Italophilia
Michelangelo was born in Florence in 1475 and, like Leonardo, was a true Renaissance man. He was a sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. He was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime and, since then, one of the greatest artists of all time. His two best-known sculptures, the Pietà and David, are famous throughout the world. Michelangelo also created two of the most famous and influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Chapel.
Leone Caetani
Caetani was born in Rome into the prominent and wealthy Caetani family. His father Onorato, Prince of Teano and Duke of Sermoneta, was Minister of Foreign Affairs in Italy in 1896 in the second di Rudini cabinet; his English mother, Ada Bootle Wilbraham, was the daughter of the Earl of Lathom. His paternal grandfather, Michelangelo, had married the Polish countess Calixta Rzewuski, whose ancestor Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski had been a well-known Polish orientalist.