“Moral management” of the insane came to the fore in Bethlem Royal Hospital and other facilities during the nineteenth century, following a long history when the mad were simply locked out of the way. In 1925, the predominant approach combined talk therapy, physical treatments, and comforting routine, but as the century went on, anti-psychotic drugs and shock therapy came to the fore. Ironically, society’s way of dealing with the unbalanced has come full circle, with all but the most violent turned out of any asylum and put back onto the streets.
The Porters hired Ca’ Rezzonico, now a magnificently restored eighteenth-century museum, for several summers (though Duff Cooper’s 1925 diary mentions them in the Palazzo Papadopoli, further up the Grand Canal). Two years after this, the Milizia raided a too-riotous party involving drugs and cross-dressing, and Porter was invited to leave the city.
1925 found Cole Porter frustrated by his musical failures. Not until Paris in 1928 did he begin to make a name for himself. Porter’s songs that find a place in his conversations with Holmes include “Babes in the Wood” (which may in fact have been written in 1924—a shocking instance in which Mary Russell’s Memoirs may be mistaken); “Let’s Misbehave”; “The Land of Going to Be”; “Don’t Look at Me That Way”; “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)”; “Wake Up and Dream”; and a number of others—including “Anything Goes.” His songs are eternal because they are not, as Holmes notes, merely fluff entertainments. As one story has it, Porter was once badly beaten by a truck driver—and his response? The song “I Get a Kick Out of You.”
The island of Poveglia stands in the Venice lagoon, and its pre–World War I history is much as given in this book—plague, mass burials, and all. In 1922, a mental institution did open there, under a doctor reputed to perform crude lobotomies, who is said to have hurled himself from the tower after being driven mad by ghosts. The asylum, which became a home for elderly indigents, closed in 1968. Sensational television shows and websites adore Poveglia, and it remains to be seen whether the island’s recent sale will see development into yet another Venetian luxury resort—complete with skulls.
To Mary Alice Kier,
Fellow devotée of La Serenissima
Acknowledgments
A city like Venice has many professional guides, but few who so instantly grasp what a visitor needs as the two who helped guide this book. The H?tel Londres (formerly Beau Rivage, and as welcoming today as when Russell and Holmes stayed there) put me in touch with Daniela Zamperetti, who took time out from her “Tribal Fusion” dancing to show me around the excellent San Servolo museum and explain much about the workings of the city and its people, then later coax my flawed Italian into something recognizable. And guide Christina Gregorin (found at www.slow-venice.com) swept me from one end of the city to the other, talking politics and history. Not that this book is about politics: no, not at all.
The fabulous ladies of CineLit, Mary Alice Kier and Anna Cottle, have been a constant source of support, ideas, and enthusiasm for years now, and no time more than in 2017. A writer could ask for no better travel partners, whether the path leads to Venice or the wilds of Hollywood. Mary Alice and Anna, I raise a glass of Campari to our many future projects.
Bethlem Royal Hospital is still an active and vibrant mental health community, now in the southern reaches of London. Archivist Colin Gale was very helpful and patient with my questions and research, and I highly recommend a visit to their museum or their archives, for a look at the transformation of mental health care from priory hospital to “moral treatment.” Their excellent website is at www.museumofthemind.org.uk.
San Servolo in the Venice lagoon, in addition to being Venice International University, houses an excellent museum (Museo del Manicomio), which one may visit in both actual and virtual senses. I dream of holding a writing conference in the San Servolo facilities…
And to my friend and walking Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, Leslie S. Klinger, I promise: next time I’ll look it up in your New Annotated first.
Naturally, all of these generous individuals and organizations gave more than any writer could use, and all of them now suffer from seeing the inevitable corruption of their expertise by a mere storyteller. If I got things wrong here, it’s really not their fault. They tried their best.
As always, my friends at Bantam Books (Penguin Random House) make my books possible. If this is in front of your eyes, it’s thanks to them.
Or if this is in your ears, you can thank the great folk at Recorded Books.
As for me, I thank you all, collaborators and readers alike.