Villa Malfitano - Portrait de Tina Scalia Whitaker

Tina Whitaker (born Tina Scalia 1858–1957) was an Italian author and hostess. She was the daughter of General Alfonso Scalia, who landed in Sicily with

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...

during the years leading up to the

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

. She married

Joseph Whitaker Joseph Whitaker may refer to: *Joseph Whitaker (industrialist) (1789–1870), American iron master and landowner *Joseph Whitaker (naturalist) (1850–1932), English naturalist *Joseph Whitaker (ornithologist) (1850–1936), Sicilian-English ornith ...

, whose family had established a

Marsala wine Marsala is a fortified wine, dry or sweet, produced in the region surrounding the Italian city of Marsala in Sicily. Marsala first received ''Denominazione di Origine Controllata'' (DOC) status in 1969. The European Union grants Protected Desi ...

business in Sicily, and then diversified into other businesses. Their story is told in

Raleigh Trevelyan Walter Raleigh Trevelyan (6 July 1923 – 23 October 2014) was a British author, editor, and publisher and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He resided at both Shepherd Market in Mayfair, London, and in Cornwall. His Spanish partner R ...

's 1972 ''Princes Under the Volcano: Two Hundred Years of a British Dynasty in Sicily''. The couple had two daughters; the elder of whom married General

Antonio Di Giorgio Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...

(1868-1932), a Minister of War who fought in the 1st and 2nd wars in Abyssinia. Thus the family was firmly established in the upper echelons of Italian Society. Choosing to settle in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

over the more provincial

Marsala Marsala (, local ; la, Lilybaeum) is an Italian town located in the Province of Trapani in the westernmost part of Sicily. Marsala is the most populated town in its province and the fifth in Sicily. The town is famous for the docking of Gius ...

, the couple built as their family home the '' Villa Malfitano'', an

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

mansion near Zisa Castle on the Via Dante. In these years, the

Belle Époque The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...

age, the house was the venue for lavish parties attended by British and Italian royalty and celebrated European society. Tina Whitaker knew

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

, the Kaiser and

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

Empress Eugenie An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...

and Queen Mary. Attracted by homosexual company, she unwittingly found herself in a circle involved in the

Irish Crown Jewels The Jewels Belonging to the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, commonly called the Irish Crown Jewels or State Jewels of Ireland, were the heavily jewelled star and badge regalia created in 1831 for the Sovereign and Grand Master of the ...

scandal. In 1907 she published ''Sicily & England: Political and Social Reminiscences 1848-1870''. This was republished in 1948, when she was 90, under the title ''Tina Whitaker Scalia, Sicily and England. Political memories: life of Italian exiles in England (1848-1870), with a premise by

Biagio Pace Biagio Pace (Comiso, 13 November 1889 – Comiso, 28 September 1955) was an Italians, Italian archaeologist and Italian fascism, fascist politician. Biography Political Activity Teaching archaeology from 1917 at the University of Palermo, in ...

''. Both editions were widely and we'll reviewed. An earlier work, ''Love in the Sunny South'', was published with the encouragement of

Eliza Lynn Linton Eliza Lynn Linton (10 February 1822 – 14 July 1898) was the first female salaried journalist in Britain and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path-breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist s ...

. British cultural historian

Edward Chaney Edward Chaney (born 1951) is a British cultural historian. He is Professor Emeritus at Solent University and Honorary Professor at University College London (School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) – Centre for Early Modern ...

sums her up as "formidable" Her house still stands, and is open as a museum, displaying the Whitaker collections of art and natural history.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitaker, Tina 1858 births 1957 deaths 19th-century Italian women writers 20th-century Italian women writers Political hostesses Belle Époque