Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe (31 October 1857 – 11 February 1949) was a Swedish-born physician and psychiatrist, best known as the author ofThe Story of San Michele, an autobiographical account of his life and work. He spoke several languages (Swedish, English, French, Italian fluently, and German at least passably), grew up in Sweden, attended medical school there, then studied medicine in Paris and opened his first practice in France. He was married to a wealthy Englishwoman and spent most of his adult life in Italy.
His philanthropic nature often led him to treat the poor without charge, and he risked his life on several occasions to offer medical help in times of war, disaster or plague. As an advocate of animal rights, he purchased land to create a bird sanctuary near his home in Italy, argued for bans on painful traps, and himself kept pets as diverse as an owl and a baboon, as well as many types of dog. His writing is light-hearted, being primarily memoirs drawn from his real-life experiences, but it is often tinged with sadness or tragedy, and often usesdramatic licence. He primarily wrote about people and their idiosyncrasies, portraying the foibles of both the rich and the poor, but also about animals.
Axel Munthe was born inOskarshamn, Sweden, his family's home.[1] His family was originally ofFlemish descent, and settled in Sweden during the 16th century.
Munthe began college in 1874 atUppsala University. While travelling in Italy in 1875, Munthe sailed in a small boat fromSorrento to the island ofCapri. Climbing thePhoenician Steps to the village ofAnacapri, he came upon a peasant's house and the adjacent ruin of a chapel dedicated toSan Michele, and was immediately captivated by the idea of rebuilding the ruin and turning it into a home.
Munthe studied medicine inUppsala,Montpellier and Paris (where he was a student ofCharcot), and graduated as M.D. in 1880 at the age of 23. Though his thesis was on the subjects ofgynaecology andobstetrics, Munthe was deeply impressed by ProfessorJean-Martin Charcot's pioneering work inneurology, having attended his lectures at theSalpêtrière hospital. He later had a falling out with Charcot, and left the Salpêtrière denouncing his former teacher's work on hypnotism as fraudulent and scientifically unsound.[2]
Parents and siblings
He was the youngest of three siblings born to sickly, autocratic, violin playing, puritanical, chemist father Martin Arnold Fredrick Munthe (#-1877) and his second wife Louisa Aurora Ugarsky (# - 1878). The eldest was Anna (b. 1854) who married twice. At 21 she married the painterReinhold Norstedt, during which times her flower paintings were exhibited in the National Galleries and other galleries. After Norstedt's death in 1911, she married Frans Siberg, a veterinarian.
The second child was Arnold a future Artist, Author, playwright and Retired Swedish Naval Captain (# - 1927) who served with the French Imperial Fleet produced and wrote several renown plays Magnus Stenbok, Magdalena Rudenskiold[3] and The March over the Belt. Arnold also wrote the several Naval books including Charles XII and the Russian Navy and the textbooks Swedish Naval Heroes series.
After graduation, Munthe opened a medical practice in Paris, largely catering to the members of theScandinavianart colony there. He for example rented a Paris apartment to Finnish painterAlbert Edelfelt and his wife.[4] In 1884 he travelled toNaples to offer medical assistance in acholera epidemic.
In 1887, he moved toCapri, bought theVilla San Michele and began restoration, doing much of the work himself, but also employing local residents, including three brothers and their father.
In 1890, running low on money for the project, he opened a practice in Rome which catered to foreign dignitaries as well as the local population. From this point onwards he divided his time between Rome andCapri.
In 1892, Munthe was appointed physician to theSwedish royal family. In particular, he served as personal physician of theCrown Princess,Victoria of Baden, continuing to do so when she becameQueen consort, and until the time of her death in 1930, although this did not mean that he was in constant attendance.
Victoria suffered from severebronchitis and possibly alsotuberculosis. Munthe recommended that she spend her winters on Capri for her health. While initially hesitant, in the autumn of 1910 she travelled to Capri, and from then onwards, except during the First World War and for a few years towards the end of her life, she spent several months each year there.
While in residence the Queen often visited the Villa San Michele to join Munthe for morning walks around the island. Munthe and the Queen also arranged evening concerts at San Michele, at which the Queen played the piano. The Queen shared Munthe's love of animals, owning a pet dog herself, and helped support his efforts to purchase Mount Barbarossa to establish it as abird sanctuary. Perhaps inevitably, given the small local population and their close friendship, it was rumoured that Munthe and the Queen were lovers, but this has never been substantiated.
YoungPrincess Maria, who by request of KingGustaf V of Sweden twice stayed with her mother-in-law the Queen and Munthe at Capri, found his influence damaging and his powershypnotic. Years later she asserted that he wanted her to be his patient at age 23 and made physical advances toward her, and that the horror she then felt toward the Swedish royal family, because of their unlimited support of Munthe, was the main reason she fled them and filed for divorce fromPrince Wilhelm.[5]
Munthe has been described as less interested in the health of his patients than in his own convenience and fame, and his having Victoria travel to Capri, and stay there for months in that particular climate, has been considered more detrimental than beneficial to her health.[6]
Other indication of his passionate nature concerns an affair he is believed to have had with the English socialite LadyOttoline Morrell, beginning when they first met in July or August 1898. Ottoline was then an unmarried 25-year-old member of the privileged London social scene, while being at the same time slightly contemptuous of it. Her intellectual and spiritual interests drew her to more mature men, such asH. H. Asquith, particularly if they had a reputation foriconoclasm. She and Axel Munthe were drawn to each other, and managed to spend much private time together on Capri.[7]
Axel Munthe married Ultima Hornberg, a Swede, on 24 November 1880, whom he met while she was studying art in Paris. They divorced in the late 1880s, and in 1892 she married a Swedish manufacturer named Gustaf Richter, and gave birth to a son in 1893, before dying in 1895.
