Kuki Gallmann an Italian- Kenyan incredible Woman

Kuki Gallmann is known for her books about her life in Africa but all starts in Italy. In fact Maria Boccazzi was born in Venice in 1943 and when she was more than twenty years old became a mother of a child, Emanuele, while her former husband decided to remarried and move to the United States.

Mary's life changes one evening when after a dinner with friends has a car accident. She is rescued and brought to the hospital where she will meet Paolo Gallmann. The two fall in love and get married and decide to realize a dream that they have in common. Maria in fact is the daughter of a well-known doctor, explorer and archaeologist from Treviso  and Paolo is an agronomist and their dream is to live in Africa. So in the early 1970s they buy a whole ranch in Kenya where they can shaped their dream.

The new couple, with the little son of Maria, Emanuele, move  to Kenya where their new life begins. The beginnings are not easy because Mary is often alone for long periods while her husband is busy in activities that take him away for a long time. Meanwhile, little Emanuele grew up and was sent to study at a College: life after the first difficulties finds its settling in this wild and uncontaminated nature.

One day, however, the tranquility of Maria, naturalized kenyan by the name of Kuki Gallmann, is disrupted by the news of the death of her husband Paolo who died in a road accident on a Mumbasa  street. Kuki is pregnant and five months after the terrible event, a girl baby named Sveva is born. Meanwhile, Kuki's first son, Emanuele returns to live with his mother in Kenya where he had spent much of his childhood, sharing his Mother's enthusiasm and naturalistic initiatives.

Unfortunately, however, a few years after the loss of her husband, Kuki loses also her son. Emanuele in fact trying to extract the poison from a snake to create an antidote is bitten and killed by poison. Despite the pain Kuki accepts the death of her son as a natural fact related to the African life and so decides not to leave but to remain in her country.

In memory of her son and husband, who disappeared shortly from one another, Kuki creates an organization, the Gallmann Memorial Foundation,  dedicated to environmental protection that sees in her vast ranch a shelter for fauna and local flora where are housed numerous scholars, biologists, zoologists... In a short time her initiative is well-known internationally, but also to local crime and to poachers as well, she herself in fact struggles the exploitation of animals hosting and protecting those rape and exploited species such as elephants, black rhinos and buffalos.

But her center is a reference point for the local population as well because Kuki creates within its project also initiatives to rediscovery and hand down  the local traditions such as the wool or the wood processing and the traditional herbal medicine.

For more than forty years Kuki has been pushing forward her loving project for Africa from which she has received many good but also bad emotions, the last one exactly Sunday April 23rd when she was the victim of an ambush in her ranch. In her usual perlustration, Kuki has came down to check the road that had been interrupted by a tree but was shot in the stomach. Imediatelly she was transported to the hospital where she received the first care for being transported by an helicopter to Nairobi where she is taken care of by her daughter Sveva.

The incident is attributed to the shepherd tribes who, due to drought, invade private properties to look for feed to their animals, in fact for this reason unfortunately there are frequent private property infringements.

Kuki, despite being in serious condition, reports that doesn't want to leave the country despite the situation has become very dangerous for a long time. Her daughter, a few days after the accident, says that her 73-year-old mother is stable but in slow improvement because she has the strength of that Nature that she has been protecting for years and which is now protecting her in exchange.

Kiki's life has been descrived by herself in many autobiographical books including "I dreamed of Africa" ​​from which in the 2000 was based the movie starred by Kim Basinger. This movie contributed to the fame of Kuki also to the  International audience, making her the "lady of Kenya" ​​as well as the beloved Karen Blixen.

In this interview to the Kenyan tv Kuki herself tells us her story and mission, just a few months before the shooting: 

Books:

1991 "I dreamed of Africa"

1994 "African Nights"

1995 "The colour of the Wind"

1998 "Night of the Lions"

2001 "Elephants in the Garden"

Gender Pay Day

On 31st March is the Gender Pay Day and OG Gender Opportunity would like to share its article about Gender Pay Gap in Female Soccer that since one year ago was in NoiDonne blog. It is just a year ago but the things are the same.

