Mme de Bourke aka Maria Assunta Leonida Butini

Maria Assunta Butini was still young when she decided to leave Siena and move to Naples, the reasons still unknown. There she made the acquaintance of an envoy extraordinaire of the King of Denmark at the Neapolitan court since 1792, Edmund de Bourke, born in 1761 in Saint Croix (today the US Virgin Islands, but a Danish domain at the time).

According to Luigi Bargagli (who wrote the first biography of the countess Cenni biografici della Contessa Maria Assunta Butini-Bourke, and who was also an acquaintance of hers), Maria Assunta was apparently working in a gambling house when she had lent the young diplomat Edmund de Bourke about 32,000 ducats to pay a debt he had incurred, which the Danish government banker had refused to pay for him. In return for this kindness, Edmund allegedly proposed marriage to her. 

The precise unfolding of their early relationship is still unclear, but there is no doubt that the two knew each other before 1795 when the Danish diplomat was writing his  book Notice sur les ruines les plus remarquables de Naples et de ses environs (Description of the most remarkable ruins in and around Naples).

De Bourke’s diplomatic assignment in Naples ended in 1797. In the city’s State Archives, we have found documents showing that the Danish diplomat was recalled because of his ‘unprofessional conduct’, and more likely due to his closeness to some personalities that were considered unwelcome to the Neapolitan court.

Edmund de Bourke and Maria Assunta Butini got married in Hamburg on January 31, 1798.

Back to Italy

After spending three years at the court of King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, Edmund de Bourke was appointed Minister to the King of Denmark in Madrid, in August 1801. Before moving to the Spanish court, however, the de Bourkes took a trip to Italy.  They reached Hamburg from Stockholm on 1 October 1801, and left two days later for Paris, their next destination being Florence, where they arrived on March 26, 1802. They stayed at the Locanda Reale dell'Aquila Nera, a few metres from the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, where Via Cerrettani meets Piazza dell'Olio.

After Florence, they travelled to Siena, the countess' hometown. As recorded by Anton Francesco Bandini in his ‘Diario Senese’ of April 3, 1802, the de Bourkes and their four carriages arrived at the Locanda del Sole for the night, and then left for Naples the next day, taking Maria Assunta’s father with them. Actually, only Edmund and his footman went all the way to Naples, while Madame de Bourke stayed in Rome. With the help of Christian Heigelin, the King of Denmark’s Minister at the Neapolitan court, Edmund de Bourke applied for a passport for himself and his valet de chambre:

The Bourke’s exact itinerary along Italy is still under investigation, but it is certain that they were in Spain by November.

In 1814, Edmund de Bourke was appointed as Ministry at the British Court.

A last journey to Italy (1819-1820)

In 1819 Count de Bourke and his wife travelled for the last time to Italy. They were in Paris by early September. At 11 a.m. on September 2, Edmund accompanied by his wife (accompagné de son épouse) was presented to the King of France, Louis XVIII of Bourbon, by the latter’s first gentleman of the chamber (l'un des premiers gentilshommes de la chambre) the Duke of Duras. From Paris, they crossed the Kingdom of Sardinia to reach Milan, one of the two capitals of the Lombardo-Veneto Kingdom, on 23 September.

They stayed in Milan for five days, as on the 28th of September the same Gazzetta recorded their departure to Genoa.

There is no sign of a further passage of the Bourkes in Siena, but at the end of October they were in Rome, as recorded in the Diario di Roma, the town Journal on the 3rd of November, 1819:

Here the de Bourkes conversed with the nobility from Rome and Europe:

On December 26, 1819 the King of Denmark bestowed the title of Count to Edmund de Bourke:

The fragile count’s health deterioration slowed the couple’s journey. The Danish Ministry had already suffered severe chest infection while in Rome and in Naples, but he somehow managed to recover, and left Naples on April 29, 1820, travelling to London via Paris by order of His Excellence.

Unfortunately, this passport is not included in the April 1820 Passport collection, but we have found another document witnessing that it was issued.

Furthermore, we have found their names in the Passport Record of that year.

By October they were back in London:

Shortly after taking up the office as the King’s Minister in Paris, Count de Bourke passed away on August 12, 1821, in Vichy, where he had travelled hoping that thermal water treatments would help his precarious health.

Anne Lister

Madame de Bourke, now a noble widow, continued her life in the apartment at 53 Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris, and it was there that Anne Lister made her acquaintance. 

Anne and Maria Assunta first met in April 1830, when the English diarist and traveller came to her home to check on the health of young Frederick De Hagemann (aetatis 8), who was attending the Sainte-Barbe boarding school. In her journal entry for that day, Anne Lister described her as “a very good sort of elderly person”. The positive impression was mutual, and Anne wrote that Maria Assunta confided to her that this visit had put her in such a good mood that she asked her to come again. And that’s how their friendship began:

Actually, this wasn't the first time Madame de Bourke's name appeared in Anne Lister's diary. During one of her lessons, Madame Henriette Galvani – a former Venetian countess and Anne's French teacher in Paris – told her all she knew about the old aristocrat.

