Venus Victorious

The ancient bards tell us that long ago, when the earth was new and the gods were young, a festive wedding was celebrated on Olympus. All the gods were there, except Eris, goddess of strife, who had not been invited. When she heard the revelry, she rushed angrily to the ceremony, and tossed a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest” into the throng. Three goddesses, Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena, claimed the apple, and each demanded that Zeus award it to her. Zeus, however, wisely declined (he was married to Hera), and decreed that Paris, Prince of Troy, should award the prize. Paris, incognito, was tending sheep on Mt. Ida at the time, but the goddesses, conducted by Zeus’ son Hermes, found him resting in a sylvan glade.

*The Judgement of Paris, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1638*

The contest has been described by numerous ancient writers, including Ovid, Apuleius, and the Byzantine poet Colluthus. At first, Paris is dazzled by all three goddesses, and is unable to choose, so they all offer him bribes – Athena promises him victory in war, and Hera offers him the throne of Asia. But Aphrodite, according to Colluthus, tells him (while absentmindedly undoing the top of her gown) to reject both the throne and “the sword and shield of war”. “I know the power by which women prevail,” she says. “Choose me and I will give thee the loveliest of brides: instead of manly kingship, enter thou the bed of Helen.”

Helen, the Spartan king Menelaus’ wife, was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the ardent Trojan shepherd-prince could not resist: Paris awarded the golden fruit to Aphrodite. It has been well named the “apple of discord”, because when Paris, with Aphrodite’s help, seduced Helen and spirited her away to Troy, he caused an epic amount of trouble. But that is another story, which I’m sure you have already heard.

*Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, by Antonio Canova*

In Rome, of course, Aphrodite is called Venus. Or rather Venus Victrix, after her triumph on Mt. Ida. In the Galleria Borghese in Rome, you can see her, formed of polished marble, shown relaxing after her victory. She reclines voluptuously on a cushioned divan, still carelessly dressed. The fingers of her left hand lightly fondle the golden apple.

It is a famous sculpture, for good reason: it was commissioned by Prince Camillo Borghese, one of the richest men in Italy; the model was his glamourous wife Pauline; and the sculptor was Antonio Canova. Canova may have been a bit uneasy, because Camillo’s instructions were to sculpt Pauline as the goddess Diana, fully clothed; but Pauline, the younger sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and the terror of Europe, insisted on posing semi-nude as Venus. Canova’s Roman atelier on Via Babuino, now Caffe Canova-Tadolini, is stuffed with statuary by Canova and his apprentices. Stop for coffee and you can literally rub elbows with giant plaster popes and admire Canova’s preliminary model of Pauline’s torso.

Pauline Bonaparte had a reputation (possibly exaggerated) for promiscuity. But she clearly enjoyed her notoriety, to the chagrin of the Emperor and her husband. When asked how she could have posed naked for such a statue, she replied, “Oh, there was a fire in the room”.

Clemens von Metternich, later Chancellor of Austria, met her when they were both young: “Pauline was as handsome as it is possible to be; she was in love with herself, and her only occupation was pleasure.” While there is a youthful portrait of Pauline looking rather prim in the captivating Museo Napoleonico, in Piazza Ponte Umberto I in Rome, most of her contemporaries agreed with Metternich, calling her vain, selfish, and shallow, concerned only with jewels, clothes, and handsome lovers. But perhaps she, like Venus, was simply wielding “the power by which women prevail” in her world, while her brother brandished the “sword and shield of war” in his world, the battlefields of Europe.

Canova’s preliminary gesso model of Pauline’s torso

Hers was a dangerous world, too. Her first marriage, at Napoleon’s direction, was to General Charles Leclerc, one of the Emperor’s field commanders. When Napoleon dispatched Leclerc to Saint-Domingue (today’s Haiti) in 1801, to take back control of the colony from the former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture, Pauline and their young son accompanied him. Pauline is said to have objected so strenuously that Napoleon had her forcibly carried to the ship on a litter. But, as Leclerc’s troops were steadily decimated by yellow fever and her husband ordered her to return to France, she refused. She stayed until Leclerc himself died of the disease, and brought his body back to France with her.

*Villa Paolina, by Alessandro Castelli - 1835, Watercolor, in the Museo Napoleonico, Rome*

Hidden depths, perhaps. Well-hidden indeed from the gossips of her time. While married to Camillo Borghese, she lived separately from him in the house he gave her, Villa Paolina, near Porta Pia in Rome. (The house is now the French Embassy to the Holy See.) Neighbours whispered of daily baths in a vast basin of milk, to which she was carried every morning by a black servant from the Indies, when she wasn’t travelling “for her health” and taking a new lover in every town.

But when Napoleon was banished to Elba, she was the only one of his siblings who went to share his exile, selling her jewellery to fund his expenses. After his final defeat at Waterloo, and his death on St. Helena, her own health began to fail. She asked the Pope to persuade Camillo to reconcile with her, and died in his house, Palazzo Borghese, in Rome. She was 44 years old.