Anna Maria was born in Messina in 1672 to Paolo Arduino (or Ardoino) Patti, Prince of Polizzi and Marquis of Floresta as well as Grandee of Spain, and Giovanna Furnari (daughter of Duke Antonio of Furnari and belonging to a junior branch of the illustrious Sicilian House of Notarbartolo). She had two younger sibling, Margherita (who would marry Giuseppe Antonio Transo, Prince of Casalito) and Michele (who would inherit his father’s titles).
From a young age, she showed a particular interest and skill in music, dance, poetry and painting. Don Paolo, acknowledging his daughter’s talent, had her educated in literature and liberal arts. Growing up, she was admired both because her beautiful looks and her artistic skills. She was especially considered an accomplished embroiderer and writer (both in Italian and Latin, with Petrarca and Vergil’s styles as her inspiration).
In 1687, at 15 years old, she wrote and dedicated some Latin poems to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and his wife, Empress ElonoreMagdalene(“Rosa Parnassi plaudens triumpho imperiali S.M.C. invictissimi Leopoldi de Austria Romanorum Imperatoris etc., eiusque dignissimae uxoris Eleonorae Magdalenae Palatini Rheni”), which were later printed in Naples and even reported by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (one of the founder and leader of the Accademia dell’Arcadia) in his work Istoria della volgarpoesia (1698, p. 228).
It’s reported Anna Maria could speak Latin, Greek, French and Spanish. She was also versed in philosophy and would perform in argumentations for which she would get praised by her erudite public. Finally, she appeared to have been a skilled amazon and very good at handling weapons, and this appeared to be the reason (or so essayist, politician and fellow Messinese Giuseppe La Farina reported in his Messina ed i suoi monumenti)Giovan Battista Ludovisi, widower (his first wife – who died in 1694- had been María Moncada de Silva, daughter of Guillén Ramón de Moncada y Castro, IV Marquis of Aytona) and Prince of Piombino, fell in love with her.
Giovan Battista was born in 1647 as the eldest child of Niccolò I Ludovisi and his third wife, Costanza Pamphili, niece of Pope Innocent X and daughter of the infamous Donna Olimpia Maidalchini (by many called la papessa, because of her great influence over her Papal brother-in-law, during whose pontificate she actively ruled over the Papal court and the whole Rome, amassing enormous wealth and many privileges).
Nicolò himself was related to a Pope, being the nephew of Pope Gregory XV (Bologna native born Alessandro Ludovisi), although he had received the title of Prince of Piombino through his second wife (ex uxor), Polissena de Mendoza-Appiani d’Aragona, hereditary Princess of Piombino and of the Isle of Elba. Since his son by Polissena, Filippo Gregorio, had died an infant, (his first wife Isabella Gesualdo had bore him a daughter, Lavinia, who would die in 1634), Nicolò had inherited the title and, when he died in 1664, he passed it to his eldest son Giovan Battista.
Anna Maria and Giovan Battista married in 1697 and moved to Rome. The new Princess of Piombino had been so well-liked by her fellow countrymen, that many Messinese poets dedicated her auspicious verses, wishing her a safe journey and a successful life in Rome.
Finally settled in her new home, she was soon to be noticed and appreciated by the Roman society. That same year, she received the honour of becoming a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia, assuming the pastoral name of Getilde Faresia, and writing many sonnets and poems both in Latin and Italian.
Her husband had one of her musical dramas, I rivali gelosi, performed in the magnificent garden of his Roman family mansion. Giovan Battista Ludovisi might have been a dedicated partner, but he was mostly known by his contemporaries for being a womanizer and a squanderer, having been forced to sell many of his lands due to his prodigality and incompetence in the management of his family’s property.
One year after the wedding, Anna Maria gave birth to a baby boy Niccolò. Unfortunately (or luckily, given Giovan Battista’s history in administering the Ludovisi’s belongings) marriage life would be cut short as the Prince of Piombino died on August 29th 1699, leaving a young widow and an even more younger heir.
Baby Niccolò became the new Prince of Piombino and his mother assumed the regency of the Principality, although for a very short period. The child died on January 17th, 1700 and Anna Maria (who must have been heartbroken) followed him shortly, dying in Naples on December 29th of the same year. She was 28.
