Maria Velleda Farnè, the first woman to graduate at the University of Turin

Abstract

On 18 November 2022, the University of Turin dedicated a marble portrait to the first woman to graduate in Turin, Maria Velleda Farnè. She was born in Bologna in 1852 and migrated to Piedmont with her family in 1864. Farnè received her education in Turin, where graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 1878, then moved to Rome after being appointed honorary physician to Queen Margaret of Savoy in 1881. She spent the rest of her short life in the capital and towards the end of the 1800s her health declined. She died in November 1905 at the home of relatives, a summer residence in the hills not far from Turin.