Verde Visconti’s final year was marked by the sort of joyful restlessness on which she thrived. ‘Sono felice!’ she told me when we last spoke in July, just a month before her sudden and unexpected death aged 75. There were several reasons for this happiness. The prospect of a publication celebrating her 50 or so years as an international interior decorator and occasional set designer had inspired her to spend the winter in her Roman studio reordering her photographic archive.
Then, in spring, she had flown to Paris and Madrid to put the finishing touches on two projects she treasured. Most riveting of all was her plan to attend the première of The Order of Time at the Venice Film Festival at the end of August. Directed by her beloved friend Liliana Cavani, the film marked Verde’s return to cinema as a set designer after 20 years. ‘I can’t wait,’ she told me, a thrill of excitement piercing through her usual reserve.
Verde was speaking from La Torricella, her retreat in the Umbrian hills. She was going to spend the rest of the summer there with friends. ‘Derry is coming to photograph it,’ she said, referring to Derry Moore, another close friend, and this shoot. ‘This place feels more and more like a second skin to me. I am curious to see his take on it.’ La Torricella is an imposing structure built over several centuries on the remains of the Medieval watchtower that gives it its name. Its rough exterior of hand-cut stones with tiny, asymmetric window openings is forbidding. An unusual arched passageway, large enough for a carriage to pass through, leads from the front of the building to the back, where Verde created a theatrical garden of clipped laurels.
The knowledge that this was once a resting post for travellers and pilgrims on their way to or from Orvieto, the 14th-century Gothic façade of its cathedral clearly visible across the valley, appealed to Verde’s nomadic nature. The person who first described it to her was Prince Giovanni del Drago, a painter and architectural connoisseur. ‘It reminds me of you,’ he said. ‘Please go and see it.’ At the time, Verde was in her twenties and too busy travelling and forging her career to follow his suggestion. But the romantic vision of the derelict tower in the wilderness, she once told me, haunted her for years. That is, until she came across a ruined building quite by chance while on a road trip through the Umbrian campagna.
Climbing the stairs of the crumbling edifice, she looked out of a window to take in the view of Orvieto across the valley, glowing in the pink sunset. It suddenly struck her that this was the place Giovanni had described: ‘It had been waiting for me all those years.’ La Torricella was far more than a dream or a folly. It was the place where Verde laid down her roots. She filled it with treasures from her travels and comfortable furniture – including her trademark sofas and armchairs, which, she believed, were key to any good room – as well as artworks by some of her pals, including Teddy Millington-Drake (WoI Feb 1993), Alessandro Twombly (WoI June 2018) and Setsuko Klossowska de Rola. Friends, and she had many all over the world, were family to her.
Verde was five years old when her mother, Simonetta Colonna di Cesarò, a glamorous and talented beauty, divorced her father, Gaio Visconti di Modrone, to pursue a career as a fashion designer. Gaio, an avant-garde painter and the scion of a dynasty of creative aristocrats (Luchino Visconti, the film director, was his cousin), raised Verde, his only child, in a bohemian household. ‘The divorce was frowned on in Rome,’ says Claudia Ruspoli, a childhood friend. ‘It was unheard of, then, that a little girl be raised by her father,’ adds Isabella Ducrot, who knew her well. At 18, Verde flew to New York and landed a position in the sales department at Bergdorf Goodman. She hated the job but loved America.
Los Angeles, where she met the film producer Richard Roth, one of the greatest admirers of her talents (she would go on to design many projects for him around the world) and a lifelong friend, became a second home for Verde. Her career as an interior designer began in 1968, when she was 21 and John Stefanidis (WoI Jan 2012), then a burgeoning decorator, asked her to assist him on a project. ‘She had an original point of view, a wonderful sense of humour, and was extraordinary-looking too,’ says Stefanidis, who included several portraits of her in his latest book, A Designer’s Eye (Rizzoli). ‘Verde was born sophisticated, but she wasn’t a snob. She was too curious and intelligent for that. I adored her, and I miss her terribly.’ If Verde found her calling thanks to Stefanidis, it was her love of India that defined her style.
The first time she travelled there, with the Egyptian-born designer and Millington-Drake, she immersed herself in the country’s textiles, which became a central feature of her interiors. Oddly enough, around that same time, the early 1970s, her mother abandoned the glamour of the fashion world, leaving her atelier in Paris to join Swami Chidananda Saraswati’s spiritual community in Rishikesh, where she spent years devoting her time and resources to helping lepers. ‘Verde went to visit her there on several occasions,’ says Gaia Franchetti, the founder of Indoroman, a company that produces home accessories using Indian woven textiles, and one of Verde’s oldest friends.
‘In time she learned to appreciate her mother’s courage and even emulated her by living according to her own rules.’ Verde had several amitiés amoureuses but always refused to settle down or get married. ‘That too,’ says Gaia, ‘was an act of courage and independence.’ A sense of fun and adventure defined Verde’s life to the very end. While shooting Cavani’s film, she would arrive on set, a house on the shores of Sabaudia, south of Rome, driving her huge pick-up filled with furniture, rugs and other props.
She loved being part of the crew. Derry Moore remembers the days spent photographing La Torricella last summer as delightful. ‘The house was as beautiful as ever,’ he says, ‘and Verde radiated good humour.’ She died in a Venice hospital, having been rushed there on the evening of the première. Decoration, Verde would say, is an ephemeral art but it brings joy and puts you in touch with great craftmanship. La Torricella was a source of delight for her until the last.
A version of this article appears in the April 2024 issue of The World of Interiors. Learn about our subscription offers
