Anna Ewing Cockrell of Warrensburg, MO
206 E. Market
Married Hon Lambros A Coromilas/Koromilas, first Greek Ambassador to US - July 1910
Λάμπρος Κορομηλάς
Anna Ewing Cockrell, daughter of Hon. Francis Marion Cockrell (from Warrensburg, MO). He was a six-time US Senator, General in the Confederate Army. Anna's mother died when she was young(10), so she was sent off to a convent until she was of age. She came out in Washington society to much fanfare, became a close friend of the President''s daughter and served as her father's hostess until her marriage to the Hon Lambros A Coromilas, first Greek Ambassador to US. They returned to Greece where he became a member of the King's cabinet (until he was ousted) and then Ambassador to Italy. He escaped the fate of his nephews who followed him into the cabinet - - they were shot by a firing squad after the king was again tossed out of Greece.
After her husband's death, Anna fell in love with Marchese Camillo Casati, former husband of the enormously wealthy and eccentric Luisa Amman. Anna and the Marchese lived in Rome in the Palazzo Barberini in the 1920s and 30s. The Palazzo was built for Maffeo Barberini (Pope Urban 8th) in the early 1600s. It was designed by Carlo Maderno and Bernini. To pay his debts, his descendant, Prince Henry Barberini, filled the Palazzo with illustrious tenants until he sold it to the National Gallery in 1949. In 1928, Anna and Camillo Casati hosted the wedding Anna’s niece, Marion Gallaudet, in the Palazzo. It was attended by American ex-patriots and Italian society and was mentioned in articles in American newspapers that I have been able to find. I was very excited to be able to visit the place in person.
MISS COCKRELL TO MARRY STATESMAN
Wedding of American Beauty and Greek Minister Will Be Solemnized Wednesday.
Cockrell, A. E. Miss
(Special to The Herald) WASHINGTON, June 30.—The stately beauty of one American woman whom he declares Is more beautiful than the classic statued beauties of his native land has changed the scheme of existence of Lambros A. Coromilas, Greek minister to the United States. Next Wednesday Mr. Coromilas will be married at Norwich, Conn., to Miss Anna Ewing Cockrell, daughter of former Senator Cockrell of Missouri, and as soon as possible after the ceremony will take his bride and depart for his home in the far away country. Among his associates—before he met Miss Cockrell —Mr. Coromilas was classed as a "woman hater." But the first time he saw the former senator's daughter his convictions regarding the fair sex underwent a change, and the engagement which will terminate with the marriage ceremony Wednesday was the result. Miss Cockrell is tall, splendidly figured and her future husband when he first saw her, remarked, "There is a woman more lovely than any Phidias ever carved."
Anna Cockrell (Ewing) Mother of Anna Ewing Cockrell Coromilas Casati Stampa di Soncino
Birthdate:
March 29, 1846
Birthplace:
Richmond Ray County Missouri
Death:
Died January 6, 1894 in Washington, DC, USA
Place of Burial:
Sunset Hill Cemetery Warrensburg Johnson County Missouri
Daughter of Ephraim Brevard Ewing and Elizabeth Ann Ewing
Anna Ewing Cockrell Coromilas Casati Stampa di Soncino
Was born on May 26, 1884 in Warrensburg in Johnson Co, Missouri, the youngest daughter of Gen. Francis Marion Cockrell and his third (and last) wife, Anna Ewing. FM Cockrell was a brother of my Gr Gr Grandmother Nancy Cockrell Logan. He was born in Warrensburg, Johnson Co, MO on Oct 1, 1834, an area that was still very much the frontier. He studied law, was admitted to the bar when only 21 and practiced law in Warrensburg until the Civil War began. As a slave owner and ardent supporter of the southern cause, he joined the Confederate army and rapidly advanced through the ranks from private (before the war), to captain (in the Missouri State Guard) and then Brigadier General (in the Atlanta Campaign). Dreadful things happened to his friends and family during the war and he was wounded and imprisoned himself. However, after the war, he put the experience behind him and was pardoned; he was one of the few Confederate Officer to be so recognized with praise by veteran Union soldiers.
He returned to his law practice until the repeal of the “test oaths” in 1870 allowed him to enter politics. In 1874, he ran (unsuccessfully) as the Democratic nominee for Governor of Missouri. When Charles H. Hardin won, Gen Cockrell jumped on the platform and said, "No man will more loyally support the choice of this convention than I. No man will throw his hat higher for Charley Hardin than will I." and tossed his hat to the ceiling. This generous act won for him a place as United States Senator in the following spring, a position he held for the next 30 years, known for his corncob pipe and linen duster. Defeated in his 6th bid for the Senate in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) appointed him to the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 1910, President Roosevelt asked him to resign from this position to negotiate a settlement between Texas and Mexico. Senator Cockrell died in 1915 in Washington, DC but was brought home to Warrensburg for burial. He was said to have been an exceptionally intelligent and cultured man, yet acted in a plain and simple manner. He was well respected and loved because he was always gentle and kind.
Anna Ewing was named after her mother, who was an unusually brilliant and accomplished woman. She bore and raised seven children of her own, accompanied her husband back and forth to Washington, served as a charter member of the DAR (in 1879) and as the first State Regent of Missouri. Anna Ewing Cockrell had 5 brothers (Ewing, Francis Marion, Ephraim Brevard and Allen Vardeman) and one sister, Marion. After her mother’s death in 1894 when she was only 10, she was placed in the Convent of the Assumption where she remained until she was old enough to join her father in Washington and be presented to society.
rue Saint-Honoré. Paris (Ist arrondissement). Photograph by
Eugène Atget (1857-1927), 1898. Paris, musée Carnavalet. It was founded in 1670 as the l'église Notre Dame de l'Assomption. It is mentioned by Balzac in some of his writings. Several notable sculptors were educated there, and some members of the French royalty also. Today it is the Mission Catholique Polonaise de France. The restaurant La Crypt Polska is in the basement. Rue Cambon at Rue Saint-Honore, Paris.
I wonder if she wasn’t something of a handful, because her other siblings remained in Washington with their father? She made her debut and was featured in a the society columns of numerous newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Herald, and Washington Post. Anna who was described as a “very pretty blond” and the “girl with the perfect profile”, was “stately in appearance with large blue eyes and chestnut-colored hair”. She was well educated, speaking French, German, Italian and Greek and “emerged from a schoolgirl to an official hostess almost in the twinkling of an eye”. In the absence of any other woman in the household, she at once assumed the duties of a Senatorial hostess, which she “discharged with grace, tact, and success”.
One article reported that she was the guest of honor at a party given by Marion Gallaudet, sister of her future brother-in-law Edson Gallaudet. Another, reported on her sister’s wedding in the church of the Covenant, a “brilliant affair “attended by President Roosevelt, most of the Cabinet and Senate, and the diplomatic community. In 1904, the Washington Post reported that her sister, brother-in-law, and young son were vacationed with his father (Dr. Edward Gallaudet) and in New Hampshire while Anna continued her visit with Mr. And Mrs. Thomas F. Walsh in Colorado Springs, CO.
After 2 seasons acting as the official hostess for her father, she sailed to Europe to spend the winter and spring in Paris. Instead, she stayed for nearly a year, sailing from Cherbourg to New York on the St Louis (see the photo), arriving on Nov 5, 1905. She returned to her father’s home on R St in Washington and to her role as his hostess. She was part of a small social circle centered on the President’s unconventional eldest daughter, Mrs Alice Roosevelt Longworth. It was interesting how society began to mention the use of automobiles of the early 1900s. For example, in 1908 Anna and her father attended a dinner at Cabin John Bridge in honor of Miss Juliette Williams & Joseph Leiter - - the article said they went to the dinner by motor car and took a long ride after.
On July 6, 1910, a romance that had been followed with interest in social, political, and diplomatic circles culminated when the Hon Lambros Coromilas, Greek Ambassador to the United States and Anna Ewing Cockrell were married in the drawing room of her sister’s summer home in New London, CN. The Rev Mr Alexopoulos of Washington officiated and her father gave her away. She had no attendants. Their brief engagement and simple wedding took place at the “urgent request of Coromilas, who refused to return to his new post in the Cabinet of King Constantine without his beautiful, young American bride”. Although much older than she, he was “one of the most popular and picturesque bachelors of the diplomatic corps”. The small wedding was also in deference to the recent death of the groom’s mother. The decorations included a mass of lilies, ferns, Dorothy Perkins roses, and palms. Anna wore a gown of white chiffon over soft white satin with a high draped girdle embroidered in seed pearls. Her tulle veil was held by strands of seed pearls and orange blossoms. To honor her father, and in deference to the interest in their marriage by official and diplomatic circles, members of Congress contributed to a lovely gift of silver for the newlyweds as they had for Alice Roosevelt when she married. They left the ceremony by automobile on a short honeymoon (a picture of her on her honeymoon is on the left) and embarked for the voyage to Europe from New York four days later, visiting London, Paris, and Constantinople of their way to Athens, where Lambros was to assume a position in the cabinet.
