[1] In 1871 Goretti's future father, Torello Ancillotti (1843–1899) married her mother Marianna Coriaglegno,[2] known in the family as Demetria or Memi, with whom he would have two other children, Luisa, who died aged nine, and Demetrio apart from Beatrice.

[3] Leaving his family behind in Florence, in 1877, Torello Ancillotti moved to Rouen in France where, during a liaison with the Countess of Barr, he began an intense and successful period of artistic activity as a painter, water colourist and sculptor.

Following in her father's footsteps, Goretti attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence before taking advanced classes at Giovanni Fattori's Free School of the Nude.

Before leaving Florence after she had ended the affair, she made a statement before a public notary in which she said she had, of her own free will, refused to marry Costetti and strongly denied the rumor that she had been forced into seclusion by her relatives declaring "I am an adult and no one can impose their will on me".

[9] During World War I she worked as a nurse tending the wounded and the dying; that in 1925, she became a Quaker entering the Society of Friends of London; and that, in 1932, she was a registered member of the Italian Trade Union of Women Professional Artists.