Giulia Pahlen Samoyloff - a nomad in spirit

The reasons that prompted the young and charming Giulia, Countess of Samoyloff, to leave her country to fix her abode in the shadow of the Madonnina are unknown. Her arrival, however, shrouded in mystery about her escape, shocks the Milanese high society of the time.

Giulia was born in 1803 in St. Petersburg, the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat, and grew up at the court of Tsar Alexander together with young Nicholas, the tsar's brother, (and future Tsar Nicholas I) with whom she would have a passionate affair that would never result in marriage.

In her early twenties, she is betrothed to Count Samoyloff, marries him, but is widowed after only a few years of marriage.

When she arrived in Milan, in 1828, she was immediately invited from the Hungarian Count Joseph Batthyány to the great "Ball of Romanticism", which he himself organized in his new palace at Porta Orientale.

Giulia frequented Clara Maffei's cultural salon and that of the Trivulzio and Belgioioso families and got to know, among others, both the young Giuseppe Verdi and Alessandro Manzoni. Her sympathies for the Habsburg Empire made her a popular figure among the Austrian officers.

Her relationship with Austrian authorities gave rise to suspicion and criticism, so much so that she became the favorite target of pamphlets and rhymes composed by intellectuals and satirical poets.

It is said that Giulia loved to soak herself, every morning in a tub full of freshly milked milk, to nourish her skin, keeping it soft, diaphanous, and always fresh.

Excessive in everything, Giulia loves above all else to amaze, to astound, to impress, to make people talk about her. A famous ball of hers in 1832 welcomed a thousand guests and lasted three days and nights. It was such a memorable event that it can be found in the chronology of the History of Milan and in local and national press.

Giulia's last Milanese years would be marked by the deepening of the resentment harbored against her by patriots within the Milanese nobility. In 1855 she sold Palazzo Bigli and packed her bags for a new departure.

She died in Paris in 1875.