Lambros A. Coromilas was born in Athens, Greece in 1857; he was 54, she was 26 when they married. He was educated at the University of Tubigen in Wurtenburg, Germany and L’Ecole Libre de Sciences Politiques in Paris and then traveled around Europe to study financial and economic systems. In 1880, he established a publishing house and began to publish new poetry and literature in the Coromilas Journal. However, he was drawn into public service and was appointed Consul General to Thessaloniki. The energetic new consul built up a network of agents who collected information on enemies of Greece, identified Greek partisans who supported the Macedonian struggle, and controlled covert activities. He was so successful that the Ottoman government asked for his recall. However, the eventual union between Greece and Macedonia saved Macedonia from falling in the hands of the Slavs during the Balkan Wars (1912-13) The street where his Consulate was located was named after him and his office (above) was recreated in a museum near where he served.
In 1907, Lambros sailed to America on the SS Lusitania (see a picture of the ship and passenger list) to assume his post as the first Greek Minister to the United States in the Greek legation at 2009 Columbia. He made his first appearance in Washington society at the White House New Year’s reception on January 1, 1908.
After their marriage, Coromilas rose from the position of Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, to Minister of Finance in the newly formed Venizelos Cabinet. The success of the Venizelos administration was attributed to his able management of the country’s finances and economic resources.
Apparently Anna’s skill at entertaining also contributed greatly to his rapid rise; an article written about her in 1915 said that relatives of half of the reigning monarchs in Europe had been guests of Anna and Lambros Coromilas. However, in 1912, the Royalist party fell from power, and Coromilas fell into disfavor due to his friendship with the assassinated King George (who was being severely criticized for investing money in his native land, Denmark). The problems Anna and Lambros encountered were reported by the American Press. When his son, King Constantine assumed the throne in 1913, Lambros was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he signed a secret treaty on with Serbia and was most upset when Greece did not come to Serbia’s aid when it was invaded (I have a translation of an impassioned telegram he sent to the King warning him of the growing danger posed by Bulgaria and the increasing dissention in the country). King Constantine’s sympathy for Germany and Venizelos’ sympathies for the Allies resulted in a schism that lasted until after WW2 and forced Constantine to abdicate in favor of his 2nd son Alexander.
Lambros was sent to Italy as “Minister in Rome”. His position in Italy was most difficult as there were numerous enemies of Greece in Rome due to the tense situation between Albania, Greece, and Italy over the Aegean Islands. However, Anna and Lambros pursued their mission in an “unobtrusive manner and managed to keep on good terms with almost everyone”. The same article reported that during the Balkan War, Mrs Coromilas had sold her marble and alabaster bath from an ancient Greek palace, to raise funds for the Red Cross and that she had also served as a hospital nurse. As the war ended, he and the Greek Prime Minister, Venizelos were received by President Wilson to present arguments in support of Hellenic claims in the war settlement. Coromilas also represented Greece in the formation of the League of Nations (the photo shows the Greek delegation to the League of Nations).
After King Alexander’s death and Venizelios’ defeat in 1920, King Constantine again assumed the Greek throne, but was forced to abandon it a second time in 1922 when Greece lost the Greco-Turkish War. He was succeeded by his son George. King Constantine and Queen Sophia lived in exile in Palermo in the Villa Igiea, supported by money brought to them by Constantine’s brother, Christopher. Coromilas had remained a Royalist, and continued to try to restore the Greek monarchy while “exiled” in Rome. When Constantine, was restored to the throne he appointed Coromilas to his old post as Ambassador to the United States. An article written about them in 1922, on the eve of their return to America, said that “this international marriage had been a most happy one, with the young American wife a great favorite with her husband’s family and a great success in the society of one of the oldest capitals with which America maintains diplomatic relations.” However, Coromilas died before assuming his new post.
In 1922, a new Greek government executed by firing squad all but one of the Cabinet Ministers who had served under the previous government. These men were blamed for the military disaster in Asia Minor and “knowingly concealing the danger involved in King Constantine’s return to the throne”. According to the newspaper report, the six Cabinet Ministers went courageously, even jauntily, to their deaths, monocles in place”. Prince Andrew, brother of exiled King Constantine and senior Greek generals were arrested and the new King, William, was said to be in jeopardy. The executions caused a shock in diplomatic circles; the Vatican protested, England broke off diplomatic relations, and Mussolini who had tried to stop the executions, refused to recognize the new government. Funeral services held for them in Rome were attended by former King Constantine. Mme Coromilas, now a widow, wrote a letter to the Greek government through the Greek Ambassador to Italy, offering sanctuary to the widows and children of the executed council members, two of whom (Premier Stratos and Gen Hadjanestis) had been her husband’s nephews.
Not long after the death of her husband, Anna Ewing Cockrell Coromilas, fell in love with the Marchese Camillo Casati, Stampa di Sonciono, Marcese di Roma (1877-1946). In 1900, he had married Luisa Amman, the teenage daughter of Count Alberto Amman whose death had left her one of the wealthiest women in Italy. Her husband inspired a fascination with the mystical and macabre and she became increasingly extravagant and scandalous. The New Yorker described her as “tall and cadaverous, with a little feral face swamped by incandescent eye She blackened her eyes with kohl, powdered her skin a fungal white, and dyed her hair to resemble a corona of flames; her mouth was a lurid gash.” A year later, their only child, Cristina was born. At 22, Luisa was seduced by Gabriele D'Annunzio who cultivated her appetite for excess. She was dressed by Fortuny and Erte and her her social circle included Salvador Dali, Nijinsky, Isadora Duncan, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac and Prince Louis Ferdinand d’Orleans. She wore leopard-skin coats, veils, and feathers, and draped herself with snakes. La Casati, as she was known in the international press, became infamous for her evening strolls parading nude beneath her furs leading cheetahs on diamond-studded leashes
She and her husband began living part not long after their daughter was born. She led a very independent life with unconventional ideas about marriage and motherhood; her decadence and excess inspired The Countess starring Vivian Leigh, A Matter of Time starring Ingrid Bergman, a book by Maurice Druon, La Volupte d’etre, two volumes of poetry by Jean Cocteau and paintings and statues of her by the best artists of the day including a world-famous portrait of her by Man Ray posed in front of the Empress’ rearing white stallions. In 1910, La Casati took up residence at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. Her soirées there would become legendary. Camillo obtained a legal separation from her in 1914, to escape her extravagances and a divorce in 1924 (possibly the first Italian Roman Catholic to do so). Luisa’s return to Paris, the scene previous outrageous escapades was deemed internationally newsworthy, reported in places as unlikely as Fort Wayne, IN.
Shortly after his divorce, the Marchese Camillo Casati moved to Rome, where he began sharing an apartment with the Anna (Ewing Cockrell) Coromilas. Luisa would neither acknowledge that Anna had replaced her, nor would she allow Anna’s name or that of any of her relatives to be mentioned in her presence. In 1927, the unmarried couple had a son that they named Camillo Casati, after his father. Anna, the Marchese, and their son remained in Italy during Mussolini’s rise to power and World War II.
By the 1930s, La Casati had run through her immense fortune and survived on the generosity of friends. By her 50th birthday, in 1931, she owed as much as $25 million in today’s money. She spent her last years in London. Her daughter with Marchese Casati, Cristina, secretly married Francis John Westerna Plantagenet, the Vicount Hastings, to the dismay of his blue-blood family. Cristina and Hastings left England for the South Sea Island of Moorea where they conceived a child. They returned to England for Cristina’s birth on Mar 4, 1928. They named her in honor of the island they loved and then left her with her paternal grandparents while they went to study art under Diego Rivera in Mexico. Diego Rivera, Freido Kahlo, Cristina, and Hastings formed a long and complex friendship and were vocal supporters of communism. One of Kahlo’s drawings captured the aristocratic hauteur and sophistication of Milan-born, Oxford-educated Lady Cristina. Frida apparently found Hastings’ mood swings between boredom and explosive anger or humor to be congenial and amusing. Cristina was also subject to impulsive rages and remained very political. She and Hastings divorced in the 1940s and she married again in 1944, the Hon Wogan Phillips.