Although the title refers to Female Sport, this article is  a general and international analysis that moves from USA Female Soccer to the Gender Pay Gap in many EU countries, extra EU Countries and USA.

The Female Football is affected by gender pay-gap

It's time for football European market and inevitably also of digits, but it is go unnoticed that the United States Women's national soccer team won the World Cup and earned a digit millionaire well below than that one received by their fellow men ...

by Silvia S. G. Palandri

In time of the European Football Championship, of soccer market and of numbers and figures, it did not find space, between the networks of national teams, the news that the U.S. Women's national soccer team scored a Bill  through the US Senate which requires equal pay with its male colleagues.

The United States Women's national football team has won the World Cup and for this  has gained an award of $2 million but its colleagues of the German Male National team which  won the same victory in 2014 gained $30 million...everyone can see the glaring disparity that led the Women's national soccer team to protest openly to this treatment of blatant Inequality. The players themselves have estimated to earn as much as 25 percent less than their colleagues.

Senator Patty Murray has thus decided to support their protest and with twenty other senators filed a resolution which has been widely approved. However, the resolution has no legal effect but only a value of public pressure on the Government of football so much that another Senator, Patrick Lealhy, thought to present directly to FIFA another petition but was harshly opposed retaining other issues more urgent and necessary  for the country.

This resolution is not the only proposal on wage equity to lie forgotten, in fact, even the "Fainess Paycheck Act" that would offer further guarantees at a federal level to the equal pay, and that would update the "Equal Pay Act of 1963, is now still in the USA Senate so that  "the Kennedy-era law " is still in force.

The only law recently approved the wage equity was that of 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed by President Obama at the beginning of his first term. With this Bill one wanted to mark the existent disequilibrium between male and female salaries trying to enshrine in law the equal pay for equal job.
This law bearing the name of an American citizen, Lilly Ledbetter, who once retired realized to perceive less than 40% compared to her colleagues and that after a legal battle against her former company did not see recognized her instances, losing the case.

It was perhaps to avoid this surprise that in Germany, where women earn 22 percent less than their colleagues, that the family,youth and for women Minister, Manuela Schwesig presented last year a preliminary bill to solve the pay-gap that should have given its effects already in 2016 if it had not run aground in Parliament opposed by many criticisms of both economic viability for companies both for the consequent fear for female employment levels; for someone in fact this equality would discourage businesses in hiring women.

This law furthermore proposes the online publication of the salaries as an instrument of guarantee of equal pay by category so that everyone can compare and verify the adequacy of their remuneration.

In the rest of Europe the situation for women is just as little profitable saw the average pay gap which amounted to 16.4% and where in Spain a women earn 17% less than men , the 15% less in France and receive a paycheck 20% lighter than men in Hungary, 30% in Finland and 19,4% in Estonia, and a  23.4% less in Austria.

The situation in countries that are outside the European Union such as Switzerland is also similar in fact in February the campaign "Equal Pay Day"  triggered with the intent to re-enter the legislative planning for the three-year period 2016-2019, the law for wage equity that is required by the art. 8 of the Constitution and that instead the National Council has excerpted from the legislative programme.
The law for equal pay between men and women envisaged concrete measures that, according to the promoters of the campaign, would allow to overcome the imbalances in pay that in Switzerland stands at 18.4%.

In Italy the situation is no different from the rest of Europe if the estimated percentage of female wages, calculated for work hours, according to a study by the European Union amounted to 6.7% less than men's wages.

And in football? Football and all Italian sports are adjusted by CONI and Federations which did not change the rules for which women's sports are ousted from the professionalism in accordance with a law of 1981, the n.91 of March 23, which defines the requirements of the professional athlete, all of whom are exclusive matters of the Federations. So that Women are and remain  "amateurs".

