Bauska Museum receives donation on the von Budberg family's life in Budberg

Bauska Museum in Latvia has received a donation from Italy: photographs and documents about the life, farming and educational activity of the Baltic German von Budberg family in Budberg, in the Bauska region, in the late 19th century. The materials were given by Donatella Belloni of Rome, whose great-grandmother belonged to the family. The photographs show an educational institution that the museum had not previously known existed.

A letter from Rome

In the summer of 2026 the museum received an email from Belloni. She wrote that she had kept a few documents from her great-grandmother. While looking into where her great-grandmother lived in the late 19th century, she found references to the settlement of Budberg in Latvia and concluded that her ancestral roots might lie there. She also found the nearest town, Bauska, and the museum's contact details. She attached a few scanned photographs from the 19th century and asked whether the museum would be interested in such material.

Museum specialist Ilva Strautzele says the staff were very surprised at first. Historical sources do contain information on the Budberg family and manor, but the attached photographs showed a school that nobody in Budberg had known about. The museum confirmed its interest and waited eagerly for a reply.

Meeting in Italy

Belloni offered to send the documents and suggested that anyone who happened to be in Rome meet her to see what else she had. Art historians Ina Līne and Dainis Bruģis had planned a trip to Italy in mid-September for other reasons and agreed to visit her and bring a few documents back to Bauska.

They met in Belloni's spacious apartment in Rome. After viewing everything she had preserved from her great-grandmother, Līne and her colleague realised they would need to buy a suitcase to carry the whole donation to Latvia.