The Historical Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Foreign Ministry has collaborated on an episode of Paolo Mieli’s programme Passato e Presente, titled Elisa Chimenti, the Mediterranean Intellectual. The episode will be broadcast today on Rai 3 at 1:15 p.m. and on Rai Storia at 8:30 p.m., and will also be available from tomorrow on Rai Play. The episode will feature Professor Camilla Cederna, a lecturer in Italian Literature at the University of Lille and one of the main coordinators of an international research project on Elisa Chimenti.
The guests will join Paolo Mieli to discuss the life and works of Elisa Chimenti—writer, journalist, teacher, and anthropologist. Of Italian origin but having spent most of her life in Morocco between the late 19th century and the 1960s, Chimenti devoted her life to fostering dialogue between cultures, languages, and religions. Her work, which spans various literary genres and includes a wealth of unpublished material, reflects the intercultural mosaic that characterised the city of Tangier at the time.
Viewers will have the opportunity to discover documents preserved in the Historical Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Foreign Ministry, which shed light on Chimenti’s remarkable life and her cultural, artistic, educational, and humanitarian activities. These include her role as a teacher at the Italian school she founded in Tangier in the early 20th century, her involvement in the establishment of an Arab university school, and much more. Through this, audiences will be able to explore and appreciate the intellectual and literary universe of Elisa Chimenti—Italian by birth, Mediterranean by vocation.
