THE CAETANI OF SERMONETA, ITALY: AN ILLUSTRIOUS LINEAGE
Leone Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta and Prince of Teano, was born September 12th, 1869, into one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Roman history. He can be seen on the battlements of his castle in Sermoneta in a photograph taken in 1923, together with Ofelia Fabiani and their daughter, Sveva. The family name can be traced as far back as 750 B.C.E., when the Caetani (originally the Gaetani) battled with the Saracens for control of the towns of Gaeta and Fondi on the Italian coast.

Leone grew up in the Palazzo Caetani in Rome, the ancestral home of the family, situated near the ruins of the Forum. His ancestors included several important members of the medieval papacy: Gelasius II (d.1119) and Boniface VIII (1230-1303). Other family members during the course of many centuries included cardinals, scholars, diplomats, scientists, and literary figures.

Leone, Ofelia and Sveva Caetani on the battlements of Castle Sermoneta, ca. 1923, 15 x 10 cm. GVMA [1996.063.134/ pic id 12240].

Leone’s grandfather, Michelangelo (1804-1882), was a political leader who was appointed the provisional governor of Rome in 1870 when troops occupied the city during the unification of Italy. Like many of the Caetani before him, and many still to come, Michelangelo was a multi-talented individual with diverse interests. In addition to his political expertise, he was also a distinguished scholar, a patron of the arts, and a recognized authority on the work of the famous medieval poet, Dante Alighieri. In 1840, he married a Polish countess, Calixta Rzewuski. Countess Rzewuski’s father had left Poland to spend the latter part of his life in the Near East and this may have inspired the family’s fascination with Arab culture for generations to come.

Michelangelo and the Countess had two children: Onorato, the fourteenth Duke of Sermoneta (1842-1917) and his sister, Ersilia (1840-1925). Like his father before him, Onorato was a member of the Italian parliament for more than thirty years. In 1896 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Antonio di Rudini, and he later served as Lord Mayor of Rome. He was a renowned archaeologist and, until his death, was president of the Italian Geographical Society. In 1867, Onorato married a woman from the English nobility, Ada Booth Wilbraham. They had five sons and one daughter in quick succession: Leone (1869), Roffredo (1871), Livio (1873), Giovannella (1875), Gelasio (1877), and Michelangelo (1890).

Leone and his siblings were raised within the intellectually fertile climate of the Palazzo Caetani, which had become a salon for international scholars. Among the visitors were writers, scientists, teachers of Oriental languages and missionaries from all over the world. Within this setting, it is no wonder that the Caetani children were successful individuals in their own right. Leone was to become a world-renowned scholar of Islamic history. Roffredo, having studied with Liszt and Sgambati, made his mark on the world as a musician and composer. Livio held office as the Minister of Persia. Gelasio became a prominent engineer and eventually the Italian ambassador to the United States. At one point or another, most of the Caetani men held political office.

LEONE CAETANI: RENOWNED ISLAMICIST AND WORLD TRAVELLER
Leone demonstrated an aptitude for foreign languages from an early age. He learned German from the governess who cared for him in the Palazzo Caetani; Italian and English were spoken at home by his parents. At the age of fifteen, Leone decided to teach himself Sanskrit and Arabic. By 1891, at age twenty-one, Leone had earned a degree in Ancient and Oriental Language and History from the Faculty of Letters at the University of Rome. He received further formal language instruction in Arabic, Hebrew and comparative Semitic languages, as well as studying Persian language and literature. He would eventually become fluent in eleven languages.

Throughout these early years, Leone’s fascination with Islam and its history was inspired and encouraged by his father, Onorato, and grandfather, Michelangelo. Together they conducted extensive research on the subject and worked toward a common goal: to further their understanding of Muslim religion, history, language, and culture.

Leone wanted to acquire firsthand experience of the diverse geographies and cultures of Islam. In 1888, he embarked on the first of many visits to the Near East. He started in Greece and from there crossed over to Egypt. A year later, he visited Sinai where he explored ancient monuments. In 1892 he traveled to Algeria, Tunisia, and the borderland of the Sahara. Two years later, Leone made an extensive trip through Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Turkey and Iraq, ultimately ending up in Central Asia and Russia.

Sveva Caetani remembered some of her father’s impressions of his trip in 1899 to India with the Count of Turin, cousin of the king of Italy. She recounts how her father was astonished by the impressive stature of the Sikh Imperial guard in Calcutta, all of who were much taller than himself (he was 6 feet 5 inches tall). Leone continued his travels throughout India, where he went big-game hunting for six weeks in the jungles of Bengal and Bihar, rounding off his journey in Benares, Agra, and New Delhi. He watched a polo game played by the Pathans, ‘in the original manner with a dead calf instead of a mallet and ball’. His love of adventure also led him to visit the northern United States and Canada in the summer of 1891, a trip that would later influence his decision to emigrate to Vernon, B.C. Leone was to make a final trip to the Muslim lands he so dearly loved in 1908 when he visited Egypt.