The National Association of Female athletes, ASSIST, at its annual meeting, held at the national level, wanted to make note of this blatant situation of inequality and discrimination that affects women not only in economic terms but which affects also the level of social status and of performance evaluation.The protest of the athletes has been implemented by the bill n. 1996 in 2015 by the will of the Vice-President of the Senato Chamber Valeria Fedeli (-Minister of Education and University nowadays-) and Senator Josefa Idem and that draws to full professional recognition of the Italian Women athletes.

The bill, "Amendments to the Act 23 March 1981 n. 91 for the promotion of gender balance in the relationships between professional clubs and sports", was presented in July last year and after the reading in the Senate Chamber of the Republic, followed by the presentation, is still awaiting to the hearing.

The FIGC, the Italian Football Federation, for its part is trying a rehabilitation of the role of women's skills. In fact, the women's football clubs are under the National Amateur League, LDN, but for the 2015-2016 season the professional clubs of Men of Level A and B are required to ration at least 20 girls under 21  years old to increase the possibility that women can compete in various categories depending on age.

It was also given the opportunity to sell the sports title to entice professional clubs to be interested in women's football even in the most advanced levels.

These measures were planned under the Planning Guidelines for the Development of Women's Football. Meanwhile, perhaps thanks to these decisions, as a first effect, there was a sponsorship deal for a woman midfielder, Aurora Galli, with a famous brand of Italian shoes and sports products that for the first time has chosen to sponsor a woman footballer .

A favorable assists by the FIGC to the Italian Women soccer that should give its results in time but that can also lead to win the most important game: the equality in every field both economic and professional.

| 27 Giugno 2016

The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's Day March 8th in Italy

Today 8th March in Italy was held the event which affected the whole World and which involved Women internationally. After years this day has become a collective meeting around the World of all Women who have recalled the achievements got but most of all they want to demonstrate and make their voices heard on many needs that the status of Women want to reach. An event that worldwide saw each Country take part with its own specificities: The Global Women's Strike on the International Women's day.

In Italy there are many events that every city has organized to call for unity and action their own female citizen, the more experienced, the less experienced, the young, the baby girls from Mantova to Bologna from Milan to Rome and Naples.

This year it is chosen to celebrate this day in a collective way, after so many years since the claims of the '70s, Women will be in the streets to shout that things do not go well for Women in Economy against the gender gap moreover there are also categories like Sports in which female professionalism is not recognized at all.
In home-care that is not recognized and therefore not paid but that makes go around the entire system of the Country, and the domestic violence: a Woman is killed every two days by her husband, partner, boyfriend or father. 
Futhermore in the health level Women have difficult procedures for a free abortion, there were also controversy on fertility and about the access to medical procreation.
In Education  Italian Women have no place in Literature, History, Art and even in the institutional as in everyday life speech but so also in Toponym of the public space as roads or squares and in the Mass Media.

An image from the Italian blog of OG
with quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft,
Simone de Beauvoir and Olympe de Gouges
with Mimosa emblema of the Italian Women's Day

In particular, it was decided to march today in favor of all those Women who have suffered and suffer violence because one really do something in Italy for this which has now been called a social phenomenon, with the name of "femicide" and which is unfortunately accompanied by appalling figures of crimes that see Women brutally killed.
Italian Women will ask a real Law to protect and give concrete help to many Women who every day suffer violence within their domestic walls without anybody knows it.

The same omen had the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in his institutional speech he discussed about Peace and pointed out that the presence of Women can make a difference to this condition that is necessary for humanity to progress and that only a law about violence against Women can give a tool  to denounce and achieve freedom also for children involved in acts of violence .

The Law under discussion in Parliament in fact is responsible for the first time to give assistance to abused Women and also to their children who are often witnesses and victims of violence themselves.

The march is promoted by NONUNADIMENO  ( not one less) a Women's network that began to denounce the social phenomenon of violence against Women, embracing the Women's March and even the global strike of Women in both the public and private sectors with the slogan: 'if our lives don’t count then we strike'.