In 1928, Marion Gallaudet, daughter of Anna’s sister Marion and her husband Edson Gallaudet, married Walter Averill Powers, son of the late governor of Maine. They were married in her aunt’s home in the Palazzo Barberini. The wedding was followed by a brilliant reception which was attended by the leaders of the American colony and Italian society.
Anna and Camillo Casati had made their home in the very elegant Palazzo since the 1920s. (see a few photos I took of it in 2011) The Palazzo was originally built for Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban 8th in 1625. In the early 20th century, it was filled with illustrious tenants to offset Barberini family debts. When Prince Henry Barberini sold the building to the National Gallery in 1949, one of the tenants was still the Marchesa Casati (Anna, I presume). (The newspaper article that reported the marriage of Anna’s niecce also said that Anna was the Marchesa Casati)
The Palazzo was originally built for Maffeo Barberini
this-italian-island-has-a-scintillating-sexy-past Zannone might be a mere state-owned example of Italian beauty if it weren’t for the Marquis Casati Stampa and his wife Anna Fallarino.....
this-italian-island-has-a-scintillating-sexy-past Zannone might be a mere state-owned example of Italian beauty if it weren’t for the Marquis Casati Stampa and his wife Anna Fallarino.....
Anna Ewing Cockrell Lived Here...
Anna and Camillo remained together for the rest of their lives, although they never married. They lived quietly, surrounded by family, horses, and dogs until his death from cardiac disease on Sep 18, 1946 at the age of 69. Although Anna and Camillo’s son was born out of wedlock, Camillo recognized him as his own and arranged for his son to inherit his title. Sadly, their son committed suicide in 1970 after murdering his wife, Anna Fallarini Casati and her lover. His daughter, Annamaria, born in 1951 to his first wife Lydia Holt (a showgirl), is the last descendant of this line. Anna had such an interesting and tumultuous life. She spent her early years in a small town in rural Missouri (Warrensburg, 206 E. Market), was educated in a convent, and then became the belle of the ball in the Capital of the United States, hosting powerful politicians for her father before she was even 20. Then, she married a distinguished, cosmopolitan man many years her senior and lived in the capitals of Europe during the tumultuous years before, during and after WW1. She and her siblings socialized with the families of presidents, congressmen, industrialists, diplomats and European aristocrats. She not only observed the events that took place, but influenced what happened in her role as the hostess of a senior US Senator, wife of an Ambassador, Cabinet Member, and participant in the League of Nations and her own outspoken defense of the deposed Greek monarchy after her husband’s death. It seems that she never returned to America, possibly because of her unconventional lifestyle. The painting of her that I found on the internet, given to her by the Japanese Ambassador, is a fitting last glimpse of her before she retreated into relative obscurity to live what appeared to be a tranquil (albeit affluent) life with her son and the man she loved.
Anna Ewing Cockrell born 1884 is most likely buried in Muggio, Italy possibly in the Casati Mausoleum Mausoleo_Casati_Stampa_di_Soncino
References:
http://anniewilcox.blogspot.com/2010/03/honoring-past-but-looking-forwardwho.html#comment-form (Photo of her in oriental robes, presented by the Japanese Ambassador)
8th census of the US Population, Warrensburg, Johnson, MO, 1860
9th census of the US Population, Warrensburg, Johnson, MO, 1870
10th Census of the US Population, Warrenburg, Johnson, MO, 1880
12th Census of the US Population, Warrenburg, Johnson, MO, 1900
12th Census of the US Population, Washington, DC, 1900
Ship Manifest for the voyage of the Lusitania, Departed Liverpool Dec 1, 1907.
Ancestry.com: New York Passenger Lists (1820-1957)
Ancestry com: US City Directories
Ancestry.com: US Passport Applications
Athens, Greece: National Historical Museum (Picture of Lambros Coromillas taken between 1904-1907)
Binghamton NY Press, July 16, 1910.
Congressional Directory
Fort Wayne News, Dec 4, 1923, p 17
Judith Thurman, In Fashion, “The Divine Marquise,” The New Yorker, September 22, 2003, p. 172
League of Nations Photo Archive http://www.indiana.edu/~league/councilindivids.htm
Missouri Birth/Death records
New York Times, October 12, 1922
New York Times, November 29, 1922
New York Times, December 1, 1922, p1
Scott D Ryersson & Michael Orlando Yaccarino (Sep, 2004) Infinite Variety, The life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Reno Evening Gazette, American Girl Marries in Rome. Mar 28, 1928
Syracuse Post Standard, Jul 6, 1910
The Atlanta Constitution, Oct 12, 1922, p7
Washington Herald, June 26, 1910, Society, p2
Washington Post, Dec 76, 1904, p9
Washington Post, October 30, 1910, p3
Washington Post, Jul 2, 1910, p7
Washington Post, November 8, 1905, Page 7
Washington Post, June 29, 1910, p7
Washington Post, June 22, 1910, p7
Washington Post, May 30, 1908, p7
Washington Post, March 10, 1914, p2
World Peace foundation, A L
WW1 State Department Records, International Relations, Serbia & Austria, October, 1918, 763.72/11804, p7
Queen Olga of Greece made a direct appeal to a Greek-American newspaper in New York seeking assistance in the U.S. Breck Trowbridge, an architect, who was well known in Athens organized a committee to raise funds in New York. The committee included some prominent women such as Mrs Vanderbilt, Mrs William Douglas Sloane, Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt and Mrs Breck Trowbridge. Breck Trowbridge and Demetre J.Vlasto were the two males on the committee. A fund was created under the name ‘American fund for the relief of the destitute families of the Greek-Turkish war’ to raise money for relief of destitute Greek women and children whose villages were burned by retreating Turkish forces. The appeal was authorized by Queen Olga and the Union of Greek women of Athens with the Greek Minister in Washington “attach[ing] the official seal to it.” All collected funds would be transmitted via the A.R.C.
The A.R.C forwarded $1.000 each to the Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish Red Cross and Red Crescent societies for war relief bringing the American contribution to a total of $53,000.
Queen Olga was “profoundly touched. Grateful to all generous givers” whereas Queen Eleonore of Bulgaria stated “am most grateful for generous gifts on behalf of the wounded soldiers.”
35
The A.R.C was true to its charter of dispensing aid regardless of nationality or religion. As stated earlier, the A.R.C did not send any of its trained personnel to the Balkans; however, they were Greek-American and American women wishing to volunteer as nurses. The most prominent of these were Anna Coromilas (see Cockrell), the American wife of Greek Foreign Minister Lambros Coromilas, ‘Under the heavy Balkan War Cloud’, November 3, The Sun, 1912, 3rd section, p.10; Anna Coromilas (see Cockrell) was the daughter of former US Senator Frank M. Cockrell who also was a member of Interstate Commerce Commission, see ‘An American and Greek’, July 6, Palestine Daily Herald (Palestine Texas), 1910, p.6; Anna's first husband died and she then married an Italian Marquis, Camillo, their son was famous for murders he committed and an Italian tv show featured one episode on the case, called 'ispettore Derrick - Fine di un incubo (Fundsache Anja , Gian Maria Volontè Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di
Investigation of a Citizen Above, • Born in Rome the Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, Son of a second bed of Camillo and Anna Ewing Cockrell, American and daughter of a senator.
January 12, 1926
The Sedalia Democrat from Sedalia, Missouri · Page 7
Capturing hearts is a faculty of the former Anna E. Cockrell, daughter of the late Senator Francis Cockrell of Missouri. It was when she was a belle in Washington in the days her father was senator that she caught the fancy of Lambros Coromilas, Greek minister to the United States, and they were married in 1911. Coromilas soon returned to Athens and, as the wife of the minister of finance, the Missouri girl enjoyed high distinction in the Greek capital. Both in Washington in the Roosevelt and Taft administration and ill the Greek capital, Anna Cockrell Coromilas was famed for her beauty and wit. In Washington she was in the same social set with Alice Roosevelt, Maj. Archibald Butt and Katherine Elkins. At I the time of her marriage, Miss Cockrell was 26 years old and Coromilas 56. After filling various posts in separate Greek cabinets. Coromilas was appointed minister to Rome. It opened new fields of conquest to her. With Greece and Italy at loggerheads over diplomatic differences Mine. Coromilas proved of great assistance to her husband with her tact. The announcement of the Coromilas appointment had aroused a storm of protest in Rome, but within a month after their arrival, the former Warrensburg girl had Rome, figuratively, at her feet. A dinner given by King Victor Emmanuel found Mme. Coromilas at a post of honor near the king. Coromilas died in a New York hotel November 13. 1923. His widow remained largely in Rome and the outcome of her social activities there is seen in the announcement of her marriage to Marquis Casati.
