He bore no relation to his sisters. The boy he called brother was his son, but he was no father to him. The youth who called him brother wore a dress, but was no brother to him. In short, he was a man who was not a man and whose purpose in life it was to be a woman. Bellino’s life was a riddle that is believed to have inspired Balzac to write Sarrasine, a novel about mistaken sexual identities, and Casanova was as confused by it as anyone else. Entranced by Bellino’s beauty, he was nevertheless deeply disturbed by the desire he felt for him. For although underneath his skirt Bellino was built like a man, his face, hands and even his tiny breasts were utterly feminine. Casanova was in no mood for conundrums when he met Bellino in February 1745. Just weeks away from his twentieth birthday, he had stopped off at the Adriatic port of Ancona on his way back to Venice from Rome. To his dismay, almost his disbelief, he had had to leave the city only a few months after arriving there in Donna Lucrezia’s company.
