Villa Malfitano - Portrait de Tina Scalia Whitaker

Tina Whitaker (born Tina Scalia 1858–1957) was an Italian writer 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 (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

during the years leading up to the

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

. 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) Joseph Isaac Spadafora Whitaker ( ...

, 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 d ...

business in Sicily, and then diversified into other businesses. Their story is told in Raleigh Trevelyan'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 m ...

(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 ( ; ; , 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 province. The ...

over the more provincial

Marsala Marsala (, ; ) is an Italian comune located in the Province of Trapani in the westernmost part of Sicily. Marsala is the most populated town in its province and the fifth largest in Sicily.The town is famous for the docking of Giuseppe Garibal ...

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

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

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

Belle Époque The Belle Époque () or La Belle Époque () was a period of French and European history that began after the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era of the Fr ...

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, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

, the Kaiser and

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second child ...

Empress Eugenie The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother/grandmother ( empress dowager/ grand empress dowager), or a woman who rul ...

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

Irish Crown Jewels The Jewels of the Order of St Patrick, commonly called the Irish Crown Jewels, were the heavily jewelled badge and star created in 1831 for the Grand Master of the Order of St Patrick, an order of knighthood established in 1783 by George III t ...

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''. Both editions were widely and well 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