The Heiress Who Became a Living Work of Art—and Lost It All

A woman who outraged and inspired people of her time, who was a symbol of the Belle Époque and a muse to her contemporary artists. She owned palaces all over Italy but died indebted and alone in London. Meet the Divine Marchesa, Luisa Casati, who wanted to become a living work of art and turn her life into a spectacle.

A Skinny and Weird Girl

Luisa Casati was born Luisa Amman in 1881, into one of Milan’s wealthiest families. Her Austrian father had made his fortune in cotton and was later made a count by King Umberto I. Despite her privileged upbringing, she was a shy girl, self-conscious about her long, slender limbs. She found refuge in churches and art galleries, where she spent hours copying the works of the great Renaissance masters.

When Luisa was 13, her mother died. Two years later, she lost her father as well. She and her sister were taken to their uncle’s. When she was 17 and about to enter high society, Luisa made an outrageous decision: she cut her hair short, creating the extraordinary style that would soon make her famous.

A Seductive Femme Fatale

Her marriage in 1900 to Marquess Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino was a marriage of interests and love. Luisa accompanied her husband to the fox chases and participated in his businesses. That is, until she met Gabriele D’Annunzio, a remarkable poet, whose charm and lifestyle seduced her. What started as a love affair eventually gave her liberation from social conventions and restraints of traditional love. She would have many lovers, both male and female, among them painter Romaine Brooks.

An Extravagant Muse

Her persona inspired artists of her times from Giovanni Boldini to Léon Bakst, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, Man Ray, Alberto Martini, Kees van Dongen, and Augustus John (who was also her lover). Whoever met her wanted to render her uncanny beauty. She kept her pupils dark with doses of belladonna, rimmed their lids in thick black kohl, dyed her hair fiery red; she even dressed up as Medusa or wrapped a snake around her neck instead of a necklace.

A Fallen Star

Her extravagant lifestyle brought her to the brink of poverty. During World War II, she exchanged her palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, now home to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, for a tiny flat in London. She had amassed a debt the equivalent of $25 million, and, unable to satisfy creditors, was forced to auction off her possessions. Casati died of stroke on June 1, 1957.