Siren of the Century
"The Marchesa Luisa Casati"
by
Scot D. Ryersson &
Michael Orlando Yaccarino
If Edgar Allan Poe had begotten the moonchild of his darkest reveries, with the help of Coco Chanel, the result would have been the Marchesa Luisa Casati—for she was, without question, the maddest, baddest, and most scandalous figure of the early twentieth century international art and society scenes. For more than five decades, Casati inspired genius and set trends still celebrated today.
But it was the woman herself that proved to be her greatest achievement. A self-portrait lived in triptych; Casati became an artistic muse, fashion outlaw, and cultural icon. Undeniably, the weird and wonderful likes of her the world had never known before, or since.
On January 23, 1881, Luisa Amman was born into a world of nouveau riche privilege in Milan. Even so, his cotton tycoon’s daughter was bereft of self-confidence due to the plainness of her outward charms, a condition only magnified when compared to a classically pretty older sister. The consequence of this was a personality marked by intense shyness and a tendency toward inward fantasy. Following the early deaths of her parents, Luisa spent several years as an upper-crust debutante, a position advanced by, sharing with her sister the title of Italy’s wealthiest heiresses. Soon, she won the attentions of an eligible bachelor, the Marchese Camillo Casati, a dashing cavalry officer with a respectable title but the tiniest of family fortunes. At least initially, both would benefit from the marriage that followed. By this union, Luisa secured a spot among the upper classes, while Camillo could afford a more than comfortable existence. But the newly dubbed Marchesa Casati soon discovered that her spouse had an all- consuming preoccupation with cavorting on the hunting fields, leaving little time for her. This situation did not improve upon the birth of their only child, a daughter named Cristina.
Like other young aristocrats, Luisa and Camillo enlivened
their soirées with the occult and the strange. Pastimes such as séances
and tarot card readings were then all the rage. But Luisa pursued the arcane
far beyond what was considered proper. Take, for example, her favorite among
these sinister party games: the re-enactment of a gruesome real-life adventure
connected with the Italian noblewoman Cristina Trivulzio. Luisa had been delighted
to learn that the embalmed corpse of Trivulzio’s lover had been discovered
hidden inside one of the lady’s boudoir cabinets, a scenario the Marchesa
was overtly fond of acting out with family and friends.
But in fact, Luisa’s growing predilection for the outré had its beginnings in her mother’s odd choice of bedtime stories years earlier. These concerned accounts of such eccentric personages as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the stylish, globetrotting royal who died at the point of an assassin’s stiletto;King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the insane monarch whose many fantasy castles remain as proof of his grand delusions; and superstar Sarah Bernhardt, whose publicity stunts included posing for photographs while laid out in a coffin. All of them served as extravagant role models for Luisa as she developed a bizarre persona of her own.
Disregarded by her husband, Luisa became frustrated with her function as genteel wife. So it was not unexpected that she began an extramarital affair. But it came as a shock that it was conducted with Gabriele D’Annunzio, Europe’s most infamous writer. Typically, once he began such a liaison, the rakish D’Annunzio baptized his paramour-of-the-moment with a nickname. Luisa was no exception: he dubbed her “Kore,” after the goddess Persephone who, according to Greek myth, was transformed from virginal maid into the Queen of Hell after her abduction by Hades. But although Luisa approved of the legend’s symbolic relationship to her own life, she gave the moniker continental panache by Frenchifying it into “Coré.” D’Annunzio was thrilled, but unprepared for the bat-winged siren that burst forth from the discarded shell of the former Luisa Casati.
To dramatize this metamorphosis, Luisa made several daring changes to her
appearance. In an era when no respectable woman wore cosmetics, Casati bleached
her face dead-white with ivory make-up; bloodied her lips scarlet; and ringed
her large green eyes with kohl, India ink, and even thin strips of black velvet.
Her coiffure was ignited into a henna inferno, while toxic belladonna eyedrops
dilated her pupils into Stygian voids. And then to further augment these unearthly
effects, Luisa set out to become the premier fashion plate from hell. Refined
and frilly fineries were replaced by gender-bending outfits featuring plunging
necklines; glittering harem pants; black pearls and peacock feathers; and
later, the occasional tigerskin top hat and pirate’s eye patch. Very
soon, the D’Annunzio affair, as well as an ever-growing repertoire of
fashion crimes fuelled scandal sheets across Europe.
The decadent playground of Venice provided Casati with the perfect base of operations. Roofless, ruined, and equipped with its own overgrown garden, the Palazzo dei Leoni on the Grand Canal became her haunted palace. While extensive internal repairs were made, the exterior’s moldering decay was left deliberately untouched, much to the displeasure of her elite neighbors. Furthermore, its tangled garden soon echoed with the growls of the Marchesa’s pet cheetahs. When a nearly nude Casati took the jewel-collared cats on a midnight stroll along the Piazza San Marco, her path lit by torches borne aloft by an equally unclothed Moorish manservant, her legend to astound was established.
