Gaia Servadio
1938–2021 · Italian writer, journalist and biographer
Gaia Servadio (Padua, 1938 - 2021) was an Italian writer who trained in art, earning a bachelor's degree from London's Camberwell School of Art, but devoted her career to fiction, biography and journalism. There is no record that she worked as a painter professionally; her connection to the visual arts is limited to that training and to her son Orlando, who is a painter.
The daughter of an industrial chemist of Jewish origin and a Sicilian Catholic mother, she began contributing to Italian and English newspapers at a very young age, among them The Times, The Observer and the Corriere della Sera. Her first novel, Tanto gentile e tanto onesta, also known as Melinda, appeared in 1967 and was a notable success. She then published non-fiction works such as Mafioso (1976), a study of the Mafia, Luchino Visconti (1980) and Traviata: Vita di Giuseppina Strepponi (1994). She also wrote about Rossini and Giovanni Belzoni. She was sent as a correspondent during the Six-Day War and taught and lectured at universities in Italy, Britain and the United States.
Her legacy is above all literary: a body of work that combines the novel, historical biography and journalistic writing, with a lasting interest in music and Italian culture.