In the autumn of 1897, after two years in jail on a charge of ‘gross indecency’, Oscar Wilde absconded to Italy with the deplorable Lord Alfred Douglas. Sodomy, whether with man or beast, carried a sentence of servitude for life in Victorian Britain: prigs protested that Wilde had got off lightly.
In Naples, ragamuffin capital of the Italian south, the Dublin-born outcast went to ground with Bosie in the Villa Guidice (now the Villa Bracale) at 37 Via Posillipo. Inevitably there was press intrusion. The English-language Naples Echo was quick to announce the arrival of Sebastian Melmouth: ‘Readers may know that this is the pseudonym of Oscar Wilde.’ Where to hide? To Wilde’s fury a journalist managed to inveigle his way into No 37:
Signor Wilde cast me a glacial interrogative gaze. He was a man of about forty, tall, of vigorous complexion, with clear English eyes. His splendid blond hair, brushed with care, fell about an elongated face (one of those equine faces so typical of the English).
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