Anna Ewing Casati Stampa di Soncino (Cockrell)
Birthdate:
May 26, 1884
Birthplace:
Warrensburg, MO, USA
Death:
(Date and location unknown
And her son..--
And here is the testimony, reported by the weekly L'Europeo, agent Dominic Scali. "The first body I saw was that of Anna Fallarino. It seemed to me still alive. She was sitting on the couch with his legs crossed on a stool. He had his hands in his lap and his face serene. The downsides were a dark spot of blood on her blouse. Next to her, next to the sofa, there was the young Minorenti. Lying half curled up on the floor, wearing a light shirt and pants, hidden by a small table which had attempted apparently extreme defense ... I moved forward and saw the third body, that of the Marquis. It was not a pretty sight, with his head half disfigured by gunshot. The weapon, a Browning 12 gauge, lay abandoned on an armchair. He must have used that chair for puntarsi the gun under his chin. "
The double homicide followed by suicide will arouse a huge media hype. Following the events of that tragic August 30, 1970 the popular press release hundreds of photographs in which Anna Fallarino Casati Stampa is shooting nude in sexy poses, or during fiery performance with strangers. The images, around 1500, were found in a book-lined green satin that the Marquis kept on his desk in his study.
Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, called Camillino since childhood, was born in Rome on January 8, 1927 at 20. His mother is Anna Ewing Cockrell, daughter of a US Senator. His father, the Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, scion of a rich and noble lineage Lombard (2 November 1877-18 September 1946), is separated for years by his wife Luisa Amman, with whom he had a daughter, Cristina. The Amman is a woman from the costumes very free, among his occasional lovers there will also Gabriele d'Annunzio. Marriage to Casati Stampa is falling apart. In 1914 the couple split up and Camillo moved to Rome. Here you will know Anna Ewing Cockrell, widow of a diplomat greek, who will live with him in the beautiful Palazzo Barberini. When Anna becomes pregnant he declares from the beginning wanted a male, and of him settle. The Marquis recognizes his son, appointed him his heir and will always in all its material needs, but we consider this not as would a loving father. Besides his interests often lead him out of the house. Ornithologist and hunting, spending much time on the island of Zannone, who rented for short and where he built a magnificent villa on the ruins of a Cistercian monastery.
Camillino grows viziatissimo. But is a child and then a guy with a difficult character, prone to fits of rage, and beyond.During the receptions organized by the mother to raise funds for charity steals money from the pot where picked, or sneaks under tables to lift their skirts for the ladies. Also is terrible servitude. Kicks the waiters who do not do what he orders: a day will give a thrashing to a poor man who has woken up too early. The American mother, convinced that the children, not to become wimps, should not grow attached to the skirts of mothers, will delegate his education to tutors, housekeepers and nannies, then put it in a Swiss boarding school. The young Casati grows short in a climate depressing regarding affections. Maybe it's the desire to start a family of their own, to experience the warmth that was missing in his father's, which causes him to get married in 1950, when only 23 years old, with a dancer, Letizia Izzo. The following year was born their daughter, Annamaria. But fate, for its part, has in Serbia for him much more than a quiet domestic life.That on the other hand could not appreciate.
Camillo Casati Junior inherited it from his father's passion for hunting and ornithology. "I know I'm easy to anger," he wrote in his diary, "and I think that killing animals represents a good channel to vent for me ...". As for the birds, his favorites are the peregrine falcons. "I spend hours in the air and beaten guardarne fast vertically when they sight a prey. I like them because they are great hunters like me. " His other interests? The puzzles, horse racing, and of course the great social events of the current season. In addition to travel often in the island of Zannone, with his rich friends, Camillino spends some periods in Arcore (Monza), the ancestral home of Casati Soncini: Giulini Villa Della Porta, then Villa San Martino, now former premier Silvio Berlusconi that after the death of the Marquis will buy it for only 500 million pounds - a real master stroke - by his heir, the Marquis Annamaria. Which, after the family tragedy that hit will move forever in Brazil. And now let's talk about you, Anna Fallarino, born in Amorosi (Benevento) March 19, 1929 at 15:30, in a middle class family where, however, circulate little money. His parents also will separate. Beautiful and ambitious, 16 years leaves her hometown and arrives in Rome, in search of success and wealth. His aspiration is obviously the film, but one small part of the appearance, in a film of Toto, certainly not enough to draw her from poverty and mediocrity. To make them take a leap forward in social climbing will be the wedding with Peppino Drommi , a wealthy engineer and entrepreneur Roman (who later married the Countess Patrizia De Blanck), precisely in 1950, the same year that will bring to the altar Camillino Letizia Izzo. But evidently Anna Fallarino tip even higher. Know at a party Camillino Casati, who dazzled by her beauty. But the spark of Love with a capital letter, between the two, will start in 1958 in Cannes, during a social evening in a large hotel. Among the guests there is the Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, buzzing around the young lady Drommi and, under the eyes of her husband, the laying a hand on her bare shoulder. He reacts sferrandogli a punch, Rubirosa defends. But then something happens that will gape at present. The Marquis Casati lashes out violently on Rubirosa and massacres of shots, sparking a furious brawl. It seems clear that Anna has become mistress of his heart, and from that moment the love story will progress with great speed. In the same year Camillino seeks annulment of his marriage to the Izzo to Sacred Rota (it will cost, say, a billion dollars) and in April of 1959 married civilly in Switzerland Fallarino, who has since left her husband Peppino Drommi. Followed, in 1961, obtained the annulment by the Church, a religious marriage very discreet in Italy. A shocking surprise awaits, however, the neo Marchesa Casati Stampa. During the first night of their honeymoon Camillino offers the favors of his young wife to a waiter at the luxury hotel where the couple are staying, and assists in their embrace. The waiter will be handsomely paid for this performance. And this is just the beginning. Among hunting island of Zannone, exclusive parties in the capital, first at La Scala in Milan, where Anna boasts sumptuous outfits and diamond necklaces, the Marquis continue to cultivate his secret, perverse passion: to offer his wonderful wife to other males, pair it before his eyes, while he was photographing everything with the Polaroid. Other snapshots of Fallarino the actress in obscene poses, with the magnificent naked breasts (magnified by one of the first silicone implants) to the wind, spread legs, and so on. Many Sundays, in summer, the Marquis Casati go on the beach of Porpoises not far from the airport of Fiumicino, where nudism is allowed. One day Camillino invites four airmen who meet there to have sex with Anna. Reads a passage from his diary: "Anna was parade the thong and is stretched out on a long robe of blue sponge, spread thighs, covering her face with her hands ... I pulled out of his wallet a lot 'of money and I offered thirty thousand pounds to each of them, saying, usually you have to pay to have sex with prostitutes ... ". He, at the right distance, the scene will resume as usual. Other passages in his diary: "Today Anna made me mad with pleasure. He made love with a soldier so effectively that from afar I also participated in his joy. It cost me thirty thousand pounds, but it was worth it. " And again: "At sea with Anna I invented a new game. I rolled on the sand, then I called two airmen to let her remove the grains from the skin with the language. " However, with continued these meetings red light, in the mind of Camillino begins to gnaw the worm of jealousy as you will read in some passages of the famous diary, after the death of the Marquis, he has the fear of a possible involvement of his emotional woman with occasional companions relations mercenaries. Because if the body of Anna can be enjoyed by other men, his heart should only belong to her husband. However, everything seems to be going smoothly for some years. Anna seems to lend itself willingly to the perverse games of his companion. He got a son, maybe things would have taken a different turn, but after a natural miscarriage doctors communicate to the Marquise that can never be a mother. Now she has become the organizer of wild partying, which participates in a large number of people, fished not only within the rich and noble friends of the Marquis, but in what is called the "GENERON" of the Roman capital, with starlets, gigolo, guys who want to take advantage of the money of the owners and the benefits that could be gained. Among the latter appears one day, Massimo Minorenti, a student out during the Roman, was born in 1945. Even Massimo will be paid by Camillino to have sex with Anna. But something happens here that the Marquis had not foreseen: the two fall in love, or, perhaps, only to fall in love is Anna, and for the young lover less sixteen feeds probably a passion mixed with maternal tenderness, as happens to women that bind in men much younger than themselves. Camillo Casati not delay to notice the turn things have taken, so much so that one evening, talking with friends, blurts out these words: "It's the first time my wife cheats on me with your heart ... But I'm sure that will change. " But no. Anna is tired of the games perverse, perhaps dreaming of a new life, next to the young Massimo, or simply want to break the chains that hold it tied to the eccentric, to say the least, her husband. However, faced with the reaction shocked him, comes to promise that it will close its relation Minorenti. But they are only words. And we get to the summer of 1970, that of tragedy. In his diary, the date of July 7, Camillino notes: "That sucks, pettiness, sick what I did Anna. I thought we were the only couple tied really, but .... " And on Aug. 24, a few days before his death: "I'm literally dying inside and I lost everything." After August 20, 1970 Camillo Casati, he went to a shooting at the estate of Valdagno (Vicenza) accounts Marzotto, while Anna remains in Rome. The Marquis calls at 4 am on August 30, and answering the phone is Massimo Minorenti. Furious, then hangs up and calls the home number. This time to respond is Anna, who tries to calm him, but he lost his head and throws a series of serious threats. Back to sprint in the capital while Anna, before his arrival, frightened by the threats received, asks the cousin Ninì Fiumanò, police officer known and respected even by Marquis Casati Stampa, to go with her and Massimo Minorenti in Via Puccini, in an attempt to get to an explanation civil, to an accommodation with Camillo. Fiumanò, which is not yet aware of many things, replied that no third wheel should come between husband and wife, and so it is appropriate that Anna receives Camillo alone. But she does not follow the advice, and when the furious wife breaks into the living room of Via Puccini, waiting for him there is also Massimo Minorenti. Camillo wrote the last message to his Anna on the back of a sexy calendar, a few moments before making the massacre: "My love, my life, forgive me, but what I will do it must do. Farewell, my only joy passed. " Camillo and Anna rest, neighbors forever, in the historic mausoleum Casati Stampa di Soncino in urban cemetery of Muggiò.