Credits: Image used under license from Freestock.com

And so in agreement with the major national Unions today has been declared the  24-hour  national strike even of the public transport to allow Women and those who want to join the strike even if there has been episodes of deterrence by the smaller Unions that do not have joined the strike.

Many are then the cultural initiatives today all Women in fact will be admitted free of charge in all National Museums throughout Italy and many events are organized in honor of famous and important Women for the Italian History but not only: readings, exhibitions, book presentations , archaeological trails all in the name of Women.

The controversy over the Mimosa, that is all an Italian matter, the flower that is the emblem of the Italian"Women's Day", because once it was natural in the streets and now instead has become a business for florists, and which was chosen by the Italian Parliamentary Teresa Mattei in 1946, remained on the corner compared to the global scope of the event that has seen after thirty years Women to return to the streets all united against violence against women, for new social, political and cultural Rights. Everyone for the occasion dressed in fuchsia and black instead of red as their American or English collegues.

"Tremble tremble, the Witches are back!"* With or without Mimosa ...

_____________________

* This is one of the most famous slogan of the Italian Femminist of the 70’s

Women patron of Art

Luciana Gentilini,
wife of one of the greatest painter of the XX century,
 continues to protect and promoting the Art of his husband

Traces of Women who were Patron of Art in History, especially in the ancient and modern period, did not  remained except of the few privileged such as Isabella d'Este, Caterina de' Medici, Lucrezia Borgia, Isabella Gonzaga before or Catherine II and Felicita Bevilacqua later.

Yet examples of Women even in more modern times that have enhanced the Art in its forms there have been important both for the culture of their country and for the entire human heritage. The best known, perhaps, Peggy Guggenheim who with her love for Art and the novelty has managed to collect works of Art even before they were retained Art! She in fact  discovered and exploited the unknown artist  Pollock making him a listed and requested artist by collectors and Museums around the world. Even more did Johanna Van Gogh, in fact not many people know that  the fame and reputation of one of the most important and valued Artists of our time, Vincent Van Gogh, due all this to his sister in law.

Once Johanna become a widow, inheriting all the collection from her husband Theo, realized the talent of Vincent and began to promote it. Back in the Netherlands when her husband was already very ill, to his death opened a guess-house where she have the idea to expose all the canvas of her brother in law, Vincent. It was already a first step to make them known, but it was not enough ...She began to read the letters that the two brothers had written over time and taking the suggestions that Vincent himself gave to Theo: few exhibitions and sell only the necessary. The first results will come soon,  Maus offers a first exhibition in Brussels where, however, the pictures of Vincent were cut off without mercy.  

Isabella d'Este one
of the most important Patron of her time.
Paint by Titian (1534).
Credit: WikiCommons

But Johanna did not give up and look for new opportunities: small galleries, art critics open to the new, small exhibitions, new artistic friendships and so little by little, inspired by a sentence read in a feminist newspaper according to which it is necessary to seek a success but a long lasting success rather a quick but fleeting one, Johanna is not discouraged and therefore, hand in hand, exhibitions multiply, reviews vivify, and Museums called so at the end the Art of Vincent Van Gogh was imposed to the World.

A similar story is one that sees more than three decades of the work of recovery, archiving, preservation and exhibition of the works by Franco Gentilini by his wife Luciana. Her latest initiative is the exhibition which took place in Pontassieve, near Florence, entitled "Franco Gentilini- works of Luciana Gentilini's collection" which was in show until early March.

