CHAPTER SIX: “LITTLE DEATH” IN VENICE
There are two general guides to the erotic history of the city by local historian Claudio Dell’Orso—the rather cheesy Venezia Erotica (Florence: Glittering Images, 1995) and the more restrained Venezia Libertina: I Luoghi della Memoria Erotica (Venice: Arsenale, 1999).
More academic background can be found in:
Le Cortigiane de Venezia, dal Trecento al Settecento exhibition catalogue, Casinò Municipale (Venice, 1990).
Lawner, Lynne, Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance (New York: Rizzoli, 1987).
Casanova Biographies
Summers, Judith, Casanova’s Women (New York/London: Bloomsbury, 2006).
Kelly, Ian, Casanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2008).
CHAPTER SEVEN: VATICAN VICE
Contardi, Bruno, Quando Gli Dei Si Spogliano: Il bagno di Clemente VII a Castel Sant’Angelo e le Altre Stufe Romane del Primo Cinquecento (Rome: Romana Società Editrice, 1984).
Dacos, Nicole, La Découverte de la Domus Aurea et la Formation des Grotesques à la Renaissance (London: Warburg Institute, 1969).
Deoclecio, Redig de Campos, I Palazzi Vaticani (Bologna: Cappelli, 1967).
Kertzer, David, Prisoner of the Vatican: The Popes, the Kings and Garibaldi’s Rebels in the Struggle to Rule Modern Italy (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
Glaser, F.L., Pope Alexander VI and His Court: Extracts from the Latin Diary of Johannes Burchardus (New York: N. L. Brown, 1921).
Godwin, Joscelyn, The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 2002).
Rodocanachi, Emmanuel, Histoire de Rome: Le Pontificat de Léon X (Paris: Hachette, 1931).
Rowland, Ingrid D., Giordano Bruno, Philosopher/Heretic (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008).
Tinagli, Paola, Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Representation, Identity (New York/Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997).
I Modi
Lawner, Lynne, I Modi, the Sixteen Pleasures: An Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998).
The Vatican Archives
Blouin, Francis X. (general editor), Vatican Archives: An Inventory and Guide to the Historical Documents of the Holy See (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Cifrese, Alejandro, and Marco Pizzo, Rari e Preziosi: Documenti dell’età moderna e contemporanea dall’archivo del Sant’Uffizio (Vatican City, 2006).
Fig Leaves
Prange, Peter, and Raimund Wünsche, Das Feige(n)blatt (Munich: Glyptothek, 2000).
CHAPTER EIGHT: RETURN OF THE PAGANS
Beard, Mary, Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (New York: Profile Books, 2008).
Clarke, John R., Roman Sex: 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (New York: Abrams, 2003).
Johns, Catherine, Sex or Symbol: Erotic Images of Greece and Rome (London: Routledge, 1989).
La Capria, Raffaele, Capri and No Longer Capri (New York: Nation Books, 2001).
Varone, Antonio, Erotica Pompeiana: Love Inscriptions on the Walls of Pompeii, tr. Ria P. Berg (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002).
Varone, Antonio, Eroticism in Pompeii, tr. Maureen Fant (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could never have been written without the kindness of many friends and strangers in Britain, France, and Italy. I’d particularly like to thank the staff in the department of prehistory and Europe in the British Museum for indulging my interest in the former Secretum and the very friendly curators at the Museum of St. Andrews University for helping me with the Beggar’s Benison and Wig Club artifacts. In Paris, I could not have managed without the avid researches of Nicole Canet, owner of the gallery Au Bonheur du Jour, or the generosity of Louis Soubrier, who kindly opened up his family warehouse. In Provence, I’d like to thank Pierre Cardin for providing access to the Château Sade. In Rome, the staff of the Secret Archive in the Vatican were extremely helpful, as were the anonymous administrators who finally gave me access to the Stufetta del Bibbiena. In Capri, Ausilia and Ricardo Esposito, owners of the fine bookstore La Conchiglia, offered marvelous insider tips on the island’s history.
In New York, thanks to my agent Henry Dunow, editor Charles Conrad and his assistants Jenna Ciongoli and Hallie Falquet, and to the friends who kindly read parts of the magnum opus in draft form, David Farley and Tom Downey.
The book would never have gotten off the ground without the encouragement and insight of June Thomas, foreign editor of Slate magazine, who supported the original idea of a series on lurid historical secrets, “The Pervert’s Grand Tour.”
I’d also like to thank my editors at the New York Times, Dannielle Maltoon and Stuart Emmrich, and my editors at the Smithsonian magazine, Carey Winfrey and Karen Larkins, for supporting various legs of the epic journey with assignments. Some parts of this book have appeared in different form in those publications.
And finally, my biggest thanks to Lesley Thelander, who contributed to the book at every stage—from plotting the journey itself to reading and editing the manuscript in its various incarnations and offering her support until the last full stop of composition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The need for perpetual motion has always been Tony Perrottet’s most obvious personality disorder. While studying history at Sydney University, the Australian-born Perrottet regularly disappeared to hitchhike through the Outback, sail the coast of Sumatra, and travel through rural India (enjoying a brief and inglorious career as a film extra in Rajasthan). After graduation, he moved to South America to work as a foreign correspondent, where he covered the Shining Path guerrilla war in Peru, drug running in Colombia, gold rushes in Bolivia, and several military rebellions in Argentina. A brief visit to Manhattan twenty years ago convinced him that New York was the ideal place for a rootless wanderer to be based. From his current home in the East Village of Manhattan, he has continued to commute to Fiji, Iceland, Tierra del Fuego, and Zanzibar, while contributing to the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, Slate, Outside, The Believer, the Village Voice, and the London Sunday Times. His work has been selected for the Best American Travel Writing series four times.
Perrottet is the author of four previous books, which have been translated into eight languages—Off the Deep End: Travels in Forgotten Frontiers (1997); Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists (2002); The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games (2004); and Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped (2008). The Sinner’s Grand Tour began as an award-winning series for Slate magazine on the salacious historical secrets of Britain, France, and Italy.
Perrottet is also a regular guest on NPR Radio and the History Channel, where he has spoken about everything from the Crusades to the birth of disco.
Further information on the author’s books and magazine pieces can be found on his website, www.tonyperrottet.com.
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