 The striking thing in the theme of both is the Ascendant in Leo almost to the same degree. The Marquis at 24 °, 27 ° to his wife. In addition to understanding life in the same way because the houses fall in the same signs, it suggests that the planets transit pass away in their homes at a very short distance, allowing many ways similar experiences and lived in the same way. They both then a Neptune in Leo and the first house, symptomatic of restless personality, Neptune opposes a planet in the seventh. In the case of Camillo opposition to Jupiter is in Aquarius, which on one hand gives a wedding opportunist but in his own way through the lucky which tried - unsuccessfully - a form of balance. Neptune and Jupiter are also lords of his fifth house in Sagittarius: sexuality is so restless and unsatisfied, while changing and immobilistica. Dissatisfaction also pervades the whole personality of the Marquis, basically depressed and unstable. The opposition between Jupiter and Neptune in fact off his love of life and manages to do just to stay afloat thanks to the marriage, the sex of the fifth lived however as ritual and almost theatrical representation. Pièce where the Marquis has the role of director and deus ex machina. The Neptune Anna is instead much better because it opposes yes to Mercury in Fish and early seventh (communication difficulties within marriage), but both planets are redeemed lavishly by Saturn, Venus and Mars. You are not annasperebbe at all, even if he can not be alone, while he is in Anna his only lifeline. But let us return to try to understand the Marquis in his chart a Saturn isolated in fourth (the family but with the important which there was no dialogue), a Sun conjunct Mercury in the fifth, both opposed to Pluto in eleventh and trine to Mars in Taurus and ninth.The demon Plutonian dissatisfaction paws, quivers, not satisfied but finds redemption in Mars in Taurus, aggressive, domineering and jealous. Judging by the chart, Camillo Casati Stampa had no physical problems with respect to sexuality, but he preferred to find pleasure in the way we know. And remember that in 99.99% of cases impotence - if this had been his case, but I would doubt it - is only psychological and not physical. The Toro is also tied to the eye and, if with Jupiter in the seventh he wanted to have a wife to look at and show, also at its Mars do not mind at all the voyeur, or peeping tom to put Italian in a less refined but more explicit . Also because he had a very special vision of the feminine.The Moon in Pisces, anxious, emotional and confusing, is in eighth - house where hard to give the best of themselves, indeed - and is conjunct Uranus, which sends a sextile to Venus in Capricorn arid and sixth. If even put on a pedestal for its location in Pisces, the woman is exploited and observed through the keyhole. One imagines in dangerous situations, and the comrades who was Anna could always be a risk, even if the danger fatal - it is understood in retrospect - it really just ran with her husband. A moon that somehow - even if technically very nice - smells of death, and death will bring. A consistent theme, that of the Marquis Camillo, in its hardness, dissatisfaction, search the extreme. As equally consistent is that of his wife Anna Fallarino in Casati Stampa. With beautiful Moon and Venus in her home signs, Cancer and Taurus: why Anna was the epitome of femininity, even triumphant. Too bad that the Sun at the end of Pisces, which indicates the relationship with the man, the partner, the husband, was bad. Yes was conjunct Uranus in Aries and suggests its ability to capture the right opportunity, but also square to Saturn and Mars, opposite each other. Ie you choose with little rationality men of questionable masculinity, as well as a certain amount of masochism involved in Pisces, accentuated by negative astral aspects. But femininity is triumphant, too. The Moon in Cancer and eleventh, joint degree to Pluto, shows a mother and her being a woman accomplice, ipersessualizzato, though projected in unusual terrain, friendly, where everything is possible, even the exchange of partners, or acquiesce to the desires of an unusual companion strange and twisted. (But perhaps beyond the initial surprise even to her mind, mind you). Yes, because the Sun in the Eighth House can explore territories obscure, perhaps forbidden, but not lived with serenity. It should be noted that if Anna has a Sun-Uranus conjunction in the eighth, her husband Camillo, has the Moon conjunct Uranus always in the eighth. Uranus, the planet of drastic cuts, the seize the moment, the fottersene of morality, in a house risky and dark as the eighth, where both were seeking partners. And where they found the end. But back to the birth chart of Anna: Venus is also the most beautiful, and she is a goddess of love, without taboos. The Saturn in the Fifth House, paradoxically then indicates that sexuality is lived in a rational way, even with the intent to please, and suffering, the cravings of the Sun Sex strange and dangerous ... But everything is fine as long as the desire is under control, and click no love, or the illusion of love. Because the Pact of Steel, in which control of the polymorphous and perverse pleasure is associated with the need for stability, not to question the marriage bond, albeit marked the most unmentionable fantasies, because the eyes and the Mars of the Marquis Camillo trovassero their enjoyment ... Anna must in fact be faithful with the heart and mind. The body is not, but he wants his wife. For it to appear on the scene Minorenti Massimo, who unwittingly will upset the balance of crazy couple. The passion, the real one, not control, and the illusion of a clean history does the rest, but without taking into account the terrible potential hazard of the Marquis consort. At the time of the final explosion of the madness of the Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa Mars - a conjunct Moon in Leo that focuses attention on the wounds of pride - was passing on the ascendant both. In the case of the Marquis, going to oppose the already problematic Jupiter in the seventh house, which received in addition the square of Neptune in Scorpio end, reiterating and expanding emotional difficulties and existential base. The man has no hope for the future. Also because his Uranus, joint birth to the Moon - the beloved Anna - receives in that summer of 1970 the opposition of Pluto and Mercury in Virgo, and second, the being fooled by the woman that you love because of a Young Man and sexually active. It must be said that the Sun Anna was perfectly joint all'Urano him, and he was in eighth (house of death), and therefore also suffered the opposition of Pluto and Mercury. Sun received the perfect trine Neptune, meaning even the illusion of change and the desire to escape from a previous situation that can not stand. Anna met the love, and want to live for that, and close with the past. But Camillo, and planetary transits, decide otherwise and in the heat of late summer explode those shots gunshot blood that will flood the palace. Bringing in the news one of the events more itchy than ever they had known in Italy, with the ultimate scandal. But the ascendant Lion of both protagonists of the tragedy might not be important. They had always lived above (perhaps even outside) of the bourgeois moral rules.    The judgment of the Court astrologicalHe could end up in another way this ugly affair? Who knows, but it seems very unlikely that the gloomy and depressive Marquis Camillo would have vacated Anna, the woman he loved and truly above all else but that he was also a property to give pleasure to others for their own enjoyment. And Anna, so sensual, feminine and above all inhibition, could live differently that his ugly Sun? Astro male certainly also represented her husband, but also the ultimate lover who, although innocent, was the involuntary cause of the end of it all, of their lives, a folly two for which no treatment or medicine. You can do the moralists, and give them both to blame for what happened, and if we change the word guilt in responsibility can not but agree. But we are all responsible for our actions, even when we can not understand what it will cause. To me it is the image of a couple perhaps perverse but certainly tragic, prey of a great love dirty and sado-masochistic. But it was still love, no one can ever deny it ... Love, the engine of the world, for better or for worse. massimomichelini1@virgilio.it |
Is this love? (part 1)
The first call to the police station rang at ten o’clock on a Sunday evening, August 30, 1970. Strangely, the day had been almost autumnal, a rarity for that time of the year. The caller reported a murder in the Pincian oneighborhood, Rome, at Via Puccini, 9 a building of upper-class bourgeoisie apartments. Valerio Gianfrancesco, head of the station’s homicide division, was first to arrive at the crime scene, in the elegant home of Marquis Casati Stampa di Soncino, a two-story, terraced penthouse with a view of Villa Borghese. He later spoke of what had happened in an interview with Ezio Pasero, a journalist “As soon as the alarm came to the station , we rushed to that splendid penthouse, with no idea of what had caused the problem, obviously. Instead, I thought that it must have been an attempted robbery, or maybe even a kidnapping gone wrong. I was the first to go into the den and see the horrible scene. A woman was heaped in an armchair with an incredulous expression still on her face, the marquis was on the floor next to a rifle, and a young man was balled up behind a small overturned table”. All three were dead. Who were the three leading actors of this tragedy?
