It is said that behind every great man there is a great woman. For those who have studied the documentation about Enrico Catellani, it is not difficult to identify this woman who, with her discreet and refined presence, he shared his daily life with.
Carolina, called Lina Bahy, of French Alsatian origin, was born in Mulhouse on 8 March 1867. She described her youth in this city in Voce d'Alsazia, an article published in Nuova antologia di lettere scienze ed arti in 1917, in which in addition to writing about the landscape and the history of the region, she discusses the Alsatian “spirit”, gay and proud, deeply unwilling to ever bend to the German occupation.

Mulhouse city hall (source: gallica.bnf.fr / Coll. et Photogr. Bibliotheque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg)

She married Enrico Catellani in Mulhouse on 29 September 1898, following which she lived with him in Padua.
At the Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia at the University of Padova, she was part of the examination boards for awarding diplomas for teaching of the French language.
Not being of Jewish descent, she was entrusted with the assets of her husband following the application of the racial laws; for this reason, confiscation did not immediately follow the dispersal of the library which is now being reconstructed. But there was no such luck for other property belonging to the couple which was seized by the Germans. The seizure of the piano, which was Lina’s property, and which Major Von Weiss had “taken over” in 1944 along with many musical scores which he was determined to take with him on his imminent transfer, is especially poignant. Due to the overwhelming insistence by the major, the officials of the body which dealt with managing the liquidation of property met with the Prefecture of Padua, to ensure that the piano would not be forcibly taken without compensation.
She died on 4 January 1945