The extraordinary life of the most outrageous Venetian of the 20th century

As another peachy Bellini-colored sunset begins to dissolve the stones and bricks of Venice into light and water, I, as regal as I can on a black-painted gondola, miss a crucial element: a living cheetah with a diamond-studded collar .

If you don't think it's necessary to have a bejeweled jungle beast on board as a companion for a sunset gondola ride, then you probably don't know the story of Luisa Casati.

Seventy-five years ago, Peggy Guggenheim arrived in Venice, along with her ever-expanding Surrealist and Modernist art collection. It was an assemblage that, before it was rejected, had been ...