tamaranth | [lecture] In Armour Complete, RCS, 23.04.09

In Armour Complete -- or not Ian Kelly, author of biographies of Casanova and Beau Brummell, speaking at the Royal College of Surgeons, 23.4.09

Kelly: "I'm here to do down Starkey's current theory that we're undergoing a feminisation of history." He's thoroughly researched both his subjects, from asylum records to the Venetian Inquisition to the original MS of Casanova's memoirs, and he conveyed that sense of the thrill of discovery.

Mr Kelly is an actor as well as an author, and he has considerable presence: the evening began with music (Mozart's Don Giovanni -- Casanova may have discussed the libretto with Da Ponte, and Kelly later mentioned the Don's descent into Hell as an allegory of the onset of tertiary syphilis) and featured a slide-show accompaniment (who knew that 19th-century condoms were illustrated? "This one was sold as 18th-century, but anyone with a knowledge of fashion can see that the gentleman is wearing full-length trousers.")

He spoke of Eros as embodiment of love, lust and sex -- at odds with the rational, scientific spirit of the Enlightenment. Sex and sexuality were gradually acknowledged as expressions of the self.

Masking in Venice: Venetian society liberated by the anonymity of the mask from early October until Lent: it could be anyone behind the mask. Kelly alleges that Venetian nuns were amongst the most sexually liberated women in 18th-century Europe. "It was possible to be a nun and, so to speak, not a nun."

There's a strong theme of voyeurism in Casanova's memoirs: also, masquerade, anonymity, pretence. Casanova's lover Teresa Imer was a soprano who assumed the guise of a castrato in order to perform in the Papal States. "It all gets a bit As You Like It," says Mr Kelly.

Fascinating fact: it was understood that it was medically dangerous to orgasm more than 4 times in an evening.

One of the effects of the popularity of the Grand Tour was the growth of the export market for London-made sheepgut condoms. (Reusable, of course. And, in some cases, illustrated.) Not just a contraceptive but a prophylactic against syphilis. Apparently the notion of inflating condoms for amusement is not a 20th-century invention. Casanova was introduced to condoms by a nun from Morena, who brought her collection -- various sizes -- with her to their tryst. "I will never again," says Mr Kelly wistfully, "have a subject for biography who tells us which size condom he used."

Of Beau Brummell: "a person-shaped keyhole on another age ... everything Jane Austen doesn't tell you". Kelly's seen the medical records from the asylum where Brummell died, and he almost certainly died of tertiary syphilis -- "paralysis of the insane", to use the parlance of the day. Syphilis was endemic in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. And Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray has been read as an allegory about syphilis -- and an allegory about Beau Brummell.

Fascinating fact: Beau Brummell's contemporary Edward Hughes Ball, known as 'Golden Ball', acquired his nickname by siring 9 children despite having only one testicle. (I don't remember that from Georgette Heyer!)

Kelly waxed effusive about Beau Brummell's impact on fashion -- the men's suit "grew out of the West End sex trade" -- but I don't think he explained this remark.

Kelly clearly had enough material for at least two one-hour lectures, and we got a great deal of Casanova and very little Beau Brummell. Also: full of facts, fascinating to listen to, but suspect it'd have felt more structured -- and closer to what I'd expected from the title, e.g. 18th Century Condoms -- if he'd discarded about half his material. I'm inclined to buy his Casanova, though.