Husband William Bayard Cutting Jr., Geoffrey Scott, Percy Lubbock
Queer Places:
Villa Medici, Via Vecchia Fiesolana, 3, 50014 Fiesole FI, Italy
Montreux Palace hotel (now Fairmont Le Montreux Palace), Avenue Claude-Nobs 2, 1820 Montreux, Switzerland
Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori, Via Senese, 184, 50124 Firenze FI
Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe (December 1879 - December 31, 1943) was born in December 1879 in Chelsea, Middlesex, England, the daughter of Hamilton John
Agmondesham Cuffe, the 5th Earl of Desart, and Lady Margaret Joan Lascelles. Raised alongside her sister, Lady Joan Elizabeth Mary Cuffe, within the
upper echelons of British aristocracy, she eventually established herself as a prominent cultural figure within the expatriate Anglo-American artistic
and literary circles in Italy during the early to mid-twentieth century.
On April 30, 1901, at the age of twenty-one, she married her first husband,
William Bayard Cutting Jr., an American diplomat serving as secretary to the U.S. Embassy to the
Court of St. James's. The couple had one child, the future writer and historian Iris Margaret Cutting (later
Iris Origo, DBE), born in 1902. Following the death of William Bayard Cutting Jr. in 1910, Sybil remained in
Italy, establishing her home at Villa Medici in Fiesole, near Florence, where she became a central hostess and patron within the region's vibrant
cosmopolitan community.
Sybil was deeply woven into the intellectual and aesthetic social networks of Florence. Among her closest social circles was the sapphic and aesthetic
expatriate enclave that flourished around the writer Vernon Lee. (Violet Paget). Following Vernon Lee's death in
1935, figures such as Nerina Gigliucci, Lina Waterfield,
Violet Trefusis, and Sybil herself helped preserve and document the nuanced literary and cultural legacy of
Lee’s circle for future generations.
On April 24, 1918, Sybil married architectural historian Geoffrey Scott, who served as secretary to
Bernard Berenson. The marriage produced no children and ended in divorce in 1926. On December 8, 1926,
she married her third husband, the writer and critic Percy Lubbock, brother of John Lubbock, 1st Baron
Avebury.
During the later years of her life, amid the backdrop of World War II in Europe, Sybil resided in Switzerland. She died at the age of sixty-four on
December 31, 1943, at the Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, survived by her husband Percy Lubbock, her daughter Iris, and two granddaughters.
Lady Sybil Marjorie Lubbock (née Cuffe) is buried in the Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori (frequently known as the Allori Cemetery), located in
Florence, Italy, where many prominent members of the Anglo-American expatriate community of Florence were laid to rest.
References:
- The Villa Medici Archive & Iris Origo Papers: Housed in various archives (including the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University and private family papers at La Foce), containing extensive correspondence, diaries, and photographs related to Sybil, her mother Lady Sybil Cuffe, her husbands (Desmond FitzGerald, Geoffrey Scott, and Percy Lubbock), and her daughter Iris Origo.
- Geoffrey Scott Papers: Held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University), documenting his marriage to Sybil Cutting and their social circle at Villa Medici.
- Percy Lubbock Papers: Manuscripts, letters, and personal records concerning his marriage to Sybil and their years living at Villa Medici in Fiesole, Italy.
- Birth & Death Indexes: Civil Registration Death Index (UK) recording her death on December 31, 1943.
- UK & Italian Historical Directories & Passenger Lists: Documenting her frequent travel between England, Italy, and the United States.
- Origo, Iris. Images and Shadows: Part of a Life. (1970)
- Origo, Iris. A Need to Testify. (1984)
- Davenport-Hines, Richard. A Night at the Majestic: Desire and Art in Paris After the Great War.
- Acton, Harold. Memoirs of an Aesthete. (1948)
- Campbell, Katie. Fiesole: Garden and Villa.
- Rubinstein, Nikolai. The Villa Medici in Fiesole.
- The Times (London) Obituaries & Notices: Contemporary death notices and social announcements for Sybil Lubbock (December 1943 / January 1944).
- The New York Times & Local Anglo-Italian Press: Social notices detailing her first marriage to Lieutenant William Bayard Cutting Jr., his diplomatic service, and his early death in 1910.
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