Sylvana Tomaselli

Countess of St Andrews
Countess of St Andrews on the balcony of Buckingham palace, on the right, Trooping the Colour (2012)
Born
Sylvana Palma Tomaselli

(1957-05-28) 28 May 1957 (age 67)
Education
Occupations
Spouses
  • John Paul Jones
    (m. 1977; div. 1981)
Children
Family

Sylvana Palma Windsor, Countess of St Andrews (née Tomaselli, previously Jones; born 28 May 1957) is a Canadian-born academic and historian. By virtue of marriage she is a member of the House of Windsor and is related to the British royal family as the wife of George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, eldest son of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, second cousin of King Charles III.

She is a devout Roman Catholic. A noted historian and lecturer at the University of Cambridge, she is also known professionally as Dr. Sylvana Tomaselli.[1]

Early life and ancestry

Tomaselli was born on 28 May 1957 at Placentia, Newfoundland, daughter of Maximilian Karl Tomaselli (formerly of Salzburg) by his wife Josiane née Preschez.[2] By birth, Sylvana belongs to the Austrian branch of the Tomaselli family, an ancient Italian noble family of condottiero and feudal lords, whose origins are in Piacenza. Members of her family later rose to prominent positions in both Italy and Austria.[3] She was educated in Canada and England.[4]

Marriages and family

She married firstly, on 25 December 1977 at Vancouver, John Paul Jones, son of Captain Geoffrey Jones of Barbados, but they divorced in 1981 without children.[5]

She married secondly, on 9 January 1988 at Leith in Scotland, George, Earl of St Andrews,[6] and they have three children:[7]

Lady Saint Andrews' Roman Catholicism no longer precludes her husband's succession to the throne. Two of her children, Edward (2003) and Marina (2008), were received into the Roman Catholic Church, thereby surrendering their places in the line of succession to the thrones of the Commonwealth realms, although Lord and Lady St Andrews' younger daughter, Amelia, is Protestant and is still in remainder to the British Crown.

Academic career

Tomaselli, who received BA (UBC), MA (York, Ontario) and MA (Cantab) degrees, became a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge in 2004. She specialises in French and British political theory in the 18th century, especially the history of womanhood, and has written about John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. She is the translator of Book II of the Seminar of Jacques Lacan, The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. She teaches the three History of Political Theory Papers and is an affiliated Lecturer of the Faculties of History as well as of Social and Political Sciences.[1]

She is a founding member of the European Centre for the Philosophy of Gender, Siegen, Germany,[8] and is currently Director of Studies in History and Social & Political Sciences at St John's College in the University of Cambridge, and a tutor for postgraduates.[9]

Tomaselli was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2015.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "Doctor Tomaselli | St John's College". Joh.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Sylvana Palma Tomaselli: Genealogics". www.genealogics.org. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  3. ^ "Il tesoro nascosto della famiglia Tomaselli rivive nella mostra di Arcore". Il Cittadino di Monza e Brianza (in Italian). 17 September 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  4. ^ "Dr Sylvana Tomaselli | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  5. ^ "Genealogia di Sylvana Palma Tomaselli". Geneanet (in Italian). Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  6. ^ "Earl of St Andrews". Debrett's. Archived from the original on 6 September 2012.
  7. ^ Cope, Rebecca (20 January 2021). "Sylvana Tomaselli, the Countess of St Andrews, has penned a new book about Mary Wollstonecraft". Tatler. Retrieved 11 August 2022.
  8. ^ "Europäisches Zentrum für philosophische Geschlechterforschung (EZPG), Siegen — EuroGender". Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  9. ^ "Dr Sylvana P Tomaselli - StJohns". www.joh.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  10. ^ FRHistS List T Archived 8 January 2016 at Wikiwix
Preceded by
Countess of Ulster
United Kingdom Order of Precedence
Succeeded by