Tina Whitaker

[1] Choosing to settle in Palermo over the more provincial Marsala, the couple built as their family home the Villa Malfitano, an Art Nouveau mansion near Zisa Castle on the Via Dante.

In these years, the Belle Époque age, the house was the venue for lavish parties attended by British and Italian royalty and celebrated European society.

Tina Whitaker knew Richard Wagner, Benito Mussolini, the Kaiser and Edward VII, Empress Eugenie and Queen Mary.

Attracted by homosexual company, she unwittingly found herself in a circle involved in the Irish Crown Jewels scandal.

[3] British cultural historian Edward Chaney sums her up as "formidable"[4] Her house still stands, and is open as a museum, displaying the Whitaker collections of art and natural history.