Of all the violent crimes committed in Rome after the war, the one in Via Puccini is perhaps the most memorable because of the circumstances that surrounded it, the twisted personalities of the husband and wife, and the intrigues that emerged in the days after the murder. It truly was, for once, a situation worthy of the overused label turbid. It’s also memorable because of the thorny issues that arose in trying to settle the marquis’ large estate after the crime.The woman was Anna Fallarino, whose married title was Marquise Casati Stampa di Soncino. The man next to the shotgun was her husband, Marquis Camillo, who friends referred to as Camillino. The third victim, the young man, was Massimo Minorenti, 25 years old university dropout who some described as a Fascist thug, and others as a simple activist in the Neo-Fascist movement. Given the scene of the crime, its motive seemed immediately apparent: a murder inspired by jealousy. She was a beautiful 41 year old woman; he was the husband of noble countenance, thin, and almost bald; and the lad in his twenties was clearly the “other man”. In reality, as became clear over time, this both was and wasn’t the motive. The story behind the crime was much more intricate, and the emotions that both united and divided these three people were much more complex.
The murders of Via Puccini are interesting because of the history behind them, and because the protagonists’ lives are emblematic of Rome and its mores after the hardships of war had passed and an economic boom enabled even people lower down on the economic ladder to enjoy some financial well-being. A comfortable life suddenly seemed within the reach of anyone with sufficient ability, luck or unscrupulousness to have a grab at it – and sometimes simply having a little beauty was enough.
Anna Fallarino had bet on just that – beauty. Her eyes were lovely, as were the regular features of her face and her shapely figure. She was a little heavy from the waist down, but those were days of curvaceous women, so even that was an asset. Her family came from a lower middle class; her father was a clerical worker and his marriage wasn’t the happiest of unions. At the age of 16, when the war had just ended, she moved to Rome from a small village; here she believed she could have lots of opportunities , could make a good future for herself and find a good catch. She went to live with her uncle Mario, a police officer, at Via Milano, 43 apartment n.5, half way between the Piazza Venezia and the Piazza della Repubblica, with the Naiad Fountain at the center, decorated with four beautiful, shapely women, a bit like Anna. As chance would have it, a young man named Remo, son of a butcher, lived in the building across from Anna’s apartment. Remo had the modest ambitions allowed him by his social condition and the times. In the early 150s, when Anna walked arm-in-arm with her Remo on Sunday afternoons to admire windows of the elegant shops one the Via Condotti, Rome still had the air of another era. The atmosphere was transparent, the light on certain clear winter days had the brightness of porcelain and the monumentality of it all seemed more intense in the deserted streets, where passing automobiles were still a rarity.
The sentimental education of girls like Anna was generally imparted in weekly magazines with comic-strip soap-opera stories titles Grand Hotel or Zazà. These enchanted stories’ heroines were invariably a common girl, a secretary or salesgirl, who met her soul mate – a lawyer or, better yet, a journalist, or even an airplane pilot. The stories always offered the glimpse of a bright future, which was as much as anyone could ask. Upon hearing of the tragedy at Via Puccini, Anna’s former fiancé Remo said: “We went steady for three years. We were supposed to get married, but in the end it never happened. I can’t believe she ended like this. The newspapers talks about orgies, perversions, and the strange things she did with the marquis. I remember her as she was then, a down-to-earth girl who could take care of herself. I Can only remember her that way, and I want to say so to everybody who’s talking about her now like some fallen woman. Anna never would have turned into that if nobody had led her so astray.”
Anna, however, only had one thought in her mind: how to make the most out of her own beauty. With a bit of hard work – because she certainly had far to go – she found occasional work as a runway model, and learned how to carry herself stiffly, walking with one foot set carefully in front of the other while hardly moving her thighs, which were already generous, and needed little to make her stand out. And she finally made it to the movies. In 149 Mario Mattoli, who was directing his umpteenth film gave her a bit part. It wasn’t much, but she saw it as her debut. She could not imagine her cinematic career also ended with this movie. Anna didn’t stick with it because in the same year she met Giovanni Drommi, a 28 year old engineer and industrialist, scion of a well-heeled Roman family. His nickname was Peppino, he frequented the most fashionable salons in town and led the sort of life Anna had only dreamt of. They started to talk about marriage almost immediately and so it went. They were married in a church, complete with white dress, confetti, rice applause, tears, and all the rest. Peppino Drommi was a longtime friend of Marquis Camillo, but Anna didn’t yet know that, and ignored the weight their friendship would soon have on her own life. This first marriage lasted ten years. They had no children, but their life was more comfortable than anything anyone in the Fallarino family had ever known.
The life, background, culture and behavioral models of Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino was entirely different. He grew up in family with an ancient lineage. But little or nothing remained to our Camillo, who was born in 1927, of his family’s radiant past. Perhaps he inherited an awareness of the name that, without any other qualities, managed to transform itself into an unjustifiable arrogance. His wife Anna said of him: “Camillo began his personal war with servants as a child; it seems he head the habit ok kicking them in the shins”. After the tragedy his impeccable butler, Felice, reported: “For example, sometimes he found it unbecoming to speak directly to the staff, and when he addressed us it was through a third person, even if we were only a step away from him”. The consequences of this rocky relationship with his domestic staff also played a part on the evening of the tragedy. Camillo had an idle affability that would alternate with sudden outbursts of absolute fury.
Camillo was friendly with Rome’s nobiltà nera, the “black” nobility faithful to the Pope, as opposed to the nobiltà Bianca, the “white” nobility faithful to the Savoy, Kings of Italy – rulers. He had several homes: the Roman apartment on Via Puccini, a vacation house on the island of Zannone, in the national park of Circeo; a luxurious apartment in the heart of Milan, Brera. And estates in other smaller towns around Milan and he also had a 17th century villa in … Arcore…in the Brianza area north of Milan, which included a collection of 15th and 16th century paintings and a library of over 10.000 volumes … yes, later on this villa was bought by and became the residence of … Mr Silvio Berlusconi.
In 1958 something happened in Cannes, it seems, that first set Peppino, Anna’s husband at that time, and Camillo in competition in Anna’s eyes. They were staying in a luxurious apartment of a hotel in the city, right on the Croisette, and there was a party. Those soirées had the air, more than they would today, of a truly grand event, giving attendees a sense of having exclusive privileges. Porfirio Rubirosa was among the guests, and although his name seems like nothing straight out of fiction, it belonged to one of the most famous, luckiest lady-killers of the 1950s. The Dominican playboy wasn’t very tall, but was good looking. Above all, he was famously well endowed where it counts, and reputed for his exceptional endurance. One of Porfirio’s favorite sayings was appropriate to the role he played: “Most of men are eager to make money; I’m eager to spend it”. Anna was elegant and lovely; Rubirosa wasn’t the only man to notice her. Unlike the others, though, he wasn’t content just to look. He approached her and began conversation with the inane and pleasant fluidity that only years of experience and great self-confident permit. As he spoke he put one of his hands familiarly on her bare back. This was a gesture of a bit too much confidence, and caused a rather heated reaction.
It’s not hard to understand Peppino Drommi’s concern when he saw Porfirio’s hand resting on his wife’s bare back. Yet the gesture seemed to bother Marquis Camillo even more. Peppino approached the “king of all playboys” and asked him to remove his hand. Porfirio smiled indulgently at hime and went on talking to Anna as if nothing had happened. Camillo, meanwhile, succumbed to one of his fits of rage and sprang to his feet. Peppino threw the first punch and Rubirosa, (who was also an amateur boxer) quickly reacted. Camillo hurled himself at his face. It was just like a brawl in the movies. Tables were overturned, glasses shattered, a lot of people screamed, beautiful women were frightened, and there was also a hint of amusement in the air.