One can relieve some analogies with the story of  Johanna Van Gogh, but this is true only in the commitment and art promotional success of their loved ones, but the similarities end there, because when Franco Gentilini, one of the most important Italian artist of the '900, disappeared he was already an artist well known and appreciated in Italy and abroad of world famous, quoted.
 It will be exactely his art that will bring Luciana in life after losing her husband: "the agony of his death stole my mind. (...) Inertia and silence. Endless days until nightfall, endless nights waiting for it overlooked the new day ... 'severe depression' is the medical term "[1]. The request to organize an exhibition in memory of her husband, however, showed her the right way: "From that moment the uncontrollable inertia that had gripped me for so many months turned into an equally uncontrollable frenetic activity, which does not it is more arrested "[2]. And actually Luciana Gentilini since 1984 has organized over one hundred exhibitions in Italy and abroad, travelling from Venice to Brussels from Marrakech to Budapest, from Paris to Cairo, from Turin to Halle ... and not only to organize exhibitions but also to protect her husband's work against counterfeiters who now fear her like a ghost in the night because she force them to cut themselves with strong scissors the incriminating canvans!
In recent years she has then recovered, thanks to a grueling thirty-year work, the precious artistic work of the Maestro Gentilini even from his earliest youth work, organized it in the "Luciana Guintoli Gentilini Fund" and conveyed successively in the "Gentilini Archive" which also collects correspondence and biographical documents from the 30s to the 80s' of the XX century, and finally donated to the Quadriennale of Rome and declared in 2013 by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage "of particularly important historical interest"[3].

Stories of Women involved in the Art of their loved ones who have found their realization no longer as artistic subjects but as advocates of an artistic memory; rare witnesses of an unprecedented journey into the History of Art.

___________________________________

[1] A. Natali, A. Bimbi, “Franco Gentilini- Opere della collezione di Luciana Gentilini”, catalogo della collezione, Ed. Polistampa, Firenze, 2016, pag. 27

[2] Idem

[3] L. Gentilini, "Continuare il Tempo", Ed. De Luca, Roma, 2013, pag. 

Sign it, sign it!

a young Italian Women glad to have vote for the first time in 1946.
Credits: mammeonline.net

We are in December and the end of the year is near so we can do a final report of the campaigns undertaken in Italy, certainly the one to elect March 10th as a national holiday to celebrate the Women's vote in 1946 is among the most significant that there was even if it is passed mostly unnoticed in the main media.

The petition, born to elect this date as "National day of Women's vote", has been thought by important Italian Women who have always dealt with these issues from different point of view such as Silvia Costa, Fiorenza Taricone, Roberta Agostini and Livia Turco President of the most important Foundation dedicated to an extraordinary Italian politician: Nilde Iotti, mother of the Italian Republic. Precisely this Foundation supported the initiative launching a petition on the well-known Change.org website.

The Petition was addressed to the President of the Italian Republic: Sergio Mattarella, to the nowadays former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, to the Minister for Equal Opportunity: Elena Maria Boschi and to the major Italian Institutions as Laura Boldrini the former Chief of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

This exact day, 10th of March, was choosen because it was right the day when for the first time the Italian Women voted and the promoters have choosen it "as emblematic moment to continue to explore the theme of civil and political rights for Men and Women".

In few days the petition got more than 400 signatures and was presented to the Italian Chamber of Deputies to be argued. Right after the Nilde Iotti Foundation organized a Conference in Mestre to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Italian vote of Women, held by the President of the Foundation, Livia Turco.

In this same period some books were pubblished that retrace that issue such as "Laws of women who have changed Italy" and "Milestones and content of legislative achievements - from the beginning of the Republic to the end of the last legislature- that have changed the lives of Women and the economic, social and cultural development of our Country ".

Unfortunately the current Italian Political situation does not leave hope that the suggestion would be considered in a short time.

Giulia who composed the Baptism of the Feminism, reach regal decorations and become “Commendatore” of the Italian Republic

A. Renoir, "At  the Theater", 1876- 1877.

She was the first and sometimes the only woman whose music compositions  were played in the most important theaters all over the world, who was produced abroad and decorated for her fine compositions even from the former and last Italian Royals, she was Giulia Recli.

She was born on 4^thDecember  1884 in Milan, her father was the “Commendatore” Luigi Recli, who was among the founders of the Ambrosiano Bank and her mother was the pianist Luisa Biancardi [1]. Her musical studies was carry on by the most important teachers of her  time  as Alessandro Bonci , her vocal coach, or as Giovanni Maria Anfossi, her piano coach, and Ildebrando Pizzetti, her composition coach.

