Joseph Whitaker (ornithologist)

Joseph Isaac Spadafora Whitaker (19 March 1850 in Palermo – 3 November 1936 in Rome) was a Sicilan-English ornithologist, archaeologist and sportsman. He is mainly known for his work on the birds of Tunisia, and for being involved in the foundation of the Sicilian football club U.S. Città di Palermo.

Whitaker's family came from prominent Yorkshire origins. The Whitaker family were wealthy 19th-century tycoons from West Yorkshire, who had developed the fortified wine industry in Marsala, Sicily. During 1806, many members of the Whitaker family had moved to Sicily permanently.

He inherited vast vineyards and his great grandfather Ingham's banking empire. Choosing Palermo over the more provincial Marsala, he built the Villa Malfitano, an Italian Art Nouveau mansion near Zisa Castle on the Via Dante after his marriage to Tina Scalia. Tina was the daughter of General Alfonso Scalia who landed in Sicily with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the years leading up to the Risorgimento. They had two daughters; the elder of which married General Antonio Di Giorgio an Italian Minister of War. Thus the family was firmly established in the upper echelons of Italian Society.

In these years, the Belle Époque age, the house was the venue for lavish parties attended by British and Italian royalty. Tina Whitaker knew Richard Wagner, Benito Mussolini, the Kaiser and Edward VII, Empress Eugenie and Queen Mary. Attracted by homosexual company, she unwittingly found herself in a circle involved in the Irish Crown Jewels scandal.

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