The Infamous Countess Of Castiglione

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When the Countess of Castiglione’s ex tried to get custody of their son, she sent him a present in the mail. It was a simple photograph of her, but when he looked closer, his blood ran cold. Virginia Oldoini, known better to history as the Countess of Castiglione, was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. The Italian aristocrat’s legendary beauty and photographic misadventures turned her into the world’s first model, but that’s not what made her infamous. From her bedroom exploits to her tragic downfall, the Countess of Castiglione is one historical figure worth knowing.

On March 22nd, 1837, the Countess was born into her very own gilded velvet world. The daughter of Tuscan nobles, her birth name was Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Carlotta Antonietta Teresa Maria Oldoini Rapallini. You can’t very well go around calling your child a 30-syllable name, so it makes sense that her parents dubbed her Nicchia. As her grandiose name implies, Virginia’s parents had big expectations for their little girl, expectations that would soon ruin her entire life. Growing up, it was clear to everyone who knew the girl that the young Oldoini was going to be a looker. She had long wavy blonde hair, a refined face, and a legendary figure. The Countess was famous for one feature in particular: her eyes. According to reports from the time, they were constantly changing from green to a brilliant blue-violet.

By the time she was a teen, men were giving her plenty of attention. Creepily enough, her parents were totally fine with that; in fact, they took advantage of it in the worst way possible. When Virginia was just 17 years old, her parents wasted no time in marrying her off to Francesco Verasis, the Count of Castiglione. Although the union gave Virginia the name we know her by today, it didn’t give her a whole lot else. The Count was 12 years older than her and not much to look at. Right before her arranged marriage to the older Count, Virginia sowed her wild oats and then some. The young girl reportedly embarked on a steamy affair with a hunky naval officer right before tying the knot, which suggests the soon-to-be notorious courtesan desired things beyond domestic bliss.

From the very beginning, Virginia had friends in high places. Not only was her husband a noble, but her own heritage was nothing to sniff at. Her cousin, Camillo Benso, was even a minister for the King of Sardinia. Well, Camillo must have been a smart man, because one day he rang up the Countess with a brilliant and scandalous proposition. Camillo was in the middle of trying to convince the French Emperor, Napoleon III, to help unify Italy, and he knew his cousin Virginia had a hypnotizing power over men. He asked the Countess to go to France and convince Napoleon to join their side. Yep, he wanted her to become a spy, but that wasn’t all he asked her to do. Let’s just say that the convincing Camillo had in mind wasn’t the kind that involves long debates and dusty books. In fact, he specifically told the Countess to succeed by whatever means you wish, but succeed. So now she wasn’t just a spy; she was a honeypot.

The Oldoini cousins couldn’t have picked a better mark than Napoleon III. A notorious womanizer, Napoleon also suffered from a chaste and pious wife, Empress Eugénie, who had long stopped sleeping with him because she found him and his extramarital escapades disgusting. Enter the Countess of Castiglione. Although the still-teenaged Virginia jumped at the chance to go to Paris and get away from her humdrum life, there was one big wrench in her plans: Count Francesco went with her, and everybody knows that a middle-aged husband can really cramp your courtesan style. What actually happened was even more disastrous. Emperor Napoleon didn’t seem to mind that the Countess came to his court as a married woman, and her mission went very well indeed. Almost as soon as she set foot in Paris, Virginia was notorious as Napoleon’s mistress, and she didn’t exactly try to hide the affair.

Although infidelity is certainly close to number one on the list of marital sins, the Countess of Castiglione didn’t stop there. Aside from taking up with Napoleon III in full view of her husband, Francesco, the Countess also literally bankrupted the man with her expensive tastes. There’s no doubt that the French court was initially obsessed with the Countess, and she became the “It Girl” du jour. People called her beauty a miracle and named her “La Divina Contessa.” You know you’ve made it when someone compares you to a literal goddess. But for all this praise, not everyone was enamored. The Countess of Castiglione had no love lost for Empress Eugénie, Napoleon’s wife. The two women were exact opposites in many ways: Virginia was liberal and fun-loving, while Eugénie was serious and devoted to her country. Plus, you know, there was the whole “other woman” thing.