Some say the first sparks between Anna and Camillo were ignited by this famous brawl fought in her honor in that grand hotel on the Croisette, which may well be true. In any case, a few months after this episode Camillo requested an annulment of his marriage. Peppino Drommi also recited the necessary lines to get an annulment. Anna and Camillo were married in a civil ceremony in Switzerland in April of 1959, and again in a church on June 21, 1961. What kind of marriage did Camillo and Anna have? The true nature of their relationship came to light only after the murders. If anyone knew about or participated in their curious ménages, it had been kept secret. On August 30, 1970, the day of the crime, police officer Domenico Scali was one of the first to enter the apartment, and described what he saw in an interview, as we will soon recount on this blog: click here to read the second part of the story.
When a waiter brought champagne to their room, the marquis left the door to the bathroom where Anna was showering ajar. At first the man didn’t understand what was happening, but then he caught on an went in. That was the nature of their relationship from that night on, for eleven years. “Today Anna made love with a lad so effectively that even at a distance I could share in the joy.”. “Today Anna met an airman. He was young and exceedingly handsome. It was a fantastic encounter. Anna was happy and participated with great intensity.”. “We went to the beach at Fiumicino, and a lot of men were looking at her. Together we chose a young man. He was fulfilling, and we paid him”. “We were super-nude at Fiumicino. Anna was beautifully laid out, relaxing. Later a new airman passed by … totally divine”. “I liked it when you’re in bed with someone else, I feel like I love you even more”. “Today Anna made love to a soldier. It cost me 30.000 lire but it was worth it.”. In addition to the diary, investigators found dozens, even hundreds of photographs that showed Anna nude, sometimes in poses meant to be artistic, sometimes just obscene, but always focused on details you might easily guess.
Camillo’s particular mental process, quite simple and not so uncommon, was explained this way by the psychiatrist Emilio Servadio: “It’s called voyeurism, and it’s the desire to be a witness, to look on, to observe. An accentuation, in other words, of what a famous American scholar called the “the visual stimulus. It’s a phenomenon that develops early, because there children who, at a certain age, develop a curiosity that resolves itself in the need to see, to know, to watch. If this tendency is not overcome in their psycho-sexual development it can remain an important part of the adult’s sexuality and the adult will then exhibit a morbid desire to watch other peoples’s sexual activities. These individuals, professor Servadio continued, also have a heightened inclination toward masochism, especially the type called “moral masochism”. But are we sure there is nothing more than this? One thing is to watch other people sexual activity, another thing is to watch your wife’s sexual activity and then declare, as Camillo did in his diary: “I liked it when you’re in bed with someone else, I feel like I love you even more”.Even with this psychological explanation, we might ask why this man, who for eleven years had fed his habit with such evident satisfaction, so suddenly rebelled against a situation he’d created for his own pleasure. Servadio’s answer to this was: “the key to the puzzle, and for me the solution to this case, is this: the masochist, contrary to what we may think, is not an individual who allows himself to be mistreated ad libitum, at the mercy of someone else’s whims and desires. The masochist is always the director, always in control of the situation. Let’s trace the term back to its roots. Leopold Von Sacher Masoch, who gave this perversion its name, wrote to his love, Wanda Von Dunajew: “ I am coming to you at that hour. You will be dressed in a pair of high, black boots, and you will have a whip. You will say to me: “ Kneel, slave, because I am your queen.”. He wrote it, so he was in charge of the script. If at any point his partner forgot her role and didn’t whip him enough, Masoch would react horribly. That’s what he did, in effect, when he tried to strangle his wife upon finding her in a situation he hadn’t planned.
It was something new in the routine that finally broke the pattern of behavior the Casati had created. After 10 years of taking men to please her husband, Anna –perhaps even a sign of her love for the Marquis – for the first time chose a partner on her own, and then probably fell in love with him. She didn’t just copulate with Massimo Minorenti, as she had with others, she made love to him. They had met at a party and begun seeing one another. One afternoon they went together to a hotel in the area around the Viale Liegi, in the Parioli neighborhood. These were brief meetings and were Anna’s first in secret after all the men she’d had in front of her husband.If it’s easier to clarify Camillo’s motivations, Anna’s are much more difficult to explain. Why did she play such a game, right from the first night they were married? Was there some explicit agreement between them or did they understand one another without a need for words? If he was a voyeur, was she, in the clinical sense, and exhibitionist? We don’t know the answers to these questions and Professor Servadio’s opinion here seems more debatable. “It seems evident to me that it also gave the woman pleasure, in addition to the social and economic advantages she gained by allowing her husband to use her like that. Furthermore, it’s been shown that the same masochistic or sadistic components are more common in women than in men. Thus it’s entirely possible that she took direct pleasure from the turbid, abnormal situations her husband placed her in. Let’s take the fact that she was photographed nude, in lascivious poses: this is a part of that disposition to perversion which women are more prone to than men”.
If it was a matter of social and economic advantages, Anna had already guaranteed them by marrying the marquis. His first wife’s settlement was substantial, and hers could have been even bigger; a mutual break up wasn’t in the marquis’ best interest. On the other hand, ther are testimonies of the 2 servants, Felice and Oliviera, that mentioned they heard the couple fighting and yelling, saw Anna crying and heard her, at least once, vent. On that occasion she transformed from the marquise back into the poor girl she was before the marriage, exclaiming: “It’d be better to eat onions and bread and live like a bum where I came from than to accept the rules of this corrupt world, full of people who make me sick. If this continues, one day or another I’ll toss it all to the wind and go back home”.
This was one aspect of Anna’s personality and the tone of the whole affair. The other, almost diametrically opposed aspect, belonged to the woman who allowed herself to be photographed nude hundreds of times –in such immodest poses – and to be had dozens of times by the first stranger who passed by. How could she have done all that if she didn’t also have some natural propensity for such erotic games or, more crudely, such perversions? Perhaps, though, she did it because she nursed some kind of bottomless unhappiness deep down.
Speaking of perversions, Freud had an opinion that gives us something to think about: “The omnipotence of love” he wrote “never reveals itself as strongly as it does in its own aberrations”. It’s precisely this “omnipotence” that makes such a high toll because it manifests itself “by transforming the beloved into an object”. He believes, and perhaps he is right, that a “pervert” is simply someone who acts on what people only fantasize about. But this is exactly the difference and, if true, also the premise of this tragedy: perversion is governed by its own precise rules , one of which is the objectification of the loved one. At the very instant Anna began to choose and decide on her own, abandoning her role of the “object”, she broke the rules, and the tragedy was set into motion.
Anna wrote to Massimo from the island of Zannone: “I’m really sad. Usually I really love this island, but this year I hate it … I think a note from you would make me happy. If you can, type the envelope and put the return address as Sartoria Botti (my dressmaker), Corso Italia 21, Rome. Now I need to leave you, Camillo is coming back in. I send you a big hug, your Anna. “When she was taken on the sand of Fiumicino in front of her husband, Anna was complicit in a ribald game. Here, instead, we have a classic “betrayal”, the woman acting like an archetypal Emma Bovary. This happened in the spring of 1970. A few days later she wrote again: “My only love, I am writing while Camillo is sitting comfortably in his armchair listening to the radio. What can I tell you more than I adore you so, so, so much.? I think with such excitement about the time we can be together again, we two alone for a week or even just a day, all to ourselves. Bye, my great love”.
Anna essentially tried to beat her husband at his own game. She didn’t hide her affair with Massimo and hoped, instead, to pass it off as a variation on their activities. She didn’t allow him to watch when they made love, but told him about it. Since he couldn’t expect traditional faithfulness from his wife, Camillo at least expected her to be faithful to their rules, and give him a detailed report of her encounters. He wrote in his diary: “Anna has completely failed me, but my illness binds me to her. I can’t sleep, even though I want so much. I can’t take this situation anymore. I really want to leave her, but I can’t do it. I’m slowly dying on the inside; I’v elost everything … I can’t take this anymore”.At the same time, or shortly afterward, Camillo realized what was happening and noted, bitterly in his diary: “What a delusion. I wish I were dead and buried. How disgusting, how nasty. It makes me sick; that’s what Anna gave me, sickness. Really, losing her head for a young man as absolutely insignificant as Massimo, who, if he didn’t have such nice hair as a disguise, would be totally nobody.” A nobody or not, Massimo was a handsome lad, part loafer, part playboy, he was a political science student who hadn’t taken a single exam. Though, he had some luck with the ladies, as is proven by the relationship he had with Lola Falana, an Afro-Italian dancer who had a fair amount of success on television. It seems his ambition was to open a car dealership or, maybe, a nightclub. But by breaking the rules of the game also took a risk. He certainly would have been more careful had he not also been so emotionally involved.