Her first plays are from the 1910s and in 1914 the Scala of Milan commission her a composition which will become the symphonic  poem entitled “Alba dell’anima”  (The Sunrise of the Soul), in 1919 one of her tone poem, which lyrics were written by her sister Maria, poetess, was played at the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste [2].

Her symphonic poem, played at the Augustus Theatre in Rome, and directed by the magnificent Master Tullio Serafin with the Santa Cecilia’s Orchestra, was defineted by the "Giornale d’Italia"(The Newspaper of Italy) “such as a baptism of the Feminism in music” because for the first time on the theatrical table there was the name of a female composer [3]. 

In the 30’s she met and established  with the Director of the Scala Choir, Vittore Veneziani [4], a long lasting collaboration which will be interrupted only with the world war but will restart at the end of that one.

In the 50’s she was eletted Vice President of the Italian Musician Trade Union, in Italian SMI Sindacato dei Musicisti Italiani [5], and won few international awards as that one for women composers  in Basilea and that one in Trieste with Campanelle  (Little Bells) Song [6]. In the USA she won the second and First award in the New York Musical Association with the composition for piano and singing called “Villereccia Song” [7]. Her lyrics were too much appreciated in the USA and even produced by the Schirmer  right from the 30’s but were also appreciated all  over the world if they were played in the most important world’s theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Royal Albert Hall of London, the Scala in Milan, the Opera in Brema and also in the Opera in Budapest.

From 1951 to 1966 she became Principal of the Lyceum of Milan and therefore she  decided to organized classes, concerts, awards [8]  to give  talented young people the opportunity to learn and to be noticed.

In 1965 the execution of one of her composition by the Orchestra of RAI (The Italian National Television) was celebrated even by the “Bible of the Music”: Billboard [9]while in this same years, her last, she was honoured also by the Italian Republic for her artistic and philanthropic engagement as in the past years she was also decorated for her high merits for her compositions by the Italian Queen [10]. Now the Italian Republic too glorified her work with two awards, the only female composer to receved the Ordine di Commendatore of the Italian Republic [11] in the 1964 and in 1969 just one year before she died, on 19^th December 1970,  in Brivio which has founded a local band called “Giulia Recli” in her honour. 

[1] “Chi è?: Dizionario degli italiani di oggi”, FORMIGGINI A. F., Ed. Formiggini, 1928, pag. 403.

[2] “Le Lombarde in musica”, Fondazione Adkins Chiti: Donne in Musica, Colombo, 2008, pag. 136.

[3] Ivi, pag. 135.

[4] Ivi, pag. 138.

[5] Ivi, pag. 141.

[6] Ibidem.

[7] Il Carroccio- The Italian Rewiev, vol. 18, pag. 70.

[8] “Le Lombarde in musica”, Op. cit., pag. 141.

[9] “Gal Writers are honored”, Billboard”, edizione del 4 dicembre 1965, pag. 22.

[10] “Women of notes: 1000 women composers born before 1900”, LAURENCE A., Ed. R. Rosen Press, 1978 , pag. 79.

[11] “Donne in Musica”, ADKINS CHITI P., Ed. Armando, 1996, pag. 177.

Chiara by virtue, Margarita by honor that is the most important composer of the 1600 Italian scenery

Federico Moja, 1821- 1885.

Margarita Cozzolani was born in November on the 27 in 1602, in Milan. She was one of the most appreciated Italian composers of the 1600s.

Margarita was born in a rich and wealthy family of merchants and received, as a tradition, her education within the home, among the subjects given to her there was also Music which seems highly fit to her. So her artistic skills were assigned to the family Rognoni, known and respected masters of instrumental and vocal music of the era. But Margarita will see the opportunity to use her musical skills not so much in a good marital or family indoor rather in the shelter of a cloister, in fact as equally of a custom of the time, preceded by aunts and a sister, Margarita will be a Benedictine in the convent of St. Radegonda, near the Duomo of Milan, in 1620, at the age of eighteen, and will be consecrated with the name, she has chose, of Chiara.

