Virginia Tango Piatti | |
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 Tango Piatti in 1925 | |
| Born | Virginia Sofia Cristina Emilia Maria Tango 21 September 1869 |
| Died | 1 July 1958 (aged 88) Lugano, Switzerland |
| Other names | Virginia Piatti-Tango |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1905–1952 |
| Spouse | |
Virginia Tango Piatti (pen name Agar; 21 September 1869 – 1 July 1958) was an Italian writer, pacifist, anti-fascist, and women's rights activist. Born in Florence, the family settled in Rome in 1897, where she was briefly schooled by nuns. She moved to Milan in 1904 to help with the education of her sister's children and met the painter Antonio Piatti, whom she married in 1905. Although she had begun writing around the time of her marriage, it became her livelihood in 1911, when she separated from her husband. She adopted the pen name Agar at that time, publishing poems, children's stories and articles about pacifism in various journals. Her outspokenness against fascism led to her registration as a subversive and her self-exile to Paris.
From 1920, Tango Piatti was involved in the activities of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the leader of the Florence branch of the organization. She attended the 1921 WILPF Congress in Vienna and the 1924 Congress held in Washington, D.C. Although selected as a delegate for the 1926 Dublin Congress and for a workshop held that year in Bourneville, France, she was unable to secure travel documents. Her passport was confiscated in 1927, preventing her from attending the 1929 Prague Congress. In 1933, she fled to Paris, using a ruse that she was going there to organize an exhibition of her husband's paintings. Because he was a strong supporter of the fascist regime and they had not legally separated, she was granted a visa. In Paris, her apartment became the center of the anti-fascist group Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Freedom). In 1939, she returned for a brief visit to Italy, but was unable to leave the country and return to France. She was arrested in 1943 for anti-fascist actions and imprisoned in Florence for several months. When the war ended, she settled in Lugano, Switzerland, where she died in 1958. In the 21st century, scholarship has recovered the role of pacifist feminists in promoting internationalism and opposing fascism in the period between the World Wars.