Letizia Battaglia
Italian photographer and photojournalist (1935–2022)
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Key Takeaways
- Letizia Battaglia ( Italian pronunciation: [leˈtittsja batˈtaʎʎa] ; 5 March 1935 – 13 April 2022) was an Italian photographer and photojournalist.
- A documentary film based on her life, Shooting the Mafia , was released in 2019.
- At the age of 14, her father became irate when she took interest in a boy, and sent her away to boarding school.
- So at 16, she married Franco Stagnitta, who owned his own coffee business and came from a good family.
- Unhappy in her marriage, she eventually took another lover, though her husband shot at her when he found out.
Letizia Battaglia (Italian pronunciation: [leˈtittsja batˈtaʎʎa]; 5 March 1935 – 13 April 2022) was an Italian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia.
A documentary film based on her life, Shooting the Mafia, was released in 2019.
Early life
Battaglia was born in Palermo, Sicily. At the age of 14, her father became irate when she took interest in a boy, and sent her away to boarding school. Battaglia wanted to escape and had ambitions to write. So at 16, she married Franco Stagnitta, who owned his own coffee business and came from a good family. She believed he would allow her to continue her studies, but he wanted her to be a conventional stay-at-home wife, so her writing ambition was somewhat thwarted.
Unhappy in her marriage, she eventually took another lover, though her husband shot at her when he found out. She took their daughters and moved to Milan.
Work
Battaglia took up photojournalism after her divorce in 1971, while raising three daughters. She picked up a camera when she found that she could better sell her articles if they were accompanied by photographs and slowly discovered a passion for photography. In 1974, after a period in Milan during which she met her long-time partner Franco Zecchin, she returned to Sicily to work for the left-wing L'Ora newspaper in Palermo until it was forced to close in 1992.
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