Levi Pisetzky

Rosita (1898-1985). Scholar of clothing. An intellectual of the upper Milanese bourgeoisie, she was defined “the lady of Italian costume” by Guido Lopez in an article written after her death in 1985. A self-taught historian, her life was spent studying archives, literary texts, and iconographic sources in order to publish treaties on the history of costume in Italy. Her first studies were published between 1937 and 1938 in various women’s magazines and reviews. They are still noteworthy for their accuracy on the history of lace of that period. Between 1954 and 1962, she wrote on the history of costume through the various ages for Storia di Milano (History of Milan), published by Treccani in 16 volumes. These articles were expanded and reprinted in a five-volume work by the Italian Editorial Institute with the title Storia del costume in Italia dal 1964 al 1968 (History of Costume in Italy, 1964-68). In 1978 Einaudi published Il costume e la moda nella società italiana (Costume and Fashion in Italian Society), which represented an updated description of her findings. She was the first to treat the subject seriously, studying costume as a means of communication and social document. At an advanced age she donated her own specialized library to the Bertarelli Print Collection in Milan and her collection of clothing to the Civic Collections of Applied Art in Milan, both of which are located in the Castello Sforzesco and open to the public. After her death, her wardrobe was donated by her family to the Bertarelli Collection. It is an interesting collection of handmade Milanese garments from the 1950s and 1960s.