The Goddess and The Garden:mona bismarck at il fortino

摘要

I have long been fascinated by Mona Bismarck. Cecil Beaton (never one given to unwarranted praise) called her a rock crystal goddess and wrote that she 'represented the epitome of all that taste and luxury can bring to flower', whilst 'her houses, herfurniture, her jewellery, her way of life were little short of a tour de force. A great friend of the notoriously acerbic photographer, she appears frequently in his diaries and was photographed by him on innumerable occasions over many years. She was universally acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful women in the world both in her own time and since, and many books have described her as one of the great icons of style of the twentieth century with her flawless beauty, her clothes, the immaculate decoration of her many homes and her fabulous jewellery collection. Few, however, make more than a passing reference to the one thing about which she was most passionate — the garden she created on the island of Capri.