Welcome!

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Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt in a blue velvet and satin “Electric Light” ball gown, 1883.

My name is Catrina Bellucci-DiLizia and I am a student at Mount Holyoke college. In this website, I present my semester long research on the subject of illumination in the nineteenth and twentieth century as my final project for the course titled “Gendering Material Culture.”

Throughout the site I analyze lighting objects from both the Skinner Museum and also some from my own house. In addition, this project surveys the appearance (or lack thereof) of objects of illumination in Italian literature from the nineteenth and twentieth century. Such works include Un Matrimonio in Provincia by La Marchesa Colombi,  Il Piacere by Gabriele D’Annunzio,  La Virtú di Checchina by Matilde Serao,  Le Sorelle Materassi by Aldo Palazzeschi and two works by Jolanda,  Le tre Marie and La Perla.