While at Napoleon’s court, the Countess became famous for more than just her sheet smarts. She was also a fashionista. Courtiers were delighted with her flamboyant entrances to parties, and her costumes were always impeccable. This sartorial talent even once allowed her to make a legendary statement. One day, Napoleon was hosting yet another lavish ball, and the Countess took the opportunity to flex her power. She not only entered the ballroom with the Emperor on her arm, she also did it while wearing a Queen of Hearts costume. The fashion choice let Eugénie know that even if she was an empress, the Countess still reigned over Napoleon’s heart. Prim, proper, and dutiful, Eugénie had to suffer in contempt when she got the full view of the Countess of Castiglione’s costume. The dress, while dotted with hearts, was almost entirely see-through, and the good old Countess wasn’t wearing a corset. Yep, there’s a reason why it became infamous.

In case it’s not clear yet, the Countess wasn’t a girl’s girl, not by any stretch of the imagination. She actively spurned the company of other women, often refusing to eat or even talk to them while she was at parties. Instead, she preferred to stand in the middle of the room and let men fawn over her as if she were a shrine. Sure, the Countess was beautiful, but beauty is only skin deep. Her memoirs reveal some quite embarrassing details. In her own writings, she refers to herself in the third person, saying things like, “The Eternal Father did not know what he was creating the day he sent her into the world.” Insufferable. It wasn’t all disreputable behavior in the court of Napoleon III, and the Countess’s proximity to the Emperor threw her into the paths of some of the most important figures in Europe at the time, including legendary German statesman Otto von Bismarck.

Between her busy schedule romancing Napoleon, the Countess also found time for another spicy hobby. She loved being in photos, but unlike our pitiful selfies, the Countess turned self-obsession into a cottage industry; in fact, it’s what she’s famous for today. After teaming up with photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson, Virginia amassed over 700 19th-century selfies. Surprising almost no one, she wasn’t afraid to be very risqué in her photographs, but her most scandalous photos were also her most bizarre. The Countess infamously snapped pictures that exposed her bare feet and legs. Though this might sound tame, these poses were so indecent by 19th-century standards she had to crop out her face.

If Virginia counted you among her closest friends, you might get a kind of ridiculous memento from her. Throughout her life, the Countess made use of her famous photography habit and would often send albums to her nearest and dearest, all filled with picture after picture of her. Before you go accusing her of being a good-for-nothing influencer, consider this: she was deeply involved in the production of her photos, essentially acting as her own art director. She was notoriously obsessive about this aspect of her work, repositioning the camera with pernickety precision when she didn’t like what she saw. She was also one of the first airbrushers. Hand-painted photographs were a luxurious novelty at the time, so naturally, she made the best use of them she could. Whenever she wasn’t perfectly satisfied with a photograph, she’d use hand-painting to soften her unflattering angles and put herself in the best light.

In hindsight, it’s not a very good idea to send a teenager into enemy territory with instructions to sleep her way to the top. Soon enough, it all came crashing down. Turns out that while Napoleon and the Countess were very pleased with themselves, Francesco wasn’t so ecstatic, and her bitter husband soon demanded a separation. In 1857, barely a year after the well-heeled couple traveled to Paris, Count Francesco left court for his native Italy in a huff, leaving his young, impressionable wife behind. There was one, and just one, bright spot in Virginia’s marriage to her fuddy-duddy husband: the son they had together, Giorgio. The Countess doted on the boy as only a rich mommy can, pouring all her own frustrated hopes and dreams into him. Giorgio, in turn, adored her. Virginia showed an eerie attachment to Giorgio, but it didn’t stop there. She also insisted on photographing him constantly, pulling him into many of her projects and often making him serve as her stand-in when she set up shots. As a result, he became the most photographed child of the 19th century.

The Countess may have had a mystical hold over men, but her allure had one major flaw. She was, in a word, vain. Okay, maybe two words: extremely vain. Many times, her self-absorption got the better of her, and instead of seducing her dancing partners, she only made them yawn. As one of her contemporaries put it more sharply, after a few moments, she began to get on your nerves. In the end, her illicit dalliance with Napoleon III was short-lived. By 1860, their affair had soured, and the Countess had completely lost favor at court. Virginia never did reconcile with her husband, and though this would get her into trouble later, she didn’t much mind for the time being. She returned to Italy only briefly after her royal affair fell apart, but she just couldn’t stay away from her beloved France. She went back in 1861 and stayed for good, getting into a lot more trouble in the meantime.

