when the Countess of castal Leon'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 aluin known better to history as the Countess of castalon was mad bad and dangerous to know the Italian aristocrat's legendary Beauty and photo graphic 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 castalone is one historical figure worth knowing on March 22nd
1837 the contest was born into her very own gilded velvet world the daughter of Tuscan Nobles her birthname was Virginia Elizabeth Louisa Carlota antonetta Teresa Maria Alduin rapalini you can't very well go around calling your child a 30 syllable name so it makes sense that her parents stubbed her Nikia 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 aluin 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 Franchesco vases the count of castalone 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 Coran desired things Beyond domestic Bliss from the very [Music] 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 Camilo Benso was even a minister for the king of Sardinia well Camilo must have been a smart man because one day he rang up the contest with a brilliant and scandalous proposition Camilo 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 contest to go to France and convinced 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 Camilo had in mind wasn't the kind that involves long debates and Dusty books in fact he specifically told the contest to succeed by whatever never means you wish but succeed so now she wasn't just a spy she was a Honeypot the aldini cousins couldn't have picked a better Mark than Napoleon III a notorious womanizer Napolean also suffered from a chased and Pious wife Empress yugen who had long stopped sleeping with him because she found him and his extramarital escapades disgusting enter the contest of castalone 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 Franchesco went with her and everybody knows that a middle-aged husband can really cramp your corisan style what actually happened was even more disastrous Emperor Napoleon didn't seem to mind that the contest 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 contest of castalon didn't stop there aside from taking up with Napoleon theii in full view of her husband Franchesco 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 dujour people called her beauty a miracle and named her as ladinia Contessa you know you've made it when someone Compares you to a literal goddess but for all this praise not everyone was [Music] enamored the Countess
of castelon had no love lost for Empress yugen Napoleon's wife the two women were exact opposites in many ways Virginia was liberal and funloving while yene was serious and devoted to her country plus you know there was the the whole other woman thing while at Napoleon's Court the contest 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 contest took the opportunity to flex her power she not only entered the ball room with the emperor on her arm she also did it while wearing a Queen of Hearts costume the fashion Choice let eugy know that even if she was an empress the Countess still reigned over Napoleon's heart Prim proper and dutiful Eugene had to suffer in contempt when she got the full view of the contest of castellon's costume the dress while dotted with hearts was almost entirely seethrough 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 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 contest 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 bismar 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 contest turned self-obsession into a cottage industry in fact it's what she's famous
for today after teaming up with photographer Pierre Louie Pearson Virginia amassed over 719 Century selfies surprising almost no one she wasn't AF afraid to be very risque 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 ulous momento from her throughout her life the contest 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 of her work repositioning the camera with pernic 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 Franchesco wasn't so ecstatic and her bitter husband soon demanded a separation in 1857 barely a year after the well-healed couple traveled to Paris count
Franchesco left court for his native Italy in a huff leaving his young impressionable wife [Music] behind there was one and just one bright spot in Virginia's marriage to her fuddy duddy husband the son they had together Georgio the Countess doed on the boy as only a rich Mommy can pouring all her own frustrated hopes and dreams into him Georgio and turn adored her Virginia showed an eerie attachment to Georgio but it didn't stop there she also insisted on photographing him constantly pulling him into many of her project and often making him serve as her standin
when she set up shots as a result he became the most photographed child of the 19th century the contest 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 partner 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 elicit diance with Napoleon theii was shortlived but
by 1860 their Affair had SED and the contest 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 time when the contest broke up with Napoleon theii 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 Marquez Richard Seymour Conway once offered her 1 million Franks for just 12 hours of her company even though it took the virtual dissolution of her marriage the Countess of castal Leone did eventually succeed in her original Mission in 1861 Italy unified into an official Kingdom thanks in no small part to the contest's tireless [Music] 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 Shawn 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 bismar called her up personally and set up a secret meeting to ask her advice on the matter the contest's totally unbiased response nah you don't want to do that and guess what he listened believe it or not the contest 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 [Music] 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 castalon 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 contest 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 Georgio died from small poox 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
contest had rabid fans long after she passed the poet and dandy Robert deont tocu 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 castellon's estranged husband decided to ramp up the bitterness and do something truly horrific he tried to claim custody of their son Georgio using his wife's lavish lifestyle as proof of her bad mothering the contest's response was Swift and [Music] brutal when
Franchesco tried to claim custody of her beloved Son Georgio the Countess of castalon 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 Lavan just to
make her message extra clear and wouldn't you know she got custody of Georgio for the rest of his life some Scholars argue that the Countess of castelion wasn't just the first model of her time she was also the first super model 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 [Music] 1998 if you enjoyed this video please give it a like And subscribe for more [Music] videos
