Famous for being famous – the scandalous life of the Countess of Castiglione
From our UK edition
‘The whore of the Risorgimento’ or ‘the divine Countess’ – Virginia Oldoini Verasis di Castiglione was among the most extravagantly flamboyant figures of the 19th century, notorious principally as the mistress of Napoleon III. Drawing on thousands of unpublished documents, Benedetta Craveri’s biography of the woman whose name, according to the arch-priest of aesthetes Robert de Montesquiou, became ‘synonymous with beauty’ presents a nuanced portrait of an aristocratic adventuress. Her talent for seduction played a pivotal, yet largely unacknowledged, role in the unification of Italy.