Mother and son were buried in the Church of San Diego all’Ospedaletto. Their graves are ornated with two marbled bas-reliefs sculpted by Giacomo Colombo, with Anna Maria portrayed in half-bust, while Niccolò in full-length.
The Principality of Piombino was then inherited by the child’s aunt, Olimpia Ludovisi, Niccolò I’s eldest daughter. Unlike her younger sisters, she had chosen to become a nun (taking the name of Suor Anna) and so she ruled her lands from her Roman nunnery of Tor de’ Specchi. The religious Princess wouldn’t govern for long as she outlived her nephew for less than a year (she died on November 27th 1700). She was succeeded by her younger living sister, Ippolita (Lavinia, Niccolò I’s second daughter, had died in 1682). With Ippolita I the Ludovisi branch of the Principality of Piombino became extinct. With her daughter and heir, Maria Eleonora, started the line of the Boncompagni Ludovisi who would rule over Piombino (with only the short Napoleonic interval) until the Congress of Vienna after which the Principality would be annexed to the Gran Duchy of Tuscany.
Elpide(also known as ElpisorElphe) was a Christian Latin poetess born in the V century AD. Her whole life is somehow shrouded in mystery and her whole existence is by some denied. According to tradition, she was the first wife of Roman politician and philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and mother of his sons, Patricius and Hypatius. Nonetheless, according to other academics (if she really existed) she might have married a namesake of the famous philosopher.
Those who context Elpide’s marriage to Severinus Boethius, point out contemporary sources and the fact that same philosopher only talks about his wife Rusticiana, daughter of Roman historian and politician Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, who would give him at least two sons, Flavius BoethiusandFlavius Symmachus. Yet, this doesn’t necessarily disconfirm the existence of another wife. Plus in The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius writes about fathers-in-law(“Quis non te felicissimum cum tanto splendore socerorum[…]”), fact that would again support the theory of more marriages from his part.
From the first line of her epitaph we learn that she was born, or at least she grew up in Sicily (“Siculae Regionis alumna”). Two cities have since long competing (in heated terms, to the point of almost physically fighting over it in 1819) about the honour of being her birthplace: Messina and Palermo.
The Strait city has a long literary tradition (which goes back to XV century) concerning Elpide’s origins. According to its scholars, Elpide was the daughter of Messinese patrician Titus Annius Placidus and the sister of Faustina, mother of Saint Placidus (one of Saint Benedict of Nursia’s disciples).
Palermo’s academics, on the other hand, dispute the Messinese theory and argue that Elpide was born in Palermo, where she met her future husband who had stayed for a while in that city and, if he took a wife there and then, it would have been more plausible she was a Palermo’s native born. In 1643 a bas-relief portraying Elpide was recovered in Palermo. Since its finder was Messinese Mario Caridi, he managed to have it transferred to Messina, where it was displayed with an annexed plaque which indicated said city as Elpide’s birthplace.
Aside from these geographical controversies, Elpide was described by sources (which, it’s important to point out, are all posthumous) by many as an educated and virtuous woman. An anonymous scholar from Palermo goes as far as suggesting she was the authoress of philosophical works whose authorship was later stolen by her husband.
Two sacred hymns, dedicated to the Saints Peter and Paul and featured in ancient breviaries, are traditionally attributed to her: Felix per Omnes andAurea Lux. Following this attribution, Spanish poet Lopez de Vega considers Elpide the creator of the heptasyllabus verse. These hymns were sung on January 18th and 23rd, February 22nd, June 29th and August 1st.
Elpide died around 504 in Rome, where she had transferred after marrying. She was probably buried in the first St. Peter Basilica, given that her epitaph was said to have been originally placed on the porch of said Basilica.
Boethius would then remarry to the more famous Rusticiana and lead his life as a trusted official at the court of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, who at that time ruled over a large part of Italy. Later on, he would fall from power and accused of treason, together with his father-in-law, Symmachus. Condemned to death by Theodoric, he would be executed in 524 (or 525) in Pavia (followed by Symmachus the year later). Boethius was then interred in the same city, in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, where Elpide’s epitaph was said to have been transferred, facing her husband’s sepulchre. Nowadays, there’s no trace of such inscription, still many trustworthy antiquaries saw it and wrote down its text, which has arrived to us.
