Maria Petraccini

Maria's daughter, Zaffira Ferretti, seems to have inherited her mother's talents, for she studied Surgery at the University of Bologna, and there she also received a medical degree in May 1800.

This was a century characterized by cultural revolutions, in which new scientific and pedagogical conceptions made their way, which Ferretti tried to spread in order to give new dignity to childhood: "I abandon the ghost of prejudice and, despising vulgar sentiment, I arm myself in favor of innocent humanity[4]".

[4] Her writing was certainly influenced by her reading of Rousseau's 'Émile', and by the work of Nicolas Andry De Boisregard, dean of the Medical Faculty of Paris and founder of modern orthopedics.

She advocated breastfeeding, a custom practiced at that time only by women of low class, the aristocrats and the rich bourgeoisie keeping a wet nurse in the house specifically for this purpose, or sending the infants home to her.

[4] At a time when women played a traditional role within the family, generally following the education of children only in their earliest childhood, Maria, on the contrary, proposed an extremely modern model, which was certainly affected by the concern derived from the enormous infant mortality, which had become a real scourge.

To the newborn baby she prescribed lukewarm baths and quiet rest, comfortable clothes, or "a shirt rather large [...] so that nothing that could serve as an impediment to its small movements".

And so the author was able to conclude her manual proudly, presenting the result of a robust and slender child, hoping that her experience could be followed by other mothers to improve the quality of life of their children.