This new condition of nun, however, does not inhibit her to use her talents as part of her monastic experience, moreover, it is not known with certainty the value of her vocation which then can not be denied in advance. In her convent, Sister Chiara then endeavored to work of Music, reorganizing Singings, Psalms, Vespers of the Eucharistic celebration with such sophistication and complexity to be able to attract whole crowds to the Convent to attend the executions of those nuns defined by a contemporary "[...] under the black spoils seem to the listener, candid, harmonious swans, that, fill the hearts of surprise, and kidnap their languages of encomiums".  [1]

In fact, the fame of her skills and ability as a composer earned her the opportunity to publish four works that are not unfortunately  entirely all came down to us.

"Visit of the Cardinal", by Salvatore Frangiamore, 1853.

The peculiarity of her arrangements was that her works had three metrics for as many choruses that melted with the symphony and the verses in double or triple time; Cozzolani's scoring establishes three sets of paired parts: two violins, two sopranos, two tenors and  basso continuo. [2]

Her musical works nevertheless convey between the period of 1640 to 1650 because  Sister Chiara was elected Abbess of Santa Radegonda and prefered focused on the commitments and responsibilities of her new charge so or to avoid to her Convent unpleasant situations or to meet the Cardinal Alfonso Litta's wishes who  hoped moderation of the use of Music in Churches, her activity was interrupted.

Sister Chiara, Maragarita, Cozzolani, died, in the Convent, presumably between 1676 and 1678.

Her and the luster that her music led to her Convent, remains in a panegyric of Filippo Picinelli in his  work , entitled "University of Literati Milanesi" in 1670 in which he writes:

"The nuns of St. Radegonda of Milan, in the possession of the music are equipped of such exquisiteness so rare, that are recognized for the first singers of Italy. [...]. Among that religious ones, deserves the most highest merits Donna Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, named Chiara thanks to virtue; and Margarita, for the nobility of talent, rare, and excellent honor, who if in the year 1620 wore that  sacred dress, she succeeded in the exercise of music such a big success that from 1640 up to 1650 has sent to the press, four works of music".

Works:

• Primavera di fiori musicali a 1. 2 . 3. 4. voci,dedicata all’Eminentissimo Cardinal Monti Arcivescovo di Milano, Milano, 1640, perduta;          
  "Spring of musical Flowers in 1.2.3.4. voices, dedicated to the Cardinal Monti Archbishop of Milan, Milan, 1640, Lost;
• Mottetti a 1. 2. 3. e 4 voci al Serenissimo Principe Mathias di Toscana, Venezia, 1642;
  Motets at 1.2.3.4. voices to his Eminence Prince Mathias of Tuscany, Venice, 1642;
• Scherzi di Sacra Melodia, Venezia, 1648;  perduto;        Jokes of sacred melody, Venice, 1648, Lost;
• Salmi à otto voci concertati con Mottetti et dialoghi a 1. 2. 3.4.e 5. voci all’Illustrissimo Monsignor Badoaro Vescovo di Cremona, Venezia, 1650.                    
  Psalms in eight voices with concerted motets and dialogues in 1. 2. 3.4.5 voices to the Illustrious Monsignor Badoaro Bishop of Cremona, Venice, 165

[1] PICCINELLI F., “Ateneo dei Letterati Milenesi”, Ed. F. Vigone, 1670.

[2] KURTZMAN J., a cura di, “Vesper and Compline Music for Four Principal Voices:Agostino Agazzari, Giovanni Francesco Anerio, Giovanni Battista Biondi da Cesena, Maurizio Cazzati, Antonio Cifra, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, Bonifazio Graziani, Giovanni Legrenzi, Isabella Leonarda, Tarquinio Merula, Lodovico Viadana”, Ed. Routledge, 2014.