Benedetta Barzini

Benedetta Barzini (born September 22, 1943, in Porto Santo Stefano^[1]) is an Italian actress and model, daughter of Italian journalist and author Luigi Barzini, Jr. and his first wife, heiress Giannalisa Feltrinelli. As such she is the stepsister of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the Italian publisher and left-wing political activist.^[2]

Discovered on the streets by Consuelo Crespi in 1963, Diana Vreeland soon spotted her potential as a model and arranged a photo shoot with Irving Penn, which established her successful fashion career in New York City.^[1] She also worked with other notable fashion photographers such as Ugo Mulas and Richard Avedon. Barzini appeared on the cover of the first issue of Vogue Italia in November 1965.^[1] In December 1966, she was named one of the "100 Great Beauties of the World" by the American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. That same year, Barzini became involved with, and later engaged to, New York poet and media artist Gerard Malanga, an early collaborator of Andy Warhol.^[2] Malanga's black-and-white film In Search of the Miraculous (1967) is an emotional, vivid poem of adoration for Barzini.

Barzini started hanging out at Warhol's Factory and was headed for the top rank of New York models, but decided to return to Italy in 1968 to act.^[1] She met Italian film director Roberto Faenza, and they married in 1969. On the night she gave birth to twins, Nini and Giacomo, Faenza left her.^[2] She later remarried with graphic designer Antonio Barrese and had two other children.^[3]

In 1973 she left the modeling business to become a Marxist and radical feminist organizer in Milan^[2] and joined the Italian Communist Party.^[3]

As of 2008, she is teaching in Milan and at the University of Urbino.

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