Henrietta Tower

[1] While living in Rome, she and her husband, George Washington Wurts, created an art collection containing approximately 3,000 works[2] that was donated on her death in 1933 to Benito Mussolini.

On her father’s death in 1889, Tower inherited a vast fortune from his business ventures which included a coal mining operation in Pennsylvania and an iron production plant in Minnesota.

After her husband died in 1928 Tower gave their villa to the city of Rome on the condition that the vast garden be turned into a public park and cultural center in honor of the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

)[2] The park so dedicated was opened in 1932 and a year later, in 1933, Tower died in Lucerne, Switzerland and is buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.

[1] Through her will Tower bequeathed the vast art collection that she and her husband had expanded over several decades to Benito Mussolini, on the condition that it be kept in a museum.