That was at six thirty on Sunday afternoon. A servant called Anna from the house on Via Puccini and told her the marquis had returned and was waiting for her and Massimo as they had agreed. Hesitating, she asked to speak directly with her husband. He seemed calm on the phone and reassured her by saying he only wanted to clarify the situation. While Anna and Massimo made their final plans with two friends who would go with them to the apartment, Camillo called his butler and ordered him to admit his wife and her companion, then close the door and not disturb them any reason whatsoever.She was aware of how depressed Camillo was, and saw the rancor pent up inside him. Perhaps to approach him, or to distance what she felt as a threat, she agreed to go with him to Fiumicino on August 26, 4 days before the end and have sex in front of him with a passing soldier. On Saturday, August 29, the marquis was in Valdagno, guest of his friends Marzotto. He called home several times to speak with Anna. She told him she was having dinner with Massimo and another 3 friends. During the last call, at midnight, she admitted they’d all left except Massimo and his friend Aurelio. Camillo suspected that the former would spend the night with his wife, and he threatened to return to Rome and kill them. The three guessed that Camillo was about to break. The marquis seemed beside himself.; on the telephone he intimated they should leave the house, called Massimo a pimp and set a date with his wife for the following day, saying he needed an explanation. But Anna, now terrified, wrote Camillo a note of near surrender: “Please forgive me if I’ve made a mistake: I promise to break it off immediately with Massimo and come back to you as before.” A servant was responsible for delivering it to the marquis as soon as he set foot in the house.
At about seven Anna and Massimo arrived at Via Puccini (click here to see Via Puccini n.9 on Google Street view), Massimo’s friend followed them in another car. Meanwhile Camillo was sitting at his desk writing this note: “I die because I can’t stand that you love another man. I need to do what I am doing. Forgive me. And come sometimes to visit me. He put the note in an envelope and wrote “Anna” on it. We don’t know how the tragedy’s prologue played out, but it was brief. If Camillo was thinking about killing himself, perhaps in front of Anna and her lover as his last note suggests, he quickly changed his mind. Maybe it was rage that blinded him, or perhaps the words they exchanged inn the quiet of the den convinced him that Anna had lied, that nothing could be as before, that he had definitively lost. The first bullets were for his wife. Massimo tried to flee, running to leave the room. A bullet struck him in the back, and either right before or immediately afterward he tried to use a little table as a shield. The second bullet, however, hit him directly in the head. Wedging the butt of the rifle against the back of an armchair, he put the barrel against his throat and pulled the trigger. The two friends waiting in the street heard the shots and the sound of breaking glass, and decided to go up and ring the doorbell, but the butler couldn’t be convinced to do anything. Only after they insisted did he finally decide to open the door.
We already know what they saw inside: the final act of a tragic love story.
Rome. Via Puccini, 9. The Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, kills with a shotgun wife Anna Fallarino, of forty 'years, and her lover twenty-five, Massino Minorenti. Then he took his own life. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the diary of the Marquis, lined in green satin, reveals a disturbing dark side to the magistrates in their married life ... More than 1500 shots of the Marquise, naked or with other men, are found in support of the meetings described in the diary which shows the voyeuristic pleasure of the Marquis.
She was born in a town called Benevento Amorosi and perhaps could not have come to light in a place that had a different name. Love was at the center of Anna's life, love was the cause of his death. Anna as there are a few: Weird, insatiable of life, with an irresistible sensuality, blessed with a rugged beauty, damaged by an unhappy childhood.She was born in 1929 and soon separated from her sister: she lived with an aunt, his mother had rebuilt their lives after an initial report ended badly. Anna Fallarino had moved to Rome young, blinded by the lights of Cinecittà. He dreamed of glory. And in his short life (he was killed at age 41) he reminded everyone that he participated in the film "Totò Tarzan ', one of the many extras belline of those times. She had grown up without too many rules and especially without a father figure beside. So to twenty years was a busty Mediterranean beauty with sides and shoulders, and a cunning chiseled face that shrank from any imperfection. Hungry for love. Hungry for life. It was not, as was described by the tabloid press, a nymphomaniac, at all. She was a woman who wanted everything he had not had and that meant adapt to the needs of others, if he should do so. But, as he revealed his niece Maria Teresa Fiumanò, in his book "The Marquise Casati", also he had a surprising tenderness towards children and dreamed of having, at least a couple. Her know life, death and miracles. What I did not know (and which reveals their niece) is no secret that Anna had kept for himself. At age 12, when sex was still subject they did not know the plots, he was severely harassed by her elderly pastor, Don Luca. Before the confessional, then the rectory.
A sexual assault that she tried to tell her aunt, receiving only a couple of slaps. For sure he was lying, Don Luca was such a good man, the answer was in tears when revealed what had happened. "From that moment I did everything to change the church and not have to see again," said Anna to his niece many years later. He related the details of the secret that weighed on his soul: "He was my confessor, I considered it as a good grandfather and understanding and I trusted everything with his heart in his hand.There was nothing scandalous in those days, to tell, among other things. But one day he began to ask the guys who attended and sinful acts that I committed with them or alone.He asked the details, in the confessional, was more and more curious. I at that time I had nothing to say. One day he asked with particular curiosity also details related to my physical. I instinctively ran away, but he followed after me and told me "where stupid girl go." He forced to suffer its ill attentions and I silent, unable to say anything or do anything, shocked. Did no tell everything to the family, no one believed me, in fact I was told that I wanted to send to jail an innocent man. "
That experience deeply troubled Anna, who at the time was naive and did not yet know the sick folds of life, and perhaps indelibly influenced its existence. Removed, apparently, that episode that had marked more than she believed and grew hardened by events. That torture had not digested, but went ahead and decided to make a good marriage for "settling down." He married the engineer Giuseppe Drommi and yet during the Cannes Film Festival in 1959 he met the wealthy Marchese Camillo Casati, where he became a lover. He lost his head for her until they obtain the annulment of the marriage (it is said that he paid a billion). They married the same year and went to live in via Puccini in Rome, in a two-story apartment. They lived on the third, fourth servants. He had decorated just Anna, suddenly entered the elite of Italian nobility from which it was looked down upon. "Those old whore," she commented. However, they wanted or did not want to, everyone was forced to admire its beauty. One between the Marquis Casati, master of sumptuous properties and financially more than wealthy, and Anna Fallarino, was a marriage that caused a sensation. He was a man that is not pleased with the noble title and the association with women of the people had never bothered. However he revealed, since the early days of marriage, an insatiable curiosity about the eroticism most experienced which included the '' use 'of offering performance males who were to make love to his wife. He photographed and observed, had drilled a hole in the bedroom wall of Zannone villa, wrote in a diary everything that happened in his wife's bed or on Zannone reefs, the island that Casati had to rent since 1922 and where they carried out partying at red lights. Anna s'adeguava, complacent. Happy to please, with a morbid taste to that bond murky. The Marquis was the father figure he had not had and it was subjugated, he answered prayers. In return he had given her an identity. The identity that had been lacking. Banquets, meetings with military, young geeks, enlivened the married life of the Marquise, managed by her husband. It was fatal for Anna Fallarino the meeting with Massimo Minorenti, a student who had a reputation for "thug", a guy who had been paid by Casati to have sex with his wife. He had not reckoned, Casati, who Minorenti and Anna could fall in love. Circumstance that came true, and that threw him into despair. The August 30, 1970, Camillo Casati returned to the home of Puccini via the run, moving away from a hunt, after learning that Minorenti was right in that apartment with his wife. Upset, he asked the five home not to disturb him, so he entered the living room, where he waited for Anna and her lover. There was no discussion. The Marquis fired three shots with his Browning 12 gauge his wife and then two lover, who had grabbed a small table in the hope of shelter. He left the last shot for himself. The servants, meanwhile, alarmed by the firing, had called the police, but without entering the room. In an interview with L'Europeo, the agent Dominic Scali recalled: "The first body I saw was that of Anna Fallarino. It seemed to me still alive. She was sitting on the couch with his legs crossed on a stool. He had his hands in his lap and serene face. The downsides were a dark blood stain on her blouse. "
Anna Fallarino
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| Ephraim Cockrell, Elopes with Miss Hazel Hogan, Brother to Anna Cockrell.1903 |
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