Rosa Errera

From 1884 to 1889, Errera taught Italian letters to students in lower secondary schools in Florence. Subsequently, she won a competition for high school students and moved to Milan, where from 1892 she was able to attend the normal school Gaetana Agnesi. Over the next two years, her writings appeared in Il Piccolo Italiano, a Milanese weekly magazine edited by Aurelio Stoppoloni which proposed to "educate children by delighting them," but also urged them to live the "Italian spirit."

Meanwhile, while still teaching, she started pursuing writing for children and young readers with particular attention to the ideals of homeland, family and humanity, which were receiving increasing attention in Italy at the time. She would continue teaching until about 1912.[3]

In 1891 Errera published her first books. Many were anthologies curated for middle and high school students, and some were readers for elementary students, including La Villanti Family (Milan 1896). According to Paesano, her fictional works were written to replace "the spells of the fairy tale with the realism of family affections and domestic care."[3][5]

Her educational goals took different forms in her writings. Sometimes, Errera wrote an appealing story, but intended that the story would be only the pretext to giving a lesson, going on to incorporate useful lifestyle tips or encouragement to follow good behavior. In this way, she was able to reach the children of the bourgeoisie to whom these stories were inevitably addressed. By simply reading a good story, she found she was able to teach a wide range of good life lessons to new audiences. According to Paesano,[3]

"... altruism, spirit of sacrifice, moderation, honesty, courage, respect for the elderly and for the humble, and not least sincerity, a principle on which E. persistently returned to clarify the necessary pedagogical function in an operetta entitled For Sincerity of our Pupils, published in Florence in 1922 in the series School and Life directed by Giuseppe Lombardo Radice. In addition to identifying sincerity as a means for the expressive development of the child, the main reasons for E.'s reflection on school and education problems, partly expressed in an article published in 1904 (Piccole Workers of Thought, in Il Marzocco, 6 March 1904): the need to adapt programs to the needs of particular school groups, to prune what was too "bookish" and mnemonic was entrusted to education, to mitigate the importance attributed to the [school] grades."[3]

Around 1912, a serious nervous disease forced Errera to reduce the intensity of her work. She formally left teaching in 1917. Her illness required a change of scenery so she moved her residence from the busy center of Milan to a small villa on the city's outskirts, surrounded by greenery. There, her health improved and she resumed writing, often still aiming her lessons to young readers.[3]

In 1919, she competed for a prize offered by the Treves publishing house in Milan, which was searching for a "book of Italianness." Errera won the first prize of 10,000 lira with her book Noi, published by Treves in 1920. It had what has been described as a "somewhat artificial plot," featuring a meeting of well-known historical and artistic personalities (S. Francesco, Dante, Colombo, Leonardo da Vinci and Mazzini), who discussed the Italian national identity and revealed strong patriotic sentiments. These were popular ideas of the time in Italy.[3]

In 1921, she completed Dante, published in Florence to mark the 600th anniversary of the poet's death.[3][4][6] Five editions of the text were published between 1921 and 2010 in Italian and English. (Dante remains Errera's most widely available book, which, as of 2020, is still available in print with copies held by 34 WorldCat member libraries worldwide.)[7]

Errera's popular biography about Daniele Manin (Manin, 1923) told a patriotic story about the 19th century President of the Venetian Republic and leader of the Risorgimento (Italian unification movement) in Venice in May 1849. Manin headed the city's desperate resistance against the occupying Austrians.[4][7]

In 1925, she published at least two more books, and those were followed in 1932 by two at least more, L'asino d'oro e Latre Favole di Animali di Fori and La Storia di Peter Pan.[7]