Born in Rome, she was the daughter of Carlo Bourbon del Monte, Prince di San Faustino (1867–1917), a descendant of an ancient Tuscan-Umbrian family,[1] with a noble title awarded by Pope Pius IX in 1861.

[2] Her brother Ranieri Bourbon del Monte Santa Maria, Prince of San Faustino, was the first husband of painter Kay Sage.

[8] She was arrested in Rome on 8 September 1943, since she was the daughter of a U.S. citizen, a country at that time at war against Nazi Germany, and confined in a villa on the Caelian Hill,[9] from which she was then able to escape.

After coming back to Rome as a free person, in collaboration with Colonel Eugen Dollmann, she arranged a meeting in Vatican City between Pope Pius XII and General Karl Wolff.

It was successful, and led to the release from prison of Giuliano Vassalli, a jurist and member of the Italian Resistance, who had been held in detention by the SS in their headquarters in the German Embassy on 145 via Tasso.