Gaia Servadio, who died in Rome, 20 August, 2021, aged 82, was an irrepressible Italian-born journalist and writer, the author of some 40 books, who spent most of her life in Britain and who for decades hosted one of the last notable literary salons; she was also formerly the mother-in-law of Boris Johnson....Gaia Servadio was courted by Gianni Agnelli, wrote books about the Mafia and Renaissance women, but did not approve of her daughter Allegra's fiancé.
Her first novel Tanto gentile e tanto onesta, aka Melinda, was published in 1967 by Feltrinelli in Italy and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK, and was a "a runaway success".
She was born in Padua, 13 September, 1938, daughter of Luxardo Servadio and his wife Bianca Prinzi, and married 28 September, 1960 [divorced 1989], as her first husband, and as his first wife, William Mostyn-Owen [1929-2011], scion of that landed family, whose home was Aberuchill Castle, Perthshire, son of Lt-Col Roger Mostyn-Owen [1888-1947], and his wife the former Margaret Eva Dewhurst. She married 2ndly, 1994, Hugh Robert Myddelton Biddulph [b 1938], scion of the landed gentry family of Myddelton of Chirk, &c.
Gaia Servadio leaves issue, two sons, Orlando, an artist, and Owen, and a daughter, Allegra, who married, as her first husband, 1987 [div 1993], the Rt Hon Boris Johnson, MP, PC, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury since July, 2019.
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