excavated and open to the public.The Island is sometimes known as 'Dinosaur Isle', and that chapter begins the book, not so much about the creatures, but those who hunted for, and found, their fossils. It has also been called 'Ghost Island', and there are plenty of those, and of witches burnt at the stake, and smugglers all aptly named 'Outsiders'. There is a chapter on 'Irregular Relations' which includes a smuggler who climbed her way to the top of French society via a royal Comte, and the delightfully-named, fast-living, 16th century Dowsabel Mills, who also opened a girls school. Nuns and philanthropists find their place, as does a notable pioneer photographer and a now recognised marine engineer, powerboat racers, aviatrixes, sailors, those campaigning for women's suffrage, and a spy or two, one of whom was nearly hanged. That is not to forget writers and artists such as the French Impressionist Berthe Morisot. Her delicate and evocative watercolour is not only a memento of her 1875 Cowes honeymoon, but also adorns the book's cover.