Italiano 
English Her biological as well as social and political "inferiority" is found both in the statements of erudite intellectuals of the time such as Vincenzo Gioberti: "Woman, is in a certain way toward man what the vegetable is toward the animal, or the parasitic plant toward the one that stands and sustains itself", and in artistic expressions that postpone an unrecognizable female figure when delving into the biographies of the fighters and brave patriots of the time. Risorgimento iconography portrays the woman almost always within the domestic walls waiting for letters from the battlefronts, or mourning fathers and brothers. Even in moments of collective jubilation, female figures seem out of context, suspended, surrounded by silence. "Whether young, old, bourgeois or commoner, the women stand out with their colorful stain of dress, but also by their absence of movement, as if enclosed in a bubble", writes Maria Milvia Morciano, archaeologist and art historian in "Women and the Risorgimento - The Female Condition in the Risorgimento through Art".
Women's faces define not only the role of women at that time, but the entire civil society. Morciano again describes, "The women painted in this period are mostly solid commoners, with their typical coral jewelry, simple clothes, their bare feet holding a pianella. The gaze is almost always turned downward, full of modesty. It is an image of a woman all devoted to the family and far from the action of ideas".
The soldier's farewell is another subject dear to Risorgimento iconography. We find it repeatedly depicted, as well as the grief of those waiting at home and not knowing what has become of their husband, son, brother or loved one. "Grief over the loss of loved ones in war must be lived with dignity and composure, keeping the heartbreak compressed within, because freedom and the Fatherland are worth the sacrifice and make heroes. Thus, women suffer twice, even from the pain of having to dissimulate the sorrow. Tracing, in art, evidence of women's active participation in the events and ideas of the Unification of Italy, is difficult: "Woman is always considered as 'man's rib', and even her civil and political commitment seems more the result of loving dedication than of conscious choice".
Only the proud look of some famous portraits, "betrays an indomitable temperament, accustomed to act and not to suffer". Women's patriotism is mostly represented as silent dedication or through activities to be done in the privacy of domestic walls, maybe intent on sewing flags or uniforms. "Love for the Fatherland is also and above all expressed by performing well the task of mother of the family, loving and exemplary educator".
Morciano again describes how during the Risorgimento "so-called biographical catalogs of women became fashionable, which recounted lives of saints or mothers or otherwise female figures who could serve as social role models".
In art, the national personification is no longer "the distant and inexpressive goddess, so she appears in classical iconography until the Napoleonic age, but she strips herself of her regal attributes, becomes a maiden with a proud and sad look at the same time, her hair loose, her robe uncovering one shoulder or breast". These are never real women, but personifications of the stereotypes of the time. The female figure was used to tell another story. While the flesh-and-blood women were elsewhere.
