Italian aristocrat and socialite Luisa Amman, the Marchesa Casati Stampa di Soncino, was BOTD in 1881. Born in Milan (at the time, part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire) to a wealthy manufacturing family, her father was later made a count by King Umberto I. Her father died when she was 15, making her and her elder sister the wealthiest women in Italy. In 1900, she married Camillo the Marquess Casati Stampa di Soncino, with whom she had a daughter. They had an open relationship, maintaining separate lives and residences, but remaining married until Camillo’s death. In 1903, she began an affair with the aristocrat and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, who inspired her to embrace extravagance and excess. She became a celebrated socialite, establishing lavish homes in Venice, Capri and Paris, where she entertained most of the cultural luminaries of the Belle Époque. Her glamorous and mostly homosexual friendship circle included Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinksy, Robert de Montesquiou, Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Ravel, Colette, Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, Isadora Duncan, Winnaretta Singer and Natalie Clifford Barney. Proclaiming “I want to be a living work of art”, she wore gowns by Mariano Fortuny, Léon Bakst and Erté and jewels by Lalique and Cartier. Her legendary public appearances included strolling through St Marks Square in Venice in a fur cloak, accompanied by two cheetahs on diamond-studded leashes; wearing a necklace of live snakes to a ball; commissioning a life-size wax mannequin of herself, which sat at her dinner table dressed as her twin; collecting menageries of exotic animals, including a pet boa constrictor; and painting her servants with gold paint. She also commissioned portraits by Augustus John and Romaine Brooks (having an affair with each of them) and was sculpted by Jacob Epstein and photographed by Cecil Beaton and Man Ray. By 1930, she had amassed significant debts and was unable to pay her creditors. Her personal possessions were auctioned, and she moved to London, living in poverty in a one-room flat, bartering her remaining possessions for rent, food and tarot readings, and hunting through rubbish bins for feathers to decorate her hair. She died in 1957, aged 76, and was buried in her trademark leopardskin with one of her taxidermied Pekinese dogs. She was portrayed in the 1965 play La Contessa, which became a comeback hit for Vivien Leigh, and the film A Matter of Time, starring Ingrid Bergman. Her eccentric style also inspired collections by John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld. The American womenswear brand Marchesa, founded by Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, was named in her honour. Her palazzo in Venice was purchased by Peggy Guggenheim in the 1940s, and now houses Guggenheim’s collection of modern art.