09/01/2026
On August 31, 1870, a baby girl was born on the first-floor apartment at Piazza Mazzini 10, the only child of Alessandro Montessori and Renilde Stoppani. They rented their modest home from the the town to***co works, where Alessandro worked.
Chiaraville was a small, growing village near Italy’s Adriatic Sea. From that first-floor home began a life whose influence would eventually reach children around the world.
We celebrate the birth of Maria Tesla Artemisia Montessori, because her birth changed our lives, too. More than a century and a half later, Dr. Montessori’s discoveries still shape how we understand the unfolding of human life. She continues to inspire the Montessori profession to which thousands of educators have devoted their lives.
The image we made for her birthday brings together two pieces of that history.
By hand, we combined the mid-20th century postcard of Piazza Mazzini in Chiaraville with a photo of Maria Montessori from the AMI archives, to place her in the landscape where her life began. This is the place in the world where she would have taken her first steps, as generations of Montessori educators hope to follow in hers.
