Clothilde Marghieri and Bernard Berenson
Between 1927 and and 1955, nearly 1,000 letters were exchanged between Marghieri, who was married to a Neopolitan lawyer, and Berenson, a Lithuanian Jew 30 years her senior and an expert on Italian Renaissance art who made his fortune as a dealer (and smuggler) for rich American collectors. Marghieri seems to have mainly depended on Berenson for moral support as she made an extraordinary rebellion: in 1933 she demanded and got a house of her own where she could live and work apart from her husband and his outraged family.