The story of Ida Ascoli Bonfiglioli begins far from Ferrara, in Graz, Austria, where she was born in 1906. The daughter of Berta Kohn, a Jewish domestic worker, Ida was adopted by Isa Magrini—of a wealthy Ferrarese family—and Giulio Ascoli, a physician from Trieste. Raised among books and affection, Ida grew up in a world of culture and opportunity.
After studies in Strasbourg and Brighton, she married Renzo Bonfiglioli, also from a respected Jewish family, and in the 1930s they bought an elegant house at Via Palestro 70.
The Tuesdays on Via Palestro
That house became one of the liveliest cultural salons of Ferrara. Every Tuesday, Ida opened her doors to musicians, writers, and scholars. The “Tuesdays on Via Palestro” mixed classical music, social debate, and charity: art as solidarity. She also chaired the Italian Jewish Women’s Association of Ferrara, promoting education and cultural dialogue.
When the racial laws struck, she was unprepared to believe such horror possible. Her husband was arrested for his antifascist stance; the synagogue was vandalized. Ida photographed the ruins before fleeing with her children—first to Tuscany, then to Geneva.
Return and Rebirth
After the war, the family returned to find the palace looted; it had served as headquarters for the German troops. Ida reopened it to life. For decades, it remained a meeting place for culture and civic engagement.
Even after many friends emigrated to Israel or Milan, Ida chose to stay. She died in Ferrara in 2011, at 105 years old, in the same city she had filled with music and hope. Her house, today transformed into a hotel, still hides behind its restored façade the echo of those Tuesdays—a home where art and resistance once spoke the same language.
Le Case di Micòl is a project funded by the CERV – Remembrance 2022 call and coordinated by Ferrara La Città del Cinema. Partners include: Prague Film School, Warsaw Film School, ACT (Belgium), Blow-Up Film and TV Academy (Italy), Fondazione per il centro studi ‘Città di Orvieto’, Fondazione Giorgio Bassani, MEIS – National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, Institute of Contemporary History of Ferrara, and Luigi Einaudi Upper Secondary School of Ferrara