Maria Majocchi

Maria Majocchi (also spelled Maiocchi) (23 April 1864 - 8 August 1917), was an Italian writer, journalist and publisher. She wrote under several pseudonyms, often Jolanda, or more rarely Viola d'Alba or Margheritina di Cento.

Maria was born as the daughter of the musician and politician Antonio Majocchi (1831-1907), one-time mayor of Cento, and his wife Lavinia Agnoletti (1839-1911), who had a rich literary, linguistic and musical background. Maria had two sisters, Clementina Laura (known by her pseudonym Bruna) and Gabriella.

Maria was a writer, journalist, and editor. In 1882 she chose to publish using the pseudonym Jolanda, which she borrowed from a character in the opera Una Partita a Scacchi ("A Game of Chess") by Giuseppe Giacosa.

Writer

Majocchi acquired an excellent knowledge of the French language and she subscribed to the Parisian magazine Poupée modèle. At 17 years of age, Majocchi was known for translating its stories from French into Italian.

She was also a subscriber to Italian magazines and one in particular attracted her attention: it was Cordelia, created in 1881, and directed until 1884, by Angelo De Gubernatis who would become Maria's lifelong friend and collaborator. In its first issue, the editor invited his young readers to send "a little thing done there" to the editorial staff for publication. Majocchi responded immediately and, on 12 February 1882, her first poetic sketch, Il fior della ventura (The Flower of Fortune), was published under her first pseudonym Margheritina di Cento. From that time on, not yet 20 years old, she became a regular contributor to the magazine, with a fixed starting salary of 5 lire per page. Her signature appeared at the bottom of each piece.

Her first stories, which were originally published in installments, would be brought together into collections for publication in later years as single volumes: Dal mio verziere (From My Orchard), Critical essays (Rocca San Casciano, 1896) and Le Ignote (The Unknowns) (Bologna, 1899).

Married life

At about the same time, on 8 December 1884, Majocchi married the Marquis Ferdinando Plattis, a young man from Padua and she moved to San Giovanni in Persiceto. They had a son named Giovan Battista Plattis, who they called Gino. Writing to De Gubernatis, she assured him that her collaboration with Cordelia would not be interrupted because of her marriage. Ferdinando died on 5 May 1893 following a brief illness and economic difficulties forced Majocchi to intensify her writing work. She sent Gino to De Gubernatis for some time so he could continue his studies.

Until the end of the 1800s, she was a widely known author winning a succession of awards and seeing new editions and reprints of her volumes become available. She also expanded her range of collaborations with magazines and newspapers, conferences, public speeches, participation in humanitarian activities and new editorial experiences.

Editor-in-chief

Having been a collaborator with Cordelia since the first issue, Majocchi assumed the vacant position of editor-in-chief in 1911 after the death of editor Ida Baccini. She became the third person to hold that position for the magazine and she made immediate improvements in hopes of improving readership and encouraging her subscribers to become more active readers and writers.

According to Bloom, her efforts succeeded.

"The magazine, despite its success in its first years of publishing, reached a wider audience overtime during the editorship of Ida Baccini and, later, that of Maria Maiocchi Plattis, better known by her pen name, Jolanda. This later success can be attributed to the ability of these two editors to create a recognizable product as well as to the relationship that they managed to establish with their young readers."

Under Majocchi's leadership, Cordelia met with "unusual success" and by 1913, its subscriber base reached about 10,000, said Bloom.

She also took on more philanthropic roles and founded an association to collect books for prisoners. The success of that initiative spurred the formation of other associations and activities, such as making Cordelia available in braille to expand its reach to blind patrons. She was also instrumental in creating several conferences.

Death

Majocchi was actively engaged in the education of young female readers until her death in Cento, on 8th August 1917.

A street near Cento's city center is named in her honor using several of her names: Via Jolanda Maria Maiocchi Plattis.