Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 2 July 1958, page 21


How they live:

Comfort for the Cilentos

A brilliant wool rug for their film-star daughter, Diane, massive blue velvet divans from their apartment in New York, an ex-quisite hand-beaten silver coffee service from Persia, and a goldfish tank made by their son David decorate the living-room of Sir Raphael and Lady Cilento's home at Annerley. Qld.

WHEN these pictures

were taken, Lady Cilento was embroidering the names of Diane and her husband, Andrea Volpe, on the rug.

Diane, who returned to Brisbane for the birth of her

daughter, Giovanna, in Dec-ember, usually divides her time between a villa in Rome and a flat in London.

In May she went to New York to work on a play due to open on Broadway in Oc-

tober.

Giovanna, born with dark hair, now is a blonde.

Sir Raphael and Lady Cil-ento are doctors, so are their sons "Raff" and Carl, and daughter Ruth.

Margaret, the artist member of the brilliant family, has

made London her headquar-ters for some

years, reducing the Annerley household to Sir

Raphael, his wife, and their youngest son, David, a fourth year medical student.

Because of the smaller fam-ily, the living quarters of the

20-room home have been cut to flat-size.

Lady Cilento has had a staircase built in the living-ly room to connect it with her

surgery under the house.

Sir Raphael and Lady Cil-ento met as medical students at Adelaide University,

Lady Cilento was the first

woman medical officer in the Malay States, where Sir

Raphael became physician to

the Sultan of Perak after their marriage in 1920.

The Cilentos have since

lived in many parts of the world, but always, whether in Berlin, New York, or Towns-ville, Lady Cilento has made

their address a real home.

Their travels, work, and wide interests are reflected throughout their Brisbane

home.

The silver coffee service

was a gift to Lady Cilento from Princess Ashraf, sister of the Shah of Persia, in ap-preciation of Sir Raphael's

social services work for Persia.

Among the many items in Sir Raphael's study is a hel-met given to him by miners

after he had walked 162 miles

underground in Australian coalfields on a health survey.

Besides being a world expert on tropical medicine, Sir Raphael is a barrister and an

authority on international

affairs.

His overseas appointments have included United Nations Director for Refugees and Dis-placed Persons and U.N.

Director of Social Activities.

Paintings by Margaret, cap-turing fragments of family travel and history, hang in many rooms in the Cilento

home.

One is a sea and landscape

of a famous landmark in the

Cilento district in Italy, where Sir Raphael's ancestors lived

from feudal times.

By

MARY COLES,

staff reporter

ABOVE: In the L-shaped living-room of their home at Annerley, Qld., Sir Raphael Cilento watches his wife em-broider a rug she hand-crocheted for their famous filmstar daughter, Diane.

BELOW: Through the service hatch between kitchen and study Lady Cilento has coffee with Sir Raphael. A good cook, she prepares the family meals when her housekeeper is off duty every weekend.

ABOVE: Roll-top desk in Sir Raphael's study is surrounded by books and papers. Helmet in left foreground was given to him by Australian miners. He uses the map for lectures on the Middle East. The study, with its comfortable chair, is in the enclosed front verandah of the big house.

RIGHT: Poinciana tree in bloom at the back of the house, in the grounds are pine trees grown from the seeds of pine-cones collected by Sir Raphael and his wife in the Cilento district in Italy. David Cilenyo took this pic-ture. The other three on this page are by Lionel Keen.