Sometime later, Anne consulted her, while searching for an apartment. The countess showed her two, but Anne was not particularly impressed: the 1er. [1st floor] seems very damp - 3800/. unfurnished, while “the other au 3me. [3rd floor] about 2000/.? Furnished” (Jan. 21, 1831 [SH:7/ML/E/14/0015])

Having left Paris in May 1831, Anne Lister only returned there in the summer of 1833, when she immediately called on the Countess, who wasted no time in begging her to accompany her niece, Sophie O'Ferrall, to Copenhagen.

In a letter dated September 1835, Maria Assunta informed Anne that she had been in Switzerland, where she had spent several months at the thermal baths in Schinznach, near Basel, for her own health. A. Bourke (how she signed herself) was initially committed to making an even longer trip. As Barbara Capitoni explains in her book Il pio Asilo Butini Bourke: un istituto per le donne senesi fondato da una nobile popolana (The pio Asilo Butini Bourke: an institution for women in Siena, founded by a noble commoner), before leaving Maria Assunta obtained a passport for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Unfortunately for her, such homecoming never happened.

Madame de Bourke’s stay in Switzerland soothed her pains for the “length of years and goût etc. (‘Je ne sais pas combien d’années, la goutte etc.’)" and she could soon be back to her social gatherings and dinners, thanks to the special care of her physician Monsieur Magendie, of Quai Malaquai no. 5, and of her lady’s maid Mademoiselle Gassie.

Through the conversations recorded by Anne Lister in her journals, we know that the countess “herself had suffered from any improper use of the waters” which had been prescribed to her, and that “Madame de B- [Bourke] some while ago hired a servant with the best testimonials received from the lady to whom she wrote but the son wrote 3 days afterwards (in secret) saying the woman was a bad woman and Madame de B- made some excuse and got rid of her”.  In addition to that, writing about her tastes, Anne also noted that “Madame de Bourke had common Sonchoug at 7 francs with an oz.+ [ounce] (at 1st he said 2 oz. [ounces]) of Pecco at 16/. (or perhaps 2nd qualité at 14/.) and paid 8/. a lb. [pound] for her tea”.

Despite their correspondence not being constant, Anne was always grateful for the valuable help and advice received from her friend, especially in 1838, when she stopped in Paris with her wife Ann Walker, before travelling to the Pyrenees. It was in December of that same year that Anne Lister sent to Maria Assunta an alpaca shawl, for which the Countess thanked her:

Their last letter exchange is from 1839, just before Anne Lister left for her last journey. On July 4, 1839, she wrote to the Countess from Dover about her plans:

Maria Assunta and Italy

Countess de Bourke never forgot her homeland or its people. In a letter to the Florentine architect Luigi Cambray-Digny dated February 8, 1843, Maria Assunta asked him about the façade of the Cathedral, and about the many foreigners in town at the time:

Many Italians had the privilege of being invited to her home, such as the Milanese Count Federico Confalonieri (who later married Sophie O'Ferrall, the countess' niece), the Genoese Marquis Giacomo Balbi Piovera and the Italian opera singer Giuseppina Grassini, to name but a few.

People needed a formal letter of presentation to be admitted to such society, as witnessed by a note dated March 17, 1836 from the Italian politician Massimo D'Azeglio to the famous writer Alessandro Manzoni:

A detailed description of Madame de Bourke's apartment is provided by Eliza O'Ferrall – sister of Edward and Sophie – in a letter to her sister Annie, who was living with her father Roger and their other siblings Louisa and Robert in St. Croix. Until 1839 Eliza had lived with her aunt Bridget Cary in Devonshire, but when the latter’s health began to fail, the two women moved to Paris, not far from the house at n. 53 of Faubourg Saint Honoré:

February 13, 1845

Countess Maria Assunta Leonida de Bourke (née Butini) died in her Parisian home on the night of February 13, 1845, at half past eleven:

This excerpt from a letter written by Count Edward O’Ferrall-Bourke shows how much Madame de Bourke was loved and the grief felt by her relatives and her closest friends.

Her funeral took place at noon on February 17 in the church of the Madeleine, and she was then buried in the family tomb at Père Lachaise cemetery, next to her beloved husband.

The funerary monument was designed by a dear friend of the Countess, the architect Louis-Tullius-Joachim Visconti, and sculpted by David d’Angers.

In her will, Maria Assunta had a special thought for everyone, from her husband’s family to her own closest friends. Furthermore, she bequeathed a considerable sum of money –240 thousand Francs at the time – to create a charitable home for the women in need in Siena, her hometown in Tuscany.

The charitable Pio Asilo Butini Bourke opened in Siena, in Via dei Pisipini, on June 1, 1852, and immediately welcomed twelve women. Nowadays the house still provides the same kind of services.

Eventually – just as her niece Sophie O'Ferrall had thought – the Countess left a considerable part of her fortune to some strangers, whose gratitude will accompany her memory forever.