Dolce Vita / My beautiful friend’s beautiful manifesto |
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
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........