The Estense Gallery in Modena recounts a nineteenth-century feminicide. The sad story of Maria Pedena

Within the visiting itinerary of the Galleria Estense in Modena, in room 17, the exhibition Maria Pedena is on display until March 17, 2024. The Sad Story of a Beautiful Child. The exhibition brings together works and documents that illustrate how the posthumous narrative of the events surrounding the killing of Maria Regina Pedena was influenced by concomitant social, cultural and political mores, which led to interpretations distinct from those evident from an analysis of the facts alone.

In Modena, on the night of July 2, 1827, Maria Pedena was murdered. Maria was fourteen years old, an embroiderer, and had a boyfriend who was a violinist. The young woman knew the murderer, Eleuterio Malagoli, a luthier who lived in retirement at the home of Maria’s own parents. The young woman was killed with a knife blow to the throat, although the poor body was found covered with numerous other wounds testifying to the girl’s strenuous defense of her attacker. Malagoli, at the time married to Domenica Muccioli, whom, according to the chronicle, he had had to marry because she had “already been illegitimately made a mother by him,” tried to kill himself by shooting himself after committing the act and died after a few days. Since he was already dead at the time of sentencing, he was sentenced to the gallows “in effigy.”

The tragic act of bloodshed had a wide echo in Modena. Numerous poetic recollections were composed in memory of the young victim, and his image began to circulate by means of widely circulated prints.

The exhibition is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Estense Gallery in Modena recounts a nineteenth-century feminicide. The sad story of Maria Pedena

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