Harold Acton (1904-1994) was a writer, historian and connoisseur memorialista especially everything related to Italian culture and civilization Chinese- English, although he was born, lived for much of his life and died in Villa La Pietra, Florence. Among his many books, besides the one now published, include The Last Medici (1932), Peonies and ponies (1941), The Bourbons of Naples (1956) More Memoirs of an Aesthete (1970), Nancy Mitford: A Memoir (1975 ) and The Soul's Gymnasium and Other Stories (1982).