Who is Sveva Caetani?

A Long Lineage of Italian Royalty

Descending from Italian royalty, Sveva Caetani represented the last of an ancient line that traced its roots back over 1,200 years and included two medieval popes and noted politicians, academics, artists, writers, and musicians.

Sveva’s father, Duke Leone Caetani di Sermoneta held 16 noble titles and was a parliamentarian and an academic who compiled the eleven volume Annals of Islam. He is still recognized today as one of the most influential and knowledgeable scholars of secular Islam.  

Partly in response to the rise of fascism in early 20th century Italy, Leone Caetani relocated his family to the North Okanagan in 1921. He had been to British Columbia to go bear hunting in the Kootenays in 1890s as part of a trip across North America. Intrigued by the Canadian wilderness, he published an account of his travels in the book, Selkirks.

Leaving Italy abruptly and under somewhat mysterious circumstances in August 1921, the small family arrived in Vernon, BC, a village of 3,650 people in the Canadian West. The family of Leone Caetani, Ofelia Fabiani and their four-year-old daughter, Sveva,brought with them 33 trunks, a cook, a valet, and the family secretary and companion, Miss Jüül.

A Life of International Luxury

As a young child, Sveva lived a life of wealth and privilege. Frequent excursions to Europe included shopping for haute couture clothing with her mother in Paris, having trunks designed for her family by Louis Vuitton, visits to the extensive family holdings in Italy, and swimming and sunbathing in Monte Carlo. She took private art lessons from the artist Andre Petroff. The family was frequently attended by Sveva’s governesses and tutors, and always traveled with her mother’s lifelong companion, Miss Jüül, who would continue to live with Sveva until her own death in 1973.

The economic crash of 1929 decimated most of the family’s considerable fortunes. Though by no means destitute, their life of international travel and leisure came to an end. No longer able to afford private tutors, Sveva was sent to Crofton House, a private academy for girls in Vancouver, at age thirteen, but returned home partway through her second year there with a case of measles. It was during this time that her father become ill with cancer. 

A Life in Exile

Leone passed away on Christmas Day, 1935. Following his death, seventeen-year-old Sveva Caetani’s life changed considerably. Both mother and daughter were devastated by Leone’s death. Ofelia, fragile both mentally and physically, chose to take her daughter into self-imposed exile, shielding her from any social contact and refusing to let Sveva first out of the house, then off the property for many years. During this time, Ofelia also denied her daughter the artistic expression and the joys of painting and creativity that she had been brought up to enjoy while her father was still alive. Sveva was left with books sent by an aunt, her father’s library, and her own thoughts.

Reemergence and Resilience

It was not until her mother’s death in 1960 that Sveva, now in her early 40s, began to paint, write, design, and create once again, culminating in an explosion of creativity after so many years of suppressing her talents. Her economic circumstances necessitated that she work the first time in her life, and she was hired to teach at St. James Elementary School in Vernon. She later attended the University of Victoria and obtained her teaching certificate, then returned to the North Okanagan, where she taught at Charles Bloom Secondary School in Lumby for several years, She has been described as an eccentric, enthusiastic and engaged teacher, beloved and remembered fondly by the students she encouraged and championed.

Recapitulation: A Life’s Work

In the mid-1980s, Sveva began work on what would culminate her creative accomplishments, an extensive collection of 47 artworks, comprised of 60 separate large, luminous watercolours. Recapitulation is a symbolic interpretation of Sveva’s journey through life, accompanied by her father as her guide, and inspired by Dante’s long poem Inferno from the Divine Comedy, examining the human condition.

Sveva approached the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) collection with a generous offer to donate the entire Recapitulation series to the AFA collection in Edmonton with the agreement that the foundation would preserve the series adhering to archival standards for storage, presentation and display. The AFA also provided access to the collection through exhibition loans and an online database. The Recapitulation series has been exhibited in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Ottawa, Toronto, and Edmonton.

Stunning Series Returns Home

The Recapitulation works were, in effect, “saved” by the AFA from being separated and dispersed into obscurity. The AFA accepted the collection and preserved it in its entirety, as Sveva intended, upon her death in 1994.

In 2021, 35 years after the first Recapitulation painting traveled to Edmonton, Sveva’s works returned home permanently to the care and collection of Sveva’s namesake legacy, the Caetani Cultural Centre Society.