MACINGHI STROZZI, ALESSANDRA
Gentlewoman, born in Florence in 1407, died there on 11 March 1471. At the age of sixteen she married Matteo Strozzi, who, exiled by the Medici in 1434, died in Pesaro the following year, leaving her five children, three of whom, still adolescents, had to go into exile with their father.
The 74 letters written by A. to Filippo and Lorenzo between 1470 and 1471 convey her maternally tender, Christianly strong figure, capable of facing adversity and sorrows “not with the spirit of a woman but of a man,” and reflect the customs of her age. Around this widow, who defends the hearth for her exiled children and will not rest until she secures their release from banishment, one glimpses the fifteenth-century world: domestic concerns and political intrigues; European exchanges and private interests; Florentine news and matters from Flanders and Catalonia, Venice and Naples, as well as the healthiest aspects of Humanism. Her letters are vivid and picturesque when describing her daughters, sons-in-law, and the young women available for the marriages of Lorenzo and Filippo; lyrical when dealing with the separation from Matteo (the youngest son) and his death in exile; witty when alluding to the Medici, the Pazzi, and the Pitti. Her prose is unadorned: “Do not look for fine writing in my letters; if I were near you, I would not write these things, but would tell you my affairs and yours and those of others face to face.” Yet in the immediacy of family life, A. impresses upon it the nobility of soul and deep faith in God.
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MACKENZIE, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF
Situated in the north-central regions of Canada, erected on 30 July 1901 by separation from the Vicariate of Athabasca-Mackenzie. Its vast extent and the rugged mountain systems traversing it, being disadvantageous to evangelization, led the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1907 to detach from Mackenzie the Yukon district, which, together with other districts dismembered from the Diocese of New Westminster, was erected into an apostolic prefecture (now the Apostolic Vicariate of Whitehorse). This curtailment was, however, compensated on 15 March 1927 by the annexation to the vicariate of the Athabasca district, hitherto belonging to Grouard.
The territory of Mackenzie is covered by forests and is little suited to cultivation because of the harsh climate. The population consists of Eskimos and Indians, who live respectively along the shores of the ancient glacial ocean and in the southern part of the territory, engaged in fishing and hunting, the only means of subsistence. The whites, scattered throughout, are employed in gold mines and in air and river services. At present an attempt is being made to organize agriculture in the western zone, promoted by the missionaries and supported by the government, which is also setting up modern sanatoria to prevent and treat tuberculosis, which is claiming many victims among Indians and Eskimos. There are no large centers in the vicariate. The population numbers about 14,000, of whom 8,202 are Catholic and the rest Protestant and pagan. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate are responsible for evangelization. Today the problem of distance has been happily resolved by aviation, placed directly at the service of the missionaries. According to 1950 statistical data, there are 60 priests, 48 lay brothers, and 96 sisters. There are 11 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, and 4 vocational schools; 16 dispensaries, 8 hospitals with 800 beds, and 4 orphanages with 11 places.