In 1907, Munthe married Hilda Pennington-Mellor (1876–1967). They had two sons, Peter andMalcolm. There is an anecdote that when Munthe was discussingThe Story of San Michele with his publisher,John Murray, in the garden at Southside, Murray told him that his ancestor and namesakeJohn Murray (1778–1843) had sat in the same garden withLord Byron to discuss publication of Byron's works.
During 1910–1911, Munthe had a 14-room summer home built in Sweden as a gift to his wife. It was originally calledStengården (The Stone Court), but has been known asHildasholm since her death. It is set amongst trees on the shore ofLake Siljan inDalarna, and the architect wasTorben Grut, who also designed theStockholm Stadium used for the1912 Summer Olympics. Hilda landscaped the home with anEnglish garden as part of the dramatic rocky surroundings, and furnished it with 17th, 18th and 19th-century art and furniture from Italy, England and France.
The family usually stayed in the house during the summer, but Munthe was more often at theSan Michele.
During theFirst World War, Munthe became a British citizen and served in the ambulance corps. His wartime experiences were the basis for his book,Red Cross, Iron Cross.
In 1919–1920, Munthe was an unwilling landlord to the outrageous socialite and museLuisa Casati, who took possession of Villa San Michele. This period was described by Scottish authorCompton Mackenzie in his diaries.[8]
Munthe developed an eye condition which eventually made him virtually blind and unable to tolerate the bright Italian sunlight. At that point he returned to Sweden for a number of years and wroteThe Story of San Michele (published in 1929), which was well received, having been translated into at least 45 languages and said to be one of the best-selling books of the 20th century.
An operation restored his sight, and he spent several more years at San Michele before returning to Sweden in 1942. He spent the final years of his life as an official guest of the King of Sweden.
During theSecond World War, Munthe's son Malcolm Pennington Mellor Munthe served with theSpecial Operations Executive, working behindNazi lines in occupied Scandinavia, and later participating in theAllied invasion at Anzio. Malcolm Munthe was seriously wounded during the war, and later developed reclusive tendencies.
Munthe died at Stockholm Palace aged 91. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered into the North Sea. A memorial plaque about him and his family can be found at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
Munthe tried to avoid prescription medication for his psychological cases whenever possible, often recommending hypnosis, music, and other alternative medical approaches. He was peripherally involved in Louis Pasteur's search for arabiesvaccine. He advocatedeuthanasia for hopeless medical situations such asrabies, where the patient is condemned to a prospect of intense pain and mental anguish.
The Story of San Michele overshadows all Munthe's other publications, and includes material from some earlier works. His earlier work can be very difficult to find and often commands high prices.
Aside from his doctoral thesis, his first publications consisted of accounts of his travels which appeared in theStockholms Dagblad newspaper, and which described his experiences of relief work during the cholera epidemic in Naples. These articles were published in 1887 as a book translated into English by Maude Valerie White.[9] The second edition of 1899 was translated by Munthe himself.[10]
Vagaries was first published in London in 1898. It was retitledMemories and Vagaries in a second edition printed in 1908. In 1930 there was a third edition, containing an added preface and a slightly different selection of stories in a different order.
Munthe's reminiscences of his time in the ambulance corps,Red Cross, Iron Cross was published anonymously – "by a doctor in France" – in London in 1916, with all proceeds being donated to theFrench Red Cross. A second edition, credited to Munthe, was published around 1930.
Munthe died in 1949 aged 91, in Stockholm. Several of his properties are now museums and cultural centres. He willedVilla San Michele to the Swedish nation, and it is maintained by a Swedish foundation. The complex functions as a cultural centre, hosting concerts, visiting Swedish scholars, and the local Swedish consulate. The foundation also maintains the Mount Barbarossa bird sanctuary, which covers over 55,000 square metres.
In 1980, a foundation (Stiftelsen Hildasholm) was established to care forHildasholm, the Munthes' Swedish home. Malcolm Munthe donated the home and the art and antiques it contains to the foundation, which operates it as a museum. It was designated a historic building in 1988, and underwent extensive restoration between 1995 and 1999. In addition to tours, the museum hosts art classes and concerts.
Malcolm Munthe spent much of his life after theSecond World War remodelling the family's two mansions in England. His children formed the Pennington-Mellor-Munthe Charity Trust which maintains both Southside andHellens Manor and operates them as museums, also hosting cultural events such as concerts, lectures and literary events. Members of the family still sometimes reside at them.
There have been at least two international symposia on Munthe, the second being held atHildasholm inLeksand, Sweden, on 13 September 2003. Speakers included Dr. Ian McDonald, Levente Erdeos (architect, and former curator of San Michele), the Swedish author Bengt Jangfeldt, Dr. Peter Cottino (from Capri), Mårten Lindståhl, Dr. Katriona Munthe-Lindgren, and Professor Alden Smith from the Department of Classics atBaylor University.
He was the subject of a 1962 biopicAxel Munthe, The Doctor of San Michele, based on his memoirs.
Honorary Commander of theRoyal Victorian Order[11]