When the Countess broke up with Napoleon III, she didn’t stop entertaining, and she continued to have affairs with a series of high-profile suitors throughout her life. She wasn’t cheap, either. Reportedly, the Marquess Richard Seymour-Conway once offered her one million francs for just 12 hours of her company. Even though it took the virtual dissolution of her marriage, the Countess of Castiglione did eventually succeed in her original mission. In 1861, Italy unified into an official kingdom, thanks in no small part to the Countess’s tireless efforts.

In 1871, things weren’t looking good for the Countess. Prussia had just absolutely destroyed France in the Franco-Prussian War, and German forces were considering occupying Paris and threatening the Countess’s luxurious way of life. But it turns out that she really shone when her back was up against the wall. Please, no jokes. Even after her tenure as a royal mistress, the Countess played an important role in European politics. While Germany was considering occupying France, her old friend Otto von Bismarck called her up personally and set up a secret meeting to ask her advice on the matter. The Countess’s totally unbiased response? “Nah, you don’t want to do that.” And guess what? He listened. Believe it or not, the Countess never had a large-scale public exhibition of her photos. This was all supposed to change at the turn of the century when the aging model finally had big plans to display her collection of over 700 photos in Paris. Most tragically, this wasn’t to be.

Virginia didn’t cope well with aging, and her insecurities soon took on deranged proportions. Unable to confront her fading looks, the middle-aged Countess insisted on spending her final years in black-colored rooms with closed blinds and no mirrors. Not even she was entitled to look at the waning beauty of the Countess of Castiglione. Despite her self-exile later in life, she still found time to do the occasional photo shoot, but the results were kind of weird. Critics have noted how morbid her late-period images are, with the Countess doing things like placing herself inside a coffin and posing with the body of her late terrier pup. In her later years, the Countess barely left her house, considering it the height of mortification to show her slightly wrinkled face to the masses. When she did leave, she would wear dark veils and only go out at night so she could cover all evidence of her aging. Sadly, she might have had a darker reason for this behavior. In 1879, little Giorgio died from smallpox. Suddenly, her regime of funeral black rooms, veils, and never leaving the house makes tragic sense.

After a lifetime of being camera-ready, Virginia died on November 28th, 1899, a full 20 years after the death of her son. She wouldn’t live to see the exposition where she planned to debut her photos. By dying in 1899, she also missed out on the 20th century, an era where photography would only continue to dominate media and society. Despite her prickly nature, the Countess had rabid fans long after she passed. The poet and dandy Robert de Montesquiou was obsessed with her even when she was alive, and his ardor only grew. He eventually collected over 400 photos from her massive collection, which are now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sometime during her separation proceedings, the Countess of Castiglione’s estranged husband decided to ramp up the bitterness and do something truly horrific. He tried to claim custody of their son Giorgio, using his wife’s lavish lifestyle as proof of her bad mothering. The Countess’s response was swift and brutal. When Francesco tried to claim custody of her beloved son Giorgio, the Countess of Castiglione didn’t take it lying down. Instead, she sent her ex a present in the mail. When he opened it, he thought it seemed to be an innocent photograph of the beautiful Countess dressed up in a luxurious gown. But when the Count looked closer, he was horrified. Virginia’s photograph was a warning shot to her estranged husband. In the portrait, the well-dressed Countess was also holding a knife in her hand, half-hidden in the folds of her dress. She titled the photo “La Vengeance” just to make her message extra clear. And wouldn’t you know, she got custody of Giorgio for the rest of his life.

Some scholars argue that the Countess of Castiglione wasn’t just the first model of her time; she was also the first supermodel, too. Her photographs weren’t just about the clothes she was wearing, but also about who was wearing them, putting her up there with the likes of Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. She’s also sometimes called the Queen of Surrealism. Her playful photo shoots anticipated the surrealist aesthetic that would dominate the art scene after she passed. In one very meta photo, she peers at the viewer through a camera, drawing attention to the ways she’s both looking at you while you’re looking at her. Ooh, profound. All she needs is a caption with an inspirational quote about following your dreams and you’d think she was born in 1998. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a like and subscribe for more videos.