Mary Berenson née Mary Smith, was an art historian, now thought to have had a large hand in some of the writings of her second husband, Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

.

Her father was Robert Pearsall Smith

Robert Pearsall Smith

Robert Pearsall Smith was a lay leader in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain. His book Holiness Through Faith is one of the foundational works of the Holiness movement...

, her mother Hannah Whitall Smith

Hannah Whitall Smith

Hannah Tatum Whitall Smith was a lay speaker and author in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

. She married in 1885 the Irish barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 Benjamin Conn "Frank" Costelloe, and this marriage was the occasion for the whole family, including her brother Logan Pearsall Smith

Logan Pearsall Smith

Logan Pearsall Smith was an American-born essayist and critic.Smith was born in Millville, New Jersey the son of the prominent Quakers Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith. His father's family had become wealthy from its glass factories...

 and sister Alys Pearsall Smith

Alys Pearsall Smith

Alyssa Whitall Pearsall Smith was the first wife of Bertrand Russell.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith, prominent figures in the Holiness movement in America and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain...

 to move to England in 1888. Mary separated from Costelloe, with whom she had two children, after a few years together. She took up in Italy with Berenson, whom she eventually married in 1900.

Subsequently she brought together a social circle at Villa I Tatti

Villa I Tatti

Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is a research institute in Florence, Italy.-History:Villa I Tatti is located on an estate of olive groves, vineyards and gardens on the border of Florence and Fiesole...

', the Berenson home, and developed its gardens.