LAUSR

Amalia Alliata di Villafranca (1881–1914) was born in Palermo from an ancient Sicilian noble family and grew up in a culturally advanced context, mostly interested in fine arts. She herself was a good talent amateur painter. An unfinished self-portrait of Amalia Alliata is reproduced in Fig. 1a. Numerous artists were habitual guests of the Alliata house, including the famous sculptor Ettore Ximenes (1855–1926), who also portrayed the teenager Amalia (Fig. 1b), and authored major monumental works in Italy, including the Bronze quadriga on Palace of Justice, Rome, and several important public monumental statues in Rome, Palermo, São Paulo, New York, Kiev and Buenos Aires. A small but visible thyroid swelling is visible in both portraits, due to a para-histmic nodule. In 1900, nothing was known about the causes of endemic goiter and only a few studies suggested the now well-established pathogenic role of iodine deficiency. Endemic goiter was considered to affect mainly countryside populations, but a few years later, it was also described in coastal areas of Sicily. A description of nodular goiter in peasants has recently been described in the Endocrinology & Art section of this journal [1, 2]. The two portraits of the Princess suggest that Amalia herself was aware of the nodule, and that thyroid swelling was not considered a shameful condition to hide, because of its widespread diffusion in all social classes and, especially, in women.