rizola da ferrara

Rizola was born in Ferrara, the daughter of Nicolò, a shoemaker by trade. The plague devastates her city and takes her mother when she is still a child. The journey to Carpi, together with her father and brother, marks her life: she finds herself a stranger in a town that at first does not recognize her, but that she gradually wins over through dignity and hard work.

She does not inherit her father’s trade, but in the workshop she soon learns to understand leather “as if it were a language,” transforming that knowledge into art.