Laura Solera Mantegazza

[6] Very cultured woman, Solera taught her children to read and write, the basics of Latin, French, English, and German and, to help her son Paolo to cultivate his passions, she studied ancient Greek and Chemistry.

[8] She remained at the side of her husband and older son Paolo, volunteers in the Milanese troops, helping the insurgents in the barricades of Milan,[6] embodying the prototype of the "patriot mother".

[9] Solera gave these attributes also to the protagonist of the ode, La madre lombarda nel 23 marzo 1848, she wrote and sold door-to-door at the end of the Five Days of Milan, to collect money for the wounded.

[6] The difficulties dictated by gender identity and the simoltaneous failure of the revolution with the Salasco's armistice which led to the return of the Austrians to Milan, brought Solera to refocus her patriotism towards philanthropy.

A school was opened to offered literacy courses to the workers, but its main aim remained the promotion of the model of national motherhood, based on breastfeeding and the campaign against the exposure of legitimate children.

[17] This, along with the different cultural climate compared to 1848, led, at the end of the 1960s, to a challenging of Solera's vision by her disciples, like Giulia Sacchi, whose interest was no longer towards the education of "good mothers", but to the claiming of women's rights.

Although it continues to be operational today, initially it did not have the same success as the first two institutions founded by Solera, partly because of the absence of the philanthropist whose health conditions led to her retire to the family villa in Cannero Rivera.

[20] Solera's work was carried on by her daughter Costanza and her collaborators, in particular Alessandrina Ravizza, who opened new Pio Institut locations in Milan and in other Lombardy's cities, some of which are still operational today.