Cecilia Maria de Candia (* born, December 24, 1853, Brighton, England - d. May 26, 1926, Bordighera, Italy), later Mrs Godfrey Pearse, was a British-Italian writer, amateur singer and society hostess. She was the daughter of two famous opera singers, Giulia Grisi and Giovanni Matteo de Candia—a marquise who sang under the popular name of Mario the tenor.
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In her childhood, she traveled extensively with her parents, who moved their main home from Florence to Paris, and after moving seasonally to the UK eventually they settled in London in 1869 for good. Maria Cecilia grew up surrounded by the artistic elite of Europe, the friends and colleagues of her parents, opera singers, musicians, designers, art lovers, royalty and the social elite of the time. The de Candia family was part of the Italian nobility, and at birth, Cecilia Maria was registered as princess Cecilia Maria de Candia, Countess of Candia in the Italian Kingdom of Sardinia and Noble Lady (it: Nobile Donna) of the United Kingdom of Italy; from her mother family she was related to the Royal House of Greece.
In February 29, 1872, at St Pauls, Wilton Grove in the City of London UK, took place the marriage of Cecilia Maria de Candia and Sir Godfrey Robarts Pearse a "fencing champion", descendent of the Baron Robartes. They marriage civil union and registry took place at St. George's Hanover Square Jan 1872. They lived first in London, and some seasons in Brighton; eventually the new family started to spend time in Paris, at Cecilia's sisters, and also in Italy at the de Candia's residences. They were good friends and correspondents of the famous Scottish painter James McNeill Whistler.
Her main attraction to writting was developed during her early years of adolecence, she was a passionate and romantic young lady, always in love with the music and lirics of the day. She took her passion as an inspiration to write along her trips across Europe. Some of her earliest works were kept by her tutors, she also wrote poems that were converted into paintings by some famous artists of the day. After her marriage to Sir Robarts Pearse, she started to dedicate her time to gardening and eventually created some interesting texts relating the Victorian herbalistic knowledge to cooking, other times she dedicated her writtings to the `fantasy world of nature` and finally explored the biographical and historical field of writting composing some powerful books among them the following ones were saved. Most of her work was signed Maria Cecilia, or M.C. and only her published work was signed as Mrs Godfrey Pearse, she published three books:
After sharing homes in London and seasonal time in a Mediterranean residence in the Ligurian region, bordering Monaco and Piemonte, she decided to conduct research work for her next book at her father's home—the Villa Salviati in Tuscany collecting old letters and pictures; short time after she contracted an illness and died in Bordighera, Italy. Some of her research and writtings were sent to her younger sister living in Paris, the book she was working on was a text related to the life of one of her oldest sisters Rita de Candia, a british of Italian nobility living in Berlin.