Edgcumbe Staley

Edgcumbe Staley was an English writer of popular history on Italian subjects who published steadily in the first two decades of the twentieth century. His books include The Guilds of Florence, The Tragedies of the Medici, Famous Women of Florence, Lords and Ladies of the Italian Lakes and The Dogaressas of Venice, which appeared in 1910 and claimed to be the first account in English of the wives of the doges. He worked from Italian sources, particularly the Venetian historian Pompeo Molmenti, and wrote for general readers in an enthusiastic, anecdotal manner, with an eye for dress, ceremony and scandal. Little is recorded of his life beyond his books.