Eugenia Rasponi

Eugenia Rasponi (18 September 1873–1958) was an Italian noblewoman who became a suffragist and businessperson. Dedicated to social welfare projects, as her mother had been, she opened a furniture manufacturing business to preserve the local hand-crafted canvases made in Romagna. In 1918, she met openly-lesbian writer and suffragist, Lina Poletti. The two women would share their lives for the next 40 years, traveling throughout Europe and Asia and studying philosophy and theosophy. Early life Eugenia Rasponi Murat was born on 18 September 1873 in Ravenna, in the Romagna region of the Kingdom of Italy to Princess Costanza (Constanța) Ghica and . She was the youngest of four surviving children. Her paternal grandparents were Count and Princess Luisa Giulia Murat and her paternal great-grandparents were Joachim Murat, King of Naples and Caroline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon. Her maternal grandparents were Maria Văcărescu and Costache Ghica of Wallachia, and her great grandfather was the poet . Within a month of her birth, her parents moved from Ravenna to Palermo, where her father assumed the post of prefect. He died when she was four years old. After her husband's death, Rasponi's mother returned to Ravenna and participated in social welfare programs. She was president of the Società Operaia Femminile (Female Worker's Society), which she helped found in 1880. In 1894, she led the drive for the creation of a committee of the Red Cross in Ravenna and became first president of the organization. She died the following year, having impressed upon her daughter the importance of humanitarian service. Career In 1903, Rasponi purchased the castle fortress, known locally as the Castello Malatestiano, of Santarcangelo di Romagna, where she managed a furniture manufacturing facility. Interested in the local craft which produced hand-printed canvases, she purchased them as adornments for the castle and for use as the featured upholstery on her furniture. Rasponi became a prominent suffragist in Ravenna, and participated in the 1908 convention in Rome of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane (National Council of Italian Women, CNDI) led by her cousin, Gabriella Rasponi Spalletti. Around 1918, Rasponi met Cordula Poletti known as "Lina". Poletti was both a suffragist and openly lesbian. Sharing their hometown, their political views, and an appreciation of the arts, the two women became a couple.