Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216954 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 235 pages

MEREDITH ETHERINGTON-SMITH, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
The ultimate Gothic heroine!

'The fabulous Marchesa Casati was the ultimate Gothic heroine, a bizarre and beautiful figure. Take a leaf out of this book and indulge in a dark and decadent Gothic revival.'

Review
"The fabulous Marchesa Casati was the ultimate Gothic heroine, a bizarre and beautiful figure." - "Sunday Telegraph"

LADY MOOREA BLACK, SPECTATOR
Extraordinary, exotic, outlandish!

'Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino have researched their subject with depth and thoroughness, without which this book could easily have been thought to be fiction. They have brought to life a true feeling of the belle epoque and the extraordinary, exotic, outlandish character of La Casati.'

Customer Reviews

Feasting on an Infinite Variety
Finally, a biography of one of the most fascinating women of the early 20th century, the Marchesa Luisa Casati.This is an excellent book that lovingly treats its subject and also sets her story in historical perspective.Interwoven are some of the most interesting people in the arts of that time: Diaghlev, Nijinsky, Isadora Duncan ,D'Annunzio and some of the most prominent painters and photographers of the period: Man Ray, Augustus John and many, many others. They, too, were fascinated by the Marchesa and painted and photographed her. Fortunately, most of these works of art are shared with us in a thick section of photos and paintings.
Altogether a feast for the mind, eye and heart.

Pure delight from start to finish
This stylish, perceptive and crisp biography of one of the twentieth century's most complex and controversial figures manages at once to be an intimate portrait and a reflection of an age. It should be a sine qua non in everyone's library.

A fascinating biograaphy of a true eccentric
The Marchesa Casati born at the end of the last century lived and partied in most of the capitals of Europe but her greatest fame was her life in Venice where she lived on the Grand Canal in what is now the Guggenheim Museum.

The first, and only, person to have persuaded the mayor of Venice to close St Mark's Square for a private party, she arrived in her gondola escorted by her two pet cheetahs wearing diamond studded collars. She was a muse to many famous artists including Augustus John, Boldini, Epstein and Bakst and when she lived in the Palais Rose in Paris had over one hundred portraits of herself adorning the walls.

Scot Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino have written a well-researched and highly entertaining story of this bizarre Italian aristocrat who greatly added to the fun of a bygone age.