FROM EAST TO WEST: LEONE’S HUNTING TRIP TO CANADA IN 1891
In 1891 Leone embarked on a journey of a far different nature than his trips to the Near East and Asia. This journey involved hunting grizzly bears in the rugged wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. Accompanying him on the trip was a member of a noble Prussian family, Felice Scheibler. With his vast experience as a big-game hunter in America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, Scheibler was the perfect traveling companion. Leone’s motive for this bold venture came from his family. His parents had instilled in him a great love of mountain climbing and now at the age of twenty-one, he wanted to test his skills in a ‘nearly unexplored’ region. According to Scheibler, Leone desired above all to explore the southern slopes of the Selkirk mountain range located in the Kootenay Lake area of B.C., ‘since he had been greatly impressed by the description of the beauty and grandeur of those mountains, covered by glaciers’.

Leone kept a journal recounting his experiences in the Kootenay Lake area. This was transcribed and translated by Danilo Aguzzi Barbagli and published in Italy in 1999. His passion for the Selkirk mountain range inspired Leone to give his journal the same name. In Selkirks, Leone provides a detailed report of the entire adventure, from psychological sketches of his hunting party and the townspeople he met along the way, to the awe he felt for the vastness of the Canadian landscape.

On July 5th, Leone and Scheibler set sail from Liverpool to New York on the ship, The City of Paris. From New York they proceeded by train to Chicago, St. Paul, Billings, and Thompson Falls, arriving at their final destination of Kootenay Lake by 12th August 1891. The landscapes they encountered were at times far from hospitable, and the men faced many harrowing adventures. The Italian prince who had slept in the lavish bedrooms of palaces was now sleeping on the cold bare ground in the open night air.

When Leone stepped off the train in Thompson Falls on August 10th (the first entry in his journal) he was stepping into a whole new world. He describes how just a short time ago he had been walking the streets of London with aristocratics dressed in redingotes [a type of gentleman’s long coat] and top hats, ‘and now, almost inadvertently, I found myself among prospectors, trappers, and the badmen of the Far West’. Before leaving Thompson Falls the men exchanged their European clothes for ‘American’ ones, ‘a broad-brimmed hat, a woolen shirt, a pair of pants, a pair of big hobnailed boots, and a woolen jacket with large yellow and red checkers’. He had a pair of goatskin leggings made in Italy to provide warmth and protection during his trip.

Leone expresses a keen sense of wonder for this new world. He marveled at the smallest detail, ‘[b]y keeping my eyes fixed on the river, I could instantly see the...head or back of a big trout splashingly jumping on some beautiful water spider’. In another passage the synthesis of his Christian and Muslim knowledge comes together: he compared the ‘living trees whose trunks, were straight and smooth as columns,’ to the forms of the ‘nave of a gigantic gothic cathedral, or that of the porticoes of a colossal mosque fallen into ruins’.

Sadly, Leone was only able to observe the Selkirk range from a distance. His dream of climbing the mountains was not to be realized, as the roughness of the terrain prevented them from reaching the base. However, Leone was able to explore the Purcell Range on the route back, thereby fulfilling his wish to go mountaineering.

Unfortunately, Leone’s journal entries end on September 5th, a full month before the end of their escapades in the Kootenay region, so we do not have a full account of the trip. However, within the pages of what he did write, it is clear that the trip had a profound impact on Leone, instilling in him a love for the beautiful landscape of British Columbia, the memory of which would ultimately draw him back some day.

LEONE’S FIRST MARRIAGE, POLITICAL LIFE IN ITALY, AND MATURITY AS A SCHOLAR
In 1901, Leone married Vittoria Colonna, who was a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Rome. The Colonna had been the enemy and rival of the Caetani family since the Middle Ages. The couple had one son, Onorato, who unfortunately suffered from a physical and mental illness. Their marriage was conflicted, which may have led to Leone’s later attraction to Ofelia Fabiani, Sveva’s mother.

