Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [172]
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*8 The Comte de Provence’s title was no longer recognised and he was living in exile as the Comte de Lille. After the death of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he declared himself regent for his nephew, Louis XVII. After the boy’s death in June 1795, the Comte de Lille became more vociferous in his claim to the French throne, issuing proclamations and mobilising émigré support from his makeshift court in Verona. The French government’s pressure on Venice for his expulsion increased accordingly.
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*9 Alvisetto’s death certificate is in the Libro dei morti in Santa Maria Antica dal 1797 al 1806, in the Archivio storico della Curia diocesana di Verona. The church where he was buried, San Sebastiano, in the heart of Verona, was destroyed by a bomb during the Second World War.
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*10 Bonaparte married Joséphine de Beauharnais in a small civil ceremony in Paris on 9 March 1796, two days before heading south to take command of the Armée d’Italie.
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*11 Ugo Foscolo, a poet and a novelist, became one of the most influential exponents of Romanticism in Italy.
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*12 After Cattina and Isabella, Paolina had two little boys, Venceslao and Ferighetto.
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*13 See Chapter Six.
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*14 Alvise appealed the patriarchal decree, thus initiating a nine-year-long legal battle with the Church to establish his paternity of Alvisetto. He won the appeal in 1805 but local Church officials took the matter to the Tribunale d’Appello degli Stati Veneti. Alvise pleaded for dismissal of the case but it was not until 9 June 1812 that the issue was finally resolved in his favor through the intervention of Stefano Bonsignore, Bishop of Faenza and Patriarch of Venice.
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*15 The mausoleum, commemorating Archduchess Maria Christina, is in the Augustinerkirche in Vienna and served as a model for Canova’s own funerary monument in the Chiesa dei Frari in Venice.
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*16 Lucia had had scabies too, earlier in her marriage, with sores covering her right hand and arm. Alvise once spent the night with her, and the next day, fearful of becoming infected, instructed his manservant, Zuanne, to bring him his wife’s nightgown every morning so that he could inspect it. Zuanne later confessed to Lucia, who told the story to Paolina.45
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†17 Lucia notes this as the local German word for the tree.
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*18 Madame de Sandizell had accompanied the vicereine from Bavaria and served as chief-of-staff at the Palace, liaising with Marchioness Litta, who was in charge of the Italian ladies-in-waiting.
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*19 The Comte d’Artois, the future King Charles X, was Louis XVI’s youngest brother.
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*20 He had not. One of Napoleon’s servants, returning to France from Elba, read about the death in a newspaper in Genoa. He sent a copy of the paper to the former emperor.
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*21 Giovanni Battista Falcieri (1798–1874), known as Tita, became one of Byron’s most trusted servants. A tall, strong man, with a long black beard, he was also very gentle and kind. He was with Byron in Missolonghi, and held the poet’s hand as he lay dying; he accompanied the corpse back to England, and settled there, eventually finding employment in the house of Benjamin Disraeli in Buckinghamshire.
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*22Lucia’s closest friend was Giovan Battista Foscolo. He was fifteen years younger than her and a bachelor. He had taken on the duties of a cavalier servente when Lucia had returned from Vienna in 1806, escorting her around town and to the theatre when Alvise was away. He did chores for her and helped her with financial and legal matters. There is nothing to suggest they ever became lovers, but they grew very close, especially after Lucia helped him find work during the Austrian administration. She bequeathed him 9,000 ducats in her will, but she did not leave enough funds behind and in the end Alvisetto supplied the sum.