Historical story

Left Shoulder Tattoo:Sissi's Little Transgression

Sissi played by Romy Schneider. The Empress had a tattoo

Imagine the beautiful, diaphanous and unattainable Sissi with a tattoo ?

Probably not, but you are wrong.

The most fairytale-like princess ever was actually much less happy and sugary than the movies tell her ( see also: https://www.pilloledistoria.it/9055/storia-contemporanea/boccoli-principessa-sissi-seta).

Elisabetta was a restless woman, often impatient with the rules and court life, sad and constantly looking for herself.

She probably suffered from depression, a disease that at the time was not recognized as such, and certainly the great pain for the death of her daughter Gisella before her and her son Rodolfo then, they didn't help her improve.

The fact is that, at times, he even allowed himself some small transgression.

Among these that of having a small anchor tattooed on the left shoulder during a journey undertaken in 1888.

She may seem, and indeed it is, nonsense to us, but then and in the environment she belonged to, her tattoos were certainly not frowned upon.

The choice of the subject is explained by the great love that Sissi always had for the sea and, in particular, that around Greece.

This little secret, in public, only came out after the death of the empress, killed by Luigi Lucheni in 1898.

However, his daughter Maria Valeria was obviously aware of this , as evidenced by a letter written by her in December 1888.

In it the girl writes: “very original and not at all so horrible ”Precisely in reference to the small tattoo just done by the august mother ( Photo gives: raiplay.it).