Luisa’s childhood fantasies had now developed into a passion for dressing-up. Her everyday vampiric appearance was enhanced by outrageous costumes. Her Venetian fancy dress balls became renowned—not only for their scale and expense, but for their hostess’ entrances. The Marchesa appeared as a Harlequin at one and a Persian princess at another. Once, she arrived by gondola in an immense 18th century hoop skirt, escorted by a battalion of liveried footmen adorned with plumes. On another occasion, Luisa had her male servants stripped and covered in gold leaf, leading to rumors that some had died from suffocation.
Luisa discovered that her prior inhibitions could be overcome through the use of flamboyant masquerade. But Casati’s outlandish and rebellious behavior was not limited to such galas alone. She smoked opium in Capri and drank absinthe in England. To achieve an especially macabre manifestation, the Marchesa attended one opera with her fiery tresses pierced by white peacock quills, whilst the blood of a freshly killed chicken flowed down her pale arms, a sight that caused a few demure damsels to faint. At a performance by the Ballets Russes, Luisa dressed in a gown of egret feathers that molted as she moved, leaving her nearly naked by evening’s end. She shopped Paris with marmosets scampering about her shoulders, attended dinners with live snakes encircling her throat, and arrived at the races accompanied by a white greyhound dyed blue to match her hat.
Sometimes Casati’s devilry exceeded even these examples of aesthetic anarchy. Her abiding fervor for the occult led to rumored celebrations of black masses. To be sure, the Marchesa’s library was stocked with books on sorcery and spells, all bound, or so she claimed, in human skin upon which hair still grew. Accompanied by D’Annunzio, she was seen trying to raise the dead in a Roman cemetery. And she became known to seat life-size wax mannequins at her dining table—some said to contain the ashes of past lovers driven to suicide by her follies. One doll was a replica of a murdered young woman that was, like Trivulzio’s embalmed lover, kept in an armoire, that is when its artfully re-created fatal bullet hole was not being displayed to sheepish guests. Another of these ghoulish toys was a carefully created double of its owner for which Luisa even had matching garments made by top couturiers.
Casati’s sexuality could be taken to equal limits as well. Gossip began that her muscular menservants were also bedmates. Regardless, the Marchesa’s penchant for the peculiar led to erotic experimentation. Indeed, D’Annunzio bestowed upon Casati the additional title of “the Divine Marquise” in homage to the Marquis de Sade. More than once, Luisa proudly flaunted the teeth-marks from their lovemaking, causing one observer to note that she wore such bruises in place of jewels.
It must be stated that for the first three decades of the twentieth century, the Marchesa had a talent just as significant to her undisputed reign as the originator of the modern Goth sensibility and lifestyle. For whether in Venice, Rome, Paris, or Capri, her keen eye could always discern artistic genius. She then selected those possessing the most riveting or experimental artistic talent to capture her incomparable image. Among them were painters Giovanni Boldini, Kees Van Dongen, Augustus John, and Romaine Brooks; designers Fortuny, Bakst, and Erté; sculptors Jacob Epstein and Catherine Barjansky; photographers Man Ray and Cecil Beaton; and writers as diverse as Ezra Pound and Jean Cocteau. The Marchesa would even influence those she never met such as Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams.
With Luisa’s endless spending on parties and baubles, on bizarre homes, and securing a place in art history, it is not surprising that this decadent fairy tale could not be an endless one. It was Casati’s long-suffering accountant who warned of financial disaster. But he was unable to reason with a woman who had once transported the marble floor of her Roman villa to her palazzo in Venice so she might tango upon it during the summer season. Soon, Luisa’s mountainous debt could no longer be denied, forcing the sale of stocks, bonds, and real estate in order to keep her Medusa-coiffed head above water. But then she wrote a series of bad checks and was almost jailed. Finally, in 1932, at her red-marble mansion outside Paris, the authorities forced an auction of her remaining valuables to satisfy creditors.
Before long, the nearly bankrupt Luisa fled to London where she began a nomadic existence. Residing in dilapidated mansions and musty rooming houses, her leopardskin pocketbook became moth-eaten and held nothing more valuable than belladonna eyedrops. But even under these straitened circumstances, she continued to inspire artists and writers for another twenty years.
Whether exploring the Great Beyond with her Ouija Boards, or stopping traffic with her tattered outfits of black plumes and monkey fur, the Marchesa’s spirit was indomitable. Finally, on June 1, 1957, at the age of seventy-six, Luisa passed to the other side. She rests in London’s Brompton Cemetery beneath a memorial inscribed with the Shakespearean epitaph: “Age cannot whither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.”
A fitting tribute to a woman who left behind enough of the bewitching magic she brought into this world to continue astonishing and inspiring us today.
