Dante’s Beach, Ravenna
When I was still beautiful, a famous Italian TV art historian and politician chose me to be a candidate in the elections to the European parliament for his Partito della Bellezza (Party of Beauty). The idea – as Dostoevsky told us in The Idiot – was that beauty will save the world. The highlight of my brief attempt to enter politics was a trip to Venice where I went by vaporetto along the Grand Canal to the 16th-century Court of Appeal to lodge my candidature amid the echoes of its vast marbled interior. I got 54 votes.
Casanova, who was from Venice, claimed in his Histoire de ma Vie to have slept with 122 women. A paltry sum. I beat him hands down, though to my shame cannot remember the names of most of them. Or even their faces.
I beat Casanova hands down, though to my shame cannot remember the names of most of the women
But I digress. The Partito della Bellezza was not a Partito del Sesso (Party of Sex) even if its charismatic founder, Vittorio Sgarbi, was a notorious lothario. He used to say: ‘Beauty will save the world if the world saves beauty.’ I loved the idea. It was a bit like what Sir Roger Scruton tried to do with his crusade against the cult of ugliness in art and architecture, and the cult of utility in life which treats beauty as an optional.
