Giuseppe Scaraffia

"(About Mata Hari) The painters she posed for were disappointed by her small breasts, and she was often forced into prostitution. She had much better luck when she decided to perform as an exotic dancer. Undaunted by her ignorance and unpreparedness, she began introducing herself as Lady Gresha MacLeod. She claimed to be the daughter of an Indian priestess and to have grown up in a Shiva temple. [...] Her decision to perform only in private homes, probably the only possible choice given her technical unpreparedness, had accentuated the exotic aura of mystery she loved to surround herself with. Less demanding than artists, high society was struck by this tall, slender woman, with lively, burning eyes beneath her mass of dark hair. A witness recalled her superb figure and her noble, simple, and personality-filled bearing. She was the embodiment of the femme fatales that crowded the paintings and novels of the time; she was Gustave Moreau's half-naked, bejeweled Salomé."

""I want to be a living work of art," declared the Marchesa Casati. And she succeeded. Her body became a statue. Her face a painting. Her conversation a performance. She had not clothes but costumes. (p. 32)"

"Luisa Casati masterfully played the "femme fatale," hypnotizing men with her bold balance of the black abyss of her gaze and the white of her nudity. But she ruined no lover. No one committed suicide on her doorstep. Aside from the never-ending affair with il Poet, her love affairs remained on the fringes of her exceptional existence. (p. 33)"

"Her masked balls were triumphs. One night she chose the entire Piazza San Marco as her salon. She could appear dressed as Cagliostro or a serpent, or walk naked in the garden, candidly explaining: "I am the Truth!" But even nudity was a costume for her. (p. 33)"