Ritratto fotografico di Eleonora Duse, del 1896, fotografata da Aimé Dupont (all'epoca fotografo ufficiale del Metropolitan Opera di New York).

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Photographic portrait of Eleonora Duse, 1896, photographed by Aimé Dupont (official photographer of the New York Metropolitan Opera at the time).

Probably the most important Italian theatre actress of the late 19th and early 20th century, and an undisputed symbol of modern theatre. For this she was nicknamed Divina.

She is known to many as the passionate and at the same time devastating love story with Gabriele D'Annunzio of whom she said, shortly before her death: 'I forgive him for having exploited me, ruined me, humiliated me. I forgive him everything, because I have loved'.

She was born in Vigevano (Pavia), on 3 October 1858, into a family of wandering actors from Chioggia and, due to the nomadic nature of her parents' theatre company, received no education. A child of the art, she made her debut at a very young age (four years old) playing the role of Cosetta in a reduction of Victor Hugo's The Miserables staged in Chioggia.At the age of 12, she played her first starring role: she played Francesca da Rimini by Silvio Pellico, standing in for her ailing mother. Engaged permanently in the Compagnia Pezzana-Brunetti from 1878, she achieved her first great succ

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