Gaia Cecilia Metella Servadio[1] (13 September 1938 – 20 August 2021) was an Italian writer.[2]
Early life and career
Servadio was born in Padua, the daughter of industrial chemist[3] Luxardo Servadio and wife Bianca Prinzi.[4] Her father was Jewish and her mother was Sicilian and Catholic.[5] She received a bachelor's degree from London's Camberwell School of Art.[4]
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 runaway success".[4]
Personal life
Servadio was married to the British art historian William Mostyn-Owen c. 1961–1989, and they had three children, Owen (b. 1962), Allegra (b. 1964) and Orlando (b. 1973).[6] In 1968, they were living in "23 rooms or so" of one wing of Aberuchill Castle, Perthshire, Scotland.[7]
Their daughter Allegra, an art teacher, was the first wife of the politician Boris Johnson.[8] Their son Orlando is an artist and a painter.[9]
Servadio lived in Belgravia, London.[10] Following her divorce from Mostyn-Owen, in 1995 Servadio married Hugh Robert Myddelton, of Chirk Castle in Wales, another former Etonian.[11] In 2001 their surname was changed to Myddelton Biddulph, and they became Hugh Robert Myddelton Biddulph and Gaia Servadio Myddelton Biddulph.[12] They remained married until her death.[13] She died on 20 August 2021.[14][15]
Works
Fiction
Tanto gentile e tanto onesta (Feltrinelli, 1967)
Don Giovanni e L'azione consiste (Feltrinelli, 1968)
Il Metodo. Milano. 1970. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Un'infanzia diversa (Rizzoli, 1988)
Il lamento di Arianna (La Tartaruga, 1988)
La storia di R. (Rizzoli, 1990)
Abramo, La vallata. 1990.
E i morti non sanno (Dario Flaccovio Ed., 2005)
Raccogliamo le vele - Autobiografia (Feltrinelli, 2014)
