Mary Berenson

Mary Berenson (Pennsylvania1864-1945) née Mary Smith, was an art historian, now thought to have had a large hand in some of the writings of her second husband, Bernard Berenson^[1].

Her father was Robert Pearsall Smith, her mother Hannah Whitall Smith. She married in 1885 the Irish barrister Benjamin Conn "Frank" Costelloe, and this marriage was the occasion for the whole family, including her brother Logan Pearsall Smith and sister Alys Pearsall Smith to move to England in 1888.^[2] Mary separated from Costelloe, with whom she had two children, after a few years together.^[3] She took up in Italy with Berenson, whom she eventually married in 1900.

Subsequently she brought together a social circle at Villa I Tatti', the Berenson home, and developed its gardens.^[4]

References

• Barbara Strachey and Jayne Samuels (1983), Mary Berenson: a Self Portrait from her Letters & Diaries

Notes

1. ^ Mary Berenson entry in Dictionary of Art Historians
2. ^ The Strachey Papers at the Archives in London and the M25 Area
3. ^ A WORLD OF WOMEN by PAULINE MAIER, The New York Times, 12 December 1982
4. ^ The garden of Villa I Tatti: some historical notes in The Harvard university Center for Italian Renaissance Studies

Persondata
Name	Berenson, Mary
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Date of birth	1864
Place of birth
Date of death	1945
Place of death