Maria Zanini (1865-?)

Born in Turin (Piedmont, Italy) on 23 June 1865, the anarchist illegalist Maria Zanini aka Maria Milanaccio from the name of her deceased husband. Daughter of Antonio Zanini and Paolina Bourgnio. She made her living as a seamstress and cook. Settling in Paris in 1892 and 1893, she was part of an illegalist anarchist gang led by Léon Ortiz (The Ortiz Gang) in which she was probably a receiver of stolen goods. In October 1893 she moved into No 1, Boulevard Brune in the XIV arrondissement of Paris with some of the gang (Paul Chiericotti and his partner Annette Soubrié, Victorine Belloti and her son Louis) and the proceeds of their thievery were stored there. At the beginning of 1894 she took in her anarchist comrade Orsini Bertani. After the gang was broken up on 18 March 1894, she was arrested and jailed. Between 6 and 12 August 1894 she was tried along with the whole ‘Ortiz Gang’ before the high court of the Seine as part of the so-called ‘Trial of the Thirty’. Defended by Blondeau, she was cleared of the charge of ‘criminal association’, but an order was issued on 2 May 1894 for her expulsion from the country. The date and location of her death are not known.

From estelnegre website: http://www.estelnegre.org/documents/zanini/zanini.html

From same site, extract from the Parian newspaper Gil Blas 10 August 1894 during the trial:
‘Knows nothing and never as much as saw the faces of people who arrived to doss in her home.’

Image from https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/307053