Smiling, sunny and ubiquitous with her gala caftans and her exaggerated necklaces, Marta Marzotto, “born free” by her own definition, is an exuberant and irrepressible woman who has lived an incredibly colourful life, better yet, seven lives. Young and heart-stoppingly beautiful, in the Fifties she went from the misery of the Mortara rice paddies to walking on the runways of the most important fashion houses. Like Cinderella, the noble scion of the Marzotto family, Venetian entrepreneurs, noticed her. He fell madly in love with her. But this is not the happy end of a fairy-tale; it is only the beginning. Over the fifteen years together of the most envied couple in Italy, five children were born and the queen of Palazzo Stucky organized dinners, hunts, and get-togethers with bankers, magnates and royalty. However, the gilded cage of the province began to be too small for her, and she was ready for a new life in Rome’s high society. In this new world, so mixed and so special, her salon in Piazza di Spagna became the vibrant centre of Italian culture, politics and big business. But the real heart of these memories is her intense bond with Renato Guttuso, a love that will influence the lives of both and his art for twenty years. He made paintings of her everywhere and wrote her five letters a day. She swept him into a second youth with her contagious vitality. Then one day in January, thirty years ago, the spell was broken and everything changed. The great artist’s end was tinged with mystery, but it was his muse, Marta, who paid the highest price. After the time of excess, passion and glittering notoriety came the time of tears and suffering. Without ever betraying herself, faithful to her hyperboles and superlatives, this intense and sincere book is totally “Marta’s version”.