They saw dead bodies in the road, climbed over destroyed bridges and heard bombs pounding a nearby airport. A mother, her three children, escaping Ukraine, where they were born, came to safety in a 500-year-old villa in Rome owned by an Italian princess who once had ties to South Carolina.

Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi of Italy, the former wife of South Carolina’s John Jenrette, a rising star of Democratic politics who did prison time for accepting bribes, has taken in the family of her longtime housekeeper Olena Kolkovska. There was no doubt she would agree, even as she fights against losing the home she shared with her husband, the now-deceased Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi.