Alessandro, 1st Duke of Castel Duino
Prince Alessandro della Torre e Tasso, 1st Duke of Castel Duino, full German name: Alexander Karl Egon Theobald Lamoral Johann Baptist Maria, Prinz von Thurn und Taxis was a member of the Bohemian branch of the princely House of Thurn and Taxis. Alessandro was created Prince della Torre e Tasso and first Duke of Castel Duino by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy after relocating to the Kingdom of Italy in 1923.
Family
Alessandro was the third child and son of Prince Alexander Johann of Thurn and Taxis and his wife Princess Marie of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. He was a great-great-great-grandson of Alexander Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Thurn and Taxis.First marriage and issue
Alessandro's first marriage was to Princess Marie Susanne Marguerite Louise de Ligne, daughter of Louis, 9th Prince de Ligne and Elisabeth de La Rochefoucauld, daughter of Sosthène, Duc de Doudeauville, civilly on 27 January 1906 and religiously on 29 January 1906 in Paris. Alessandro and Marie had three children together:- Prince Raimundo della Torre e Tasso, 2nd Duke of Castel Duino, married Princess Eugénie of Greece and Denmark
- Prince Luigi della Torre e Tasso married Frances Goodyear.
- Princess Margarete of Thurn and Taxis, married Prince Gaetano of Bourbon-Parma, youngest child of Robert I, Duke of Parma. Together they had one daughter, Princess Diane Marguerite of Bourbon-Parma.
Second marriage
In 1932, in Vrana, Alessandro married American heiress Helena "Ella" Holbrook Walker.Ella lived many years beyond her husband's death in 1937, and worked on the upkeep of the family's property, Villa Serbelloni at Bellagio, Lombardy, Italy, and left it to the Rockefeller Foundation in her will.