Partner Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen
Queer Places:
Villa Lysis, 80076 Capri NA, Italia
24 Rue Eugène Manuel, 75116 Paris
Campo Verano, Piazzale del Verano, 1, 00185 Roma, Italy
Antonio
Cesarini (September 30, 1889 – October 25, 1943), better known by the
diminutive name Nino, was a model for several artists, such as the
photographer
Wilhelm von Plüschow, painters
Paul Hoecker and Umberto
Brunelleschi and sculptor Francesco Jerace during his youth. A fictional
character in Vestal Fire by
Compton Mackenzie. In his
adulthood he modelled for Vincenzo Gemito, who presented him as a
prototype of homoerotic masculine beauty. He was also known for his
relationship with baron
Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. His life was novelized by the French
writer
Roger Peyrefitte in his work The Exile of Capri (L'exilé de
Capri) in 1959.
Nino Cesarini was born into a working-class family in 1889. According
to Peyreffite, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, who had been forced to leave
Paris after a homosexual scandal, met him in Rome on July 9, 1904, when
Nino was a fourteen-year-old construction worker and newspaper-seller.
Fersen obtained authorization from the boy's family to take Nino as his
secretary with him to Capri.[1]
They lived together in Villa Lysis. In order to immortalize his beauty,
the baron commissioned several artists to depict Nino. One of them was
Umberto Brunelleschi, an Italian painter; another was the German painter
Paul Hoecker, also exiled in Italy for the same (sexual) motives as
those of Fersen. Finally, Fersen commissioned the famous sculptor
Francesco Jerace to cast a statue of Nino in bronze, and placed it in
the garden of the villa towards the sea. It was also repeatedly
photographed by Wilhelm von Plüschow, dressed as a Roman emperor and as
a Christian saint. Copies of these photographs were widely circulated
and it is possible that even Adelswärd-Fersen sold them commercially.
The only image of the Nino's statue by Jerace is von Plüschow's
photograph.
In 1907 Fersen dedicated his work "Une Jeunesse / Les Baiser de
Narcisse" to Nino, with the following phrase: "Dedicated to N. C. More
beautiful than the light of Rome."
Nino's beauty made him attractive to other people. During the visit
to Venice, he flirted with Alexandrine (Sacha) Ricoy Antokolsky, the
daughter of the sculptor Mark Antokolsky, who even travelled back to
Capri and finally managed to seduce him. Fersen reacted furiously with a
volume of poems appropriately titled "So sang Marsyas" – an exalted song
of praise for Nino, since he was frightened by the thought that Nino
would abandon him. This explosion of passion can only be understood from
the idea of Jacques' fear of losing the young man, and the jealousy that
fuelled this fear, of something that would never happen.[2]
An Italian poet and writer Ada Negri, who had visited the villa,
published an article in 1923 in the newspaper L'Ambrosiano, , shortly after the death of the baron,
describing Nino with the following words: "The Villa was a place where
everything was very beautiful, including Nino, the secretary, with the
intense gaze of deep black eyes, crowned by well-shaped eyebrows." At
that time, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Nino's protector and lover, was
in a phase of great dependence on opium, a drug that he smoked more than
thirty pipes a day. According to Peyrefitte he had built a special
smoking room in Villa Lysis, called the China Room.[3]
Will H. L. Ogrinc supposes in his work that as Nino grew up, the
Baron d'Adelswärd-Fersen sought relationships with other young boys. As
proof of this he uses Plüschow's famous photograph in which a naked
young man is seen lying on a sofa in the interior of Villa Lysis, on one
of whose walls the famous painting that Höcker painted to exalt the
beauty of Nino can be seen. According to him, the naked boy on the couch
is not Nino, since he seems too young in comparison to the subject of
the painting.
NiNino and Adelswärd-Fersen travelled, at least a few times, to
countries in the Far East. Apart from some temporary separations, for
example during Nino's military service and his participation in the
First World War, which was followed by a convalescence in the hospital
due to the injuries he sustained there, Cesarini remained his entire
life with the baron despite the fact that, over time, passion was
replaced by friendship. According to Roger Peyrefitte, when he returned
from the hospital he remained with Fersen only as a friend and
secretary, and the baron's attempts to continue the sexual relationship
were rejected by the then-mature Nino. Ogrinc in his turn, asserts that
this statement of Peyrefitte, apart from not being documented, does not
seem realistic, given the preference shown by Fersen for younger boys.
Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen died in 1923 of an overdose of
cocaine dissolved in a glass of champagne. There are indications that it
may have been suicide, although there has been no unanimity in that
explanation. Dr. Gatti, the doctor who signed the death certificate,
established a heart attack as the cause of death, which was not
consistent with an overdose of cocaine.[4]
Trying to protect the inheritance, the baron's family spread the
rumour that he had been poisoned by Nino, driven by jealousy at the last
relationship that Fersen maintained with the Corrado Annicelli. Baron's
sister and mother insisted on an autopsy. The Naples authorities decided
to carry it out, after which they dismissed such accusations.
AcAccording to the wishes of the late d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Nino received
300,000 francs and the right to the usufruct of the Villa Lysis. He
later sold his rights to the Villa to Fersen's sister for 200,000 lire.
His portrait painted by Brunelleschi and the statue of Jerace were, in
turn, sold to a Swiss antiquary, and have since disappeared.
According to the most widespread version of events, Nino returned to
Rome where he established a newsstand and bar. Nino died in October 1943
at age 54, and was buried in the Roman cemetery of Campo Verano.
However, other sources claim that after the sale of his rights to the
Villa, together with the inheritance he received, Nino was rich enough
to retire, as well as cultured and refined (he apparently spoke several
languages), which makes it difficult to understand why he decided to
sell newspapers in a kiosk. According to this other version, he died of
an opium overdose. After his death, his family destroyed all the letters
of Baron d'Adelswärd, many of his photos and a collection of erotic
objects.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nino_Cesarini
- Woods, Gregory. Homintern . Yale University
Press. Edizione del Kindle.