On the Threshold of Modernity: Invernizio, Negri and the Portinaia

Abstract

One of the most maligned figures of Italian popular culture, the stereotype of the portinaia is that of a nosy, aggressive — and omniscient — figure, perhaps best typified in Ettore Scola's 1972 film, Una giornata particolare, but present throughout modern Italian cultural production. The following essay conducts a study of the figure in two very different early twentieth-century works: Carolina Invernizio's turgid serial novel, La figlia della portinaia (1900) and Ada Negri's evocative memoir, Stella mattutina (1921). In both, the figure of the portinaia — along with the configuration of the space she inhabits, the portineria — becomes a threat to the boundaries of male subjectivity and at the same time a promising site for the formation of a female subject.