Guy Stair Sainty | |
---|---|
Born | Clayton Priory, Hassocks, Sussex, England | 7 December 1950
Education | Westminster School |
Alma mater | University of Rome College of Law |
Occupation | Art dealer |
Spouses | |
Children | 6 |
Parent(s) | Christopher Lawrence Sainty and Virginia Cade Stair |
Guy Stair Sainty, KStJ KC*SG (born 7 December 1950) [2] is a British art dealer and author on nobility, royal genealogy, and heraldry.
Guy Stair Sainty is the son of Christopher Lawrence Sainty and Virginia Cade Stair, grand-daughter of Alfred Stair. [3] His father was Chief Engineer and Director of Carrier Engineering Co Ltd. [4] He attended Highfield School in Hampshire and Westminster School, London, and continued his education in Rome and at The College of Law in London. [3] In 1979, he moved to New York but returned to Europe in 2002, first to Paris and then to London where the Stair Sainty Gallery has been based since 2005. The gallery specialises primarily in French and Spanish painting from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century and has sold works of art to many of the world's great museums, publishing catalogues on a range of artists and schools.
He married, firstly, on 5 February 1983, Cynthia Holland Ash Volk, [5] with three children, Charles, Clementine, and Della. The marriage ended in divorce in 1993 and ecclesiastical annulment in 1995. Sainty married Elizabeth Frost Pierson, the daughter of W. DeVier Pierson and Shirley Phelps Pierson, née Frost, a private dealer in 19th and 20th century art in New York, in Washington on 28 May 1995 [1] and in a second ceremony at the London Oratory on 28 September 1995. With Elizabeth he had three children, George, Julian and Arabella.
Sainty is a half-brother, by his father's first wife, of Sir John Sainty, retired Clerk of the Parliaments.[ citation needed ]
Sainty has had an interest in the subject of chivalry and heraldry for many years. He is a Fellow with the International Commission on Orders of Chivalry. [6] Sainty is a correspondent member of the Real Academia Matritense de Heraldica y Genealogia (Royal Academy of Heraldry and Genealogy of Madrid). [7] He has served for more than twenty years as one of the consultants to the Committee on the Orders of Saint John of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and The Alliance of the Orders of St. John of Jerusalem. [8]
Sainty has served as a County Staff Officer (Sussex) in the St. John Ambulance. He was first appointed an Associate Officer (Brother), then promoted to an Associated Commander (Brother) on 16 June 1989, [9] and again promoted to the rank of Associate Knight of the Venerable Order of Saint John on 30 July 1992. [10] He was transferred to full membership as a knight of Justice with the change of Statutes in 1999, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Priory in the US until June 2008, [11] but has since transferred to the central roll of the Order.
Sainty is an armiger, having had arms granted by the College of Arms in London, and matriculated at the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. [12] [13] Sainty has also served as a senior county staff officer to H.R.H. Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia. [14] He was formerly a member of the Savoy Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus [15] but resigned in 2006[ citation needed ] and is the Vice-Grand Chancellor of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (Hispano-Neapolitan branch), of which he is a Bailiff Grand Cross. [16] In 2018 the Boletín Oficial del Estado published "The Constantinian Order of Saint George" by Sainty, the first publication in English by the BOE, with a translation in Spanish published in 2020.
On 15 January 2014, Sainty was awarded the rank of Commander (Encomienda) of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by King Juan Carlos I and received unrestricted permission to wear the decorations on 27 July 2017.[ citation needed ]
In December 2003, Rosario Poidimani sued Sainty in an Italian court for libel, on account of his published analysis of the claims to the Portuguese throne of Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança and Rosario Poidimani. [17] In August 2010, Rosario Poidimani won a decision against Sainty in the court of Vicenza; for defamation allegedly caused by the article, Sainty was ordered to pay twenty thousand euro in the judgment. In March 2016, the Italian Court of Appeal of Venice decided in Sainty's favour, rejecting the claim of Poidimani. (No. 730/2016 published 30/03/2016, RG n. 2667/2010, Repert. n. 680/2016 of 30.03.2016.)[ citation needed ]
A military order is a Christian religious society of knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, both in the Holy Land, the Baltics, and the Iberian peninsula; their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and Christians, as well as the defence of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of chivalric orders.
The Order of St John, short for Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and also known as St John International, is a British royal order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedicated to St John the Baptist.
The Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Chivalric Order of Saint John of the Hospital at Jerusalem, commonly known as the Order of Saint John or the Johanniter Order, is the German Protestant branch of the Knights Hospitaller, the oldest surviving chivalric order, which generally is considered to have been founded at Jerusalem in 1099.
A dynastic order, monarchical order, or house order is an order under royal patronage. Such an order is bestowed by, as a legitimate fons honorum, a sovereign or the head of a once-sovereign ruling family. These are often considered part of the cultural patrimony of the ruling family. Dynastic orders were often founded or maintained to reward service to a monarch or their subsequent dynasty.
The Knights of Justice or Professed Knights, form the first of the three classes of members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta together with the professed conventual chaplains. They make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. According to the Order's Code, "they are religious in all respects and they comply with the universal and particular norms that concern them."
Bruno Bernard Heim was a Swiss prelate and Latin Titular Archbishop of Xanthus, a long-serving diplomat of the Holy See who among other appointments was Apostolic Delegate to Great Britain, and later Apostolic Pro-Nuncio, and eventually Apostolic Nuncio, serving until his retirement as a diplomat in 1985.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller, is a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801).
The Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George (SMOCG) (Italian: Sacro Militare Ordine Costantiniano di San Giorgio, Spanish: Sagrada Orden Militar Constantiniana de San Jorge), also historically referred to as the Imperial Constantinian Order of Saint George and the Order of the Constantinian Angelic Knights of Saint George, is a family order of knighthood of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Currently, the grand magistry of the order is disputed among the two claimants to the headship of the former reigning House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies as heirs of the House of Farnese, namely Prince Pedro and Prince Carlo. The order was one of the rare orders confirmed as a religious-military order in the papal bull Militantis Ecclesiae in 1718 owing to a notable success in liberating Christians in the Peloponnese. Together with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta it is one of a small number of Catholic Orders that still has this status today. Although it is not an order of chivalry under patronage of the Holy See, membership is restricted to practising Catholics.
Prince Carlo of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Castro is one of the two claimants to the headship of the former House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
The Royal Equestrian and Military Order of Saint Michael of the Wing is a Portuguese Roman Catholic dynastic order that is believed to have been founded in 1147 in the Alcobaça Monastery in Alcobaça, Portugal, by King Afonso I of Portugal, in commemoration of the Conquest of Santarém from the Moors in 1147. The name was chosen in honour of the military Saint Archangel Michael, who assisted in the victory in the shape of a wing in the sky.
Mark Turnham Elvins OFMCap was Warden of Greyfriars, Oxford, until its closure in 2008.
A self-styled order or pseudo-chivalric order is an organisation which claims to be a chivalric order, but is not recognised as legitimate by countries or international bodies. Most self-styled orders arose in or after the mid-18th century, and many have been created recently. Most are short-lived and endure no more than a few decades.
Prince Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria, Grandee of Spain, is the only son of Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria (1938–2015), and his wife, Princess Anne of Orléans. As primogeniture heir of the kings of the Two Sicilies he is the principal claimant to the headship of the Royal House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, which ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies before the unification of Italy.
The International Commission for Orders of Chivalry is a privately run, privately funded organisation composed of scholars on chivalric matters and systems of awards. Founded in 1960, its stated purpose is to examine orders of chivalry to determine their legitimacy. Its president since 1999 is Pier Felice degli Uberti, and its seat is situated in Milan, Italy.
The Royal Military and Hospitaller Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem united was a chivalric order instituted in 1608 by personal union of the medieval Order of Saint Lazarus in France and the new Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of King Henry IV of France. The union of the two orders was recognised by a bull of Cardinal Louis de Bourbon, papal legate in France, dated 5 June 1668.
Fra' John Timothy Dunlap is a Canadian attorney who has been the Prince and Grand Master and head of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta since May 3, 2023. He had been Lieutenant of the Grand Master since 13 June 2022. Dunlap is the first Prince and Grand Master not to be of noble or aristocratic ancestry, which was traditionally a requirement for the role until a revision to the Order's constitution ordered by Pope Francis in 2022.
Andrea Angeli was the Grand Master of the Constantinian Order of Saint George from c. 1545 to 1580. Andrea and his brother Paolo were the founders of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George and were papally recognized claimants to descent from the Angelos dynasty of Byzantine emperors. Andrea claimed the title "Duke and Count of Drivasto and Durazzo", and from the death of Arianitto Arianiti in 1551, also claimed the title "Prince of Macedonia".
Giovanni Demetrio Angeli was an early member of the Albanian-Italian Angelo Flavio Comneno family, which claimed descent from the Angelos dynasty of Byzantine emperors. His later relatives attributed him various titles, such as "Prince of Achaea and Macedonia" and "Prince of Cilicia".
Girolamo I Angeli was a joint, or rival, Grand Master of the Constantinian Order of Saint George from 1570 to 1591, together with, or against, his brother Andrea and then his nephew Pietro. Girolamo's family, the Angelo Flavio Comneno, claimed descent from the Angelos dynasty of Byzantine emperors, and Girolamo also claimed the title "Prince of Thessaly".
Marco Angelo Flavio Comneno was according to the official reconstruction of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George the grand master of the order from 1678 to 1679, though the historicity of his tenure as grand master has been questioned on the basis that he might in actuality have predeceased his supposed predecessor, his older brother Angelo Maria Angeli. Marco's family, the Angelo Flavio Comneno, claimed descent from the Angelos dynasty of Byzantine emperors. The modern Constantinian Order attributes Marco the titular titles previously used by his older brother; "Prince of Macedonia and Thessaly" and "Duke and Count of Drivasto and Durazzo".
Cynthia Holland Ash Volk, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Hohne Volk of New York and Quaker Hill, Pawling, N.Y., was married yesterday to Guy Stair Sainty, son of Mrs. Christopher Lawrence Sainty of London and the late Mr. Sainty. The Rev. James Whittemore performed the ceremony in the chapel of Trinity Episcopal Church in Manhattan....Mr. Sainty is president of Stair Sainty Fine Art Inc. in Manhattan, which specializes in French painting of the late 18th and 19th centuries. He attended the Westminster School in London and the University of Rome and graduated from the College of Law in London
He is a correspondent member of the Real Academia Matritense de Heraldica y Genealogia