Giulia di Barolo, on the side of prison women

«TAncredi mentioned a bow and Juliette pulled himself, looking at him curious. “I have never known anyone with such an evocative name, as a chivalrous poem,” he said, sincere. “I am Juliette Colbert of Maulévrier.” He smiled again and he beat the eyelids, as if a ray of sunshine had dazzled him ». The two young people knew each other, in Paris, during a special occasionthat of the coronation of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. It was what is said to be a classic love at first sight, told by Marina Marazza in the book Blood of the Langhe. The Saga dei Barolo, which retraces the most important, joyful and suffered stages in a historical and fictional way, of Juliette Colbert’s life, then became Giulia di Barolo.

Giulia di Barolo, from Paris to Turin

History icons often coincide with lives lived intensely. Just like in this case. Juliette was born on June 26, 1786 in Maulévrier, in Vandea, Juliette Françoise Victurnie Colbert was baptizedsecond era of the Colbert accounts e descendant of the famous Jean-Baptiste Colbert who was Minister of Finance of the Sun KingLouis XIV.

His families Glia Futramo from the fury of the French Revolution during which several components lost their lives, including the paternal grandmother (who was guillotinated). It was therefore Forced to escape and lived between Germany and Holland. Count Edouard Colbert, who remained a widower with four children, returned to France in 1799, Under the new government of Napoleon Bonaparte, he recovered a good part of his assets and its properties and became part of the Emperor’s court.

So it was that Juliette, then eighteen years old, He became one of the company ladies of the empress Giuseppina Beauharnaiswhich allowed her to know her future consort, The Marquis Carlo Tancredi Falletti di Barolobelonging to one of the most important aristocratic families of Piedmont, appointed Ciambellano and Count of the Empire.

The event that changed her life to her

Biographers agree in affirming an ideal couple. They were united by love, from a great culture, from religious faith, the practice of charity towards the poorsensitivity to social problems. It is enough to say that he gave her a “forbidden” book before the wedding: the French translation of Crimes and penalties by Cesare Beccaria, with a preface by Voltaire, published in Livorno anonymously in 1764.

They married on 20 August 1807 in Paris and in 1814 they definitively established their home in Turin, at Palazzo Baroloin via delle Orfane. Here Juliette, now Giulia, met two different aspects of the same city. On the one hand, Cavour, D’Azeglio, walks under the arcades, elegant buildings, trendy coffee, such as San Carlo, Vassallo or Madera, enlightened with gas and equipped with porcelain services. On the other, the infamous neighborhoods, such as that of the Moschinoalong the shores of the Po, with the dilapidated houses in which workers, washing, boatmen, people who arrived in search of work and luck lived. And on the border between these two worlds there was an event that changed her life.

On the second Sunday of Easter, on April 17, 1814, he was kneeling at the passage of the procession, when he heard screaming: “I would not like the viaticum, but the soup”. Struck by the incident, he wanted to reach the place from which the cries arrived and discovered the prison bars of the Senate. Later, in his writing With eyes in the heart. Memory on prisonshe will write down: «Their state of degradation caused me pain and shame. Those poor women and I was of the same species, daughters of the same father, they too were a plant of heaven, had had an age of innocence and were called to the same celestial heritage “.

The apostle of women in prison

Giulia and Tancredi could not have children but their charitable nature pushed them to have A motto: “No son, all children”, and thus “adopted” the cause of women in prison. Giulia was granted the authorization to visit the galleys and she immediately understood that things had to and could change. She was the first woman who raised the problem of female penitentiary in Italy. Thus he undertook his activity by entering the confraternity of Mercy to serve the soups and provide the clothing, teach to read and write. Then his program became more articulated, the prisoners had to understand that they had committed a crime, they had to repent for having the Christian reward, which took place in the form of small prizes to be distributed to those who distinguished themselves in cutting, sewing, and had constantly followed the common prayer and religious teaching. With this very particular form of now et laborareorganized the prison of the “forced”, of which he obtained management from the Piedmontese government, in 1821.

He had the prisoners of other Turin prisons transferred here, introduced the nuns of San Giuseppe di Chamberry to the structuresmanaged to discuss the regulation with the same inmates. In March 1823, he opened a work house and hospitalization for former prisoners or repentant women of their lives, called “the refuge”, and later, right next to the refuge, he founded “Il Refugee”, aimed at girls under the age of 15.

Homeopathy and vineyards

A few years later he completed the project of the Ospedaletto di Santa Filomena, intended for guarantee treatment to sick girls from low social classes. One of the peculiarities of the Ospedaletto was the division, specifically desired by Giulia, of the medical section in two departments: one dedicated to the so -called allopathic care and one for homeopathic medicine. He loved to collect flowers, catalog them and owned a small portable pharmacy, in which he preserved over 100 homeopathic remedies for his own personal care.

After the death of her husband, which took place for an accident on September 4, 1838 (When Tancredi was only 44 years old), Giulia decided to devote himself even more to charity. He died on January 19, 1864, but he also made time to perfect the project of Rincome imettere the vast wine properties, in the Langhe and in Monferrato.

It was thanks to an intuition of Giulia that The Barolo wine took on the body, stability and nobility of today. It was his, in fact, the will to Build new cellars where to vinify the grapes inside large barrelsin a place protected from rigid late autumn temperatures. Even today, in five of these organic oak barrels, thanks to a constant and careful maintenance, Barolo renews its history every year. But Giulia’s “presence” continues to exist, not only in the cellars. Not having children left as a universal heir theOpera Pia Barolo, who still today, as Opera Barolo, carries on his inheritance by supporting and promoting culture, education and solidarity towards the most needy bands.

The story of Giulia di Barolo exclusively

The story of Giulia di Barolo, from love with Carlo Tancredi to the commitment to the reform of the women’s prisons of Piedmont until Barolo’s success, is told in the novel Blood of the Langhe. The Barolo saga (Solferino, 384 pages, 21 euros). The author is the signature of Io Donna Marina Marazza, historical and writer who deals with themes of history, society, costume that has given us exclusively the first 34 pages.

Read the first 30 pages of Blood of the Langhe. The Barolo saga

Marina Marazza: «Giulia di Barolo, born Juliette Colbert among the glories of the French nobility, could have limited itself to shining in the European salons. The book will be Presented in Turin at the Edit bookshop on 16 May at 5.30 pm (as part of the initiatives of the Turin Book Fair, Salone Off) and on May 21 at the Luxemburg bookshop, at 5.30 pm; in Novara, on May 17th at 6pm, Ubik bookshop; in Alessandria, on May 23 at 5 pm, Ubik bookshop; in Sesto San Giovanni, on June 12th at 6pm, family library; At the Lodi Festival, on June 13th at 7pm, Piazza della Vittoria.

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