by Scott Mehl © Unofficial Royalty 2020
Virginia Oldoïni, Countess of Castiglione was the mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France from 1856-1857.
Virginia Oldoïni, Countess of Castiglione; source: Wikipedia
Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Carlotta Antonietta Teresa Maria Oldoïni was born on March 22, 1837 in Florence. She was the only daughter of Marquis Filippo Oldoïni – later the Italian Ambassador to Portugal – and Isabella Lamporecchi. At the age of 17, she married Francesco Verasis, Count of Castiglione on January 9, 1854. A year later she gave birth to her only child, a son Georgio.
Elsewhere in Europe at the time, there was an effort being made to establish a unified and independent Kingdom of Italy. A cousin of Virginia’s – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who served as a minister to King Vittorio Emanuele II of Sardinia (and later as the first Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy) – saw the young beautiful Virginia as a way to gain the attention – and support – of the French Emperor Napoleon III. At her cousin’s request, Virginia and her husband traveled to Paris on Christmas Day in 1855. Just a few weeks later, she was presented to the Emperor at a ball held at the home of Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, and within a few months, she had become his mistress. While such relationships were usually maintained with some level of discretion, Virginia and the Emperor made no secret of theirs. The scandal and humiliation led to a formal separation between Virginia and her husband.
Virginia Oldoïni, Countess of Castiglione; source: Wikipedia
Virginia’s affair with the Emperor ended in 1857, and she returned to Italy. Four years later, the Kingdom of Italy was established, and Virginia maintained that her influence had, in part, contributed to the unification. By 1861, she had moved to France where she settled in Passy before returning to Paris. By then a very wealthy woman, she devoted much of her time and fortune to her newfound passion – photography.
La Dame de Coeurs. source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
In 1856, Virginia began posing for Pierre-Louis Pierson, a photographer favored by the Imperial Court. Many of the photographs depicted specific moments from her life, while others were recreations of historical figures. One, shown above, titled La Dame de Coeurs (The Lady of Hearts), was displayed in the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867. Over the next forty years, Virginia sat for more than 700 photographs – all very carefully choreographed by Virginia herself. After her death, Robert de Montesquiou, a noted poet and art collector, amassed over 400 of these photographs, many of which are now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Countess of Castiglione, photographed in 1893. source: Wikipedia
In her later years, following the death of her estranged husband in 1867 and her son in 1979, Virginia became a virtual recluse, rarely leaving her apartments in Paris. No longer having the immense beauty of her youth, she had all her mirrors covered and refused to go out in public until after dark, always draping herself in scarves to avoid anyone seeing her face. In the mid-1890s, perhaps in an attempt to recapture her youth, she collaborated with Pierson once again for a series of photographs – many of them in the same costumes and outfits from years earlier.
Virginia Oldoïni, Countess of Castiglione died on November 28, 1899 at the age of 62. She is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.
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