Anna Chiappe

Anna Chiappe Iacomini was born in Lucca on July 26, 1898. She was the wife of José Carlos Mariátegui. Daughter of Domenico Chiappe and Iacopa Iacomini. Domenico Chiappe was a coffee merchant and for this reason he traveled frequently to Brazil. In Lucca, she spent his early years and studied elementary studies, which continued in Siena, from where he went to Florence for high school studies^[1].

Single daughter (she had an older brother of the father's first marriage), she lost her mother when she was 12 years old and her father when she was 16 years old, being left to the care of a paternal uncle, who was consulted when, after a decisive encounter Florentine, Anna chose to join in marriage with José Carlos Mariátegui. They lived in Rome where their first child, Sandro Mariátegui Chiappe, was born in Via della Scrofa, 10, where today a plaque is erected.^[2]

On February 11, 1923, they traveled to Peru, from the port of Antwerp (Belgium), on the "Negada" steamer, arriving at the port of Callao on March 17, 1923^[3]. If not for the care and, above all, for the decision of Anna, José Carlos would not have survived the crisis of 1924 where he lost his right leg. Mariátegui's convalescence was long but with the emotional support of Anna Chiappe she regained her vitality and her extraordinary intellectual capacity, resuming her intellectual and political tasks with more energy. After a season in "Leuro", Miraflores area somewhat distant from the sea, José Carlos and his family settled in the Casa de Washington in Lima, mid-1925^[4]. The poem dedicated by José Carlos Mariátegui is known, entitled "The life you gave me" ^[5]

When Mariátegui passed away in April 1930, Anna Chiappe collected her emotional reserves and imposed three essential tasks: first, the subsistence of her four children's adequate standard of living (health, food, education, housing) that had been left in the orphanage; second, the living maintenance of the memory, ideario and emotional, and the exemplary figure of the Amauta, its superior ethos; and third, the preservation of their writings and archives to give them to the stamp as soon as the conditions permit, and to give it great diffusion. All his personal project was relegated to the fulfilment of these goals.

In recognition of his work as a promoter of the work of Mariátegui, in 1975 he was awarded the Order "The Sun of Peru" in the Officer's Degree in a ceremony held at the Palace of Torre Tagle (Lima, October 29, 1975 , RS 0594 RE File No. 4993)^[6]. At that time he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Revolutionary Government, Miguel Angel de la Flor. On July 26, 1986, she received from the mayor of Lima, Dr. Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, the Civic Medal of the City of Lima, on his eighty-fifth anniversary, at his home in Miraflores.

Anna Chiappe died on June 16, 1990. She is compared to other women who devoted much of their lives to the dissemination of the work of their husbands, such as Ada Gobetti (1902-1968), widow of Piero Gobetti.

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