Farnsworth, Edith

Chicago physician and translator of Italian poetry.

Raised in Chicago and Winnetka, and educated at the University of Chicago and the American Conservatory of Music, Farnsworth after a sojourn in Italy entered medical school at Northwestern University. Specializing in diseases of the kidney, she practised and engaged in research at the Passavant Hospital in Chicago. In the late 1940's she commissioned Mies van der Rohe to design and build her a weekend retreat, now known as the Farnsworth House, in Plano, Illinois. Farnsworth retired to Italy in the late 1960's and devoted herself to translating the works of modern Italian poets and publishing three volumes of the poetry of Eugenio Montale, Albino Pierro, and Salvaltore Quasimodo.

...