Daughter of a
Hamburg banker, she was born in
England and spent much of her early life in
Italy and England. She was well known in connection with the movement for
Italian unity and freedom and edited the first version of
Garibaldi's memoirs in German, published in English in 1887. After first meeting
Garibaldi on the island of
Caprera in 1857 she received affectionate letters from him and an ultimately unsuccessful proposal of marriage in 1858. After 1865 she lived in
Chania. She took interest in
animal welfare and criticized animal testing. In 1875, she read a German translation of
George Fleming's
vivisection essay which inspired her
anti-vivisection novel
Gemma, oder Tugend und Laster (translated as
Gemma, or Virtue and Vice). Melena's novel has been described as "mobilizing public opinion against vivisection in Germany". ==References==