Leone was determined to concentrate on his scholarship in this period, and he worked from sunup to sundown to synthesize the materials he had gathered on his visits to Muslim lands. As the result of his extensive travels – coupled with his enormous wealth – Leone succeeded in assembling one of the most comprehensive libraries of Islamic manuscripts in Europe. His goal was to amalgamate the material into a chronological account of the rise and spread of Islam through the ages, entitled Annali dell’Islam (The Annals of Islam). In 1905, Leone published the first of ten volumes. The Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei recognized his efforts in 1908 when he won the National Prize of 10,000 lire. A year later he was inducted in the ranks of this prestigious academic institution. Finding the task of completing the subsequent nine volumes too great a task to accomplish on his own, he decided to combine forces with other well-known Islamic scholars who expressed a keen desire to work with him. With their assistance, the following nine volumes were published in Rome and Milan between 1907 and 1926.

Leone Caetani in his military uniform, ca. 1915, 11 x 8.5 cm. GVMA [1996.063.606/ pic id 12712].

At the time of its release, this ten-volume work received international attention for its range and scope. To this day it is still regarded as foundational in the field of Islamic studies. Leone’s approach to the material added to its unique value and quality; he had introduced a whole new method to Islamic studies in the western world by basing his discussions on primary sources in Arabic.

Members of the Caetani household had always been involved in politics, and following this trend, Leone was elected to represent Rome’s fourth riding in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s lower house of Parliament in 1909. He did not, however, take the same political stance as his grandfather and father as enlightened conservatives; instead, he sided with the Radical Socialist Party. From this place of opposition, Leone worked to reform the Italian social system and better the rights of the working classes.

In 1911, Italy entered into conflict with Turkey over the occupation of Libya. When Leone stood up in the house of Parliament and protested against the appropriation of funds to maintain the war, he made many enemies. Four years later, he was defeated in the parliamentary elections because of his liberal views. With the growing storms of conflict and potential for war, more political trouble lay ahead.

In 1915, perhaps as a way of deflecting any negative feedback he received because of his position on the Libyan affair, Leone demonstrated his national pride by volunteering for military service in World War I. He served as an artillery officer and translator, fighting against the Austrians on the Dolomite sector of the Italian Alps. The photograph of Leone in his uniform shows him wearing a black armband of mourning for the loss of his brother, who was killed in action in 1915. In 1916 Leone was recalled from the Alps, possibly because of ill health, and sent on a special mission to England. On his return to Italy, Leone presided over a civil organization on the home front for the remainder of the war.

LEONE MEETS OFELIA – SVEVA CAETANI IS BORN

Sveva, Leone and Ofelia in Monte Carlo, ca.1923, 11 x 7 cm. GVMA [1996.063.102/ pic id 12208].

By the time Leone had left for his military service in the Alps, his marriage to Vittoria had significantly deteriorated. In a letter written to a friend years later, in 1934, Leone expressed his disenchantment with the woman he had married, ‘I had taken a wife...that didn’t have any fancy for my studies and inspirations, and gave me for many reasons, a difficult and sad life’. Sometime between 1916 and 1917, Leone found the love he was looking for when he met Ofelia Fabiani, the daughter of a wealthy Roman engineer. Born in 1896 to parents of Spanish, French, and Italian descent, Ofelia had a delicate constitution and temperament that contrasted greatly with the intense, bold and adventurous spirit of Leone. As a consequence of her physical delicacy, it was with great difficulty that Ofelia gave birth to their daughter, Sveva Ersilia Giovanella Maria Caetani on August 6, 1917, in the Villa Mengherini, in Rome. Having almost lost her life, Ofelia was to spend a period of prolonged recovery from the experience, leaving Sveva in the care of a wet-nurse. Later in life, Sveva was to recount that this early separation from her mother left a rift between them that ultimately never healed.

It was during this period that a Danish woman, Miss Jüül, was hired to act as a secretary and companion for Ofelia. She was to remain with the family the rest of her life. According to the caption on one of the photographs in the GVMA, Ofelia was still recovering from childbirth in 1923.

TROUBLE IN ITALY
On September 25th, 1917, Onorato Caetani died and, as his eldest son, Leone inherited the extensive family estates that included the Castle Sermoneta outside of Rome. Not long after, the social changes occurring in post-war Italy brought about a series of conflicts with regards to these lands. Leone was confronted with the threat of a Bolshevik uprising and claims made by farmers on his land. These tensions, coupled with a series of unfortunate investments, caused Leone to lose a large part of the family land holdings. Overwhelmed with the loss, and struggling to reconcile his role in the decline of the Caetani fortunes, Leone abandoned his scholarly pursuits, relinquished his titles to his brother Roffredo, and radically shifted the course of his life by removing himself and his family to a whole new world.

• The Caetani Family: Popes, Princes, Scholars and Artists
• The Caetani Family in Vernon, 1921-ca.1960
• Release and Rebirth: Sveva Caetani in Later Life, ca. 1960-1994