The unfinished Palazzo - Judith Mackrell

Abandoned unfinished and left to rot on Venice's Grand Canal, 'il
palazzo non finito'
was once an unloved guest among the aristocrats of Venetian architecture. Yet in the
20th century it played host to three passionate and unconventional women who would
take the city by storm. The staggeringly wealthy Marchesa Luisa Casati made her new
home a belle epoque aesthete's fantasy and herself a living work of art; notorious British
socialite Doris Castlerosse (ne Delevingne) welcomed film stars and royalty to glittering
parties between the wars; and American heiress Peggy Guggenheim amassed an exquisite
collection of modern art, which today draws visitors from around the world.


Each in turn used the Unfinished Palazzo as a stage on which to re-fashion her life,
with a dazzling supporting cast ranging from D'Annunzio and Nijinsky, through Nol
Coward, Winston Churchill and Cecil Beaton, to Yoko Ono. Individually sensational and
collectively remarkable, these stories of modern Venice tell us much about the ways
women chose to live in the 20th century.