Maria Antonietta Avanzo [SEP] sex or gender
Maria Antonietta Avanzo
Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo (5 February 1889 – 17 January 1977) was the first Italian female racetrack driver and "the most famous Italian woman racing driver of the inter-war period". She competed in numerous events throughout her career, including racing the Mille Miglia five times. In 1921, she famously drove a twelve-cylinder Packard 299 on the beach of the island of Fanø, in Denmark. She married her husband Baron Eustachio Avanzo in 1908 with whom she had two children, Luisa in
1909 and Renzo in 1911. In her career she fought for the right to compete as a woman, and became an activist for equality for women and a symbol of early feminism.
Early life.
Maria Antonietta Avanzo (née Bellan) was born in 1889 at Contarina, now Porto Viro, near Rovigo and learned to drive on her father's De Dion-Bouton tricycle. Before the Great War she married Baron Eustachio Avanzo, with whom she later had two children, and they moved to Rome. Both her