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  3.1 Fafnir the dragon, Kelmscott Manor

  3.2 The Valkyrie, Siegmund and Sieglinde, Mariano Fortuny, 1928

  3.3 Brúará, Iceland, Frederick W.W. Howell, c.1900

  3.4 ‘William Morris climbing a mountain in Iceland’, Edward Burne-Jones

  3.5 Mariano Fortuny in djellabah and turban, self-portrait, c.1935

  3.6 Fresco of dancing girls, Knossos, Crete, c.1600–1450 BCE

  3.7 Cretan workmen performing traditional line dance during Knossos dig, c.1900

  3.8 Isadora Duncan, George Barbier, 1917

  FABRICS, DESIGNS & LIGHT

  4.1 Seaweed wallpaper, John Henry Dearle, 1901

  4.2 Delphos gown, Mariano Fortuny, c.1920

  4.3 Trilobite textile, Fortuny Manufacture, after 1909

  4.4 Velvet cloak with natural forms, Mariano Fortuny

  POMEGRANATE

  5.1 Fruit wallpaper, William Morris, 1864

  5.2 Pomegranate cloak, Mariano Fortuny

  5.3 Delphos gown with pomegranate surcoat, Fortuny Manufacture, after 1909

  5.4 Pomegranate printed textile, William Morris, 1877

  BIRD

  6.1 Bird textile, Fortuny Manufacture, after 1909

  6.2 Peacock and Dragon textile, William Morris, 1878

  6.3 If I Can hanging, William Morris, 1856–7

  6.4 Strawberry Thief textile, William Morris, 1883

  6.5 Woodblock used for printing Strawberry Thief, 1883

  CODA

  7.1 Eleonora dress, Mariano Fortuny, c.1930

  7.2 A. S. Byatt at the Museo Fortuny, 2011

  ack.1 A. S. Byatt with a notebook at the Museo Fortuny, 2011

  Photographic credits: Palazzo Pesaro Orfei, 1.2, 1.8, 2.11, 3.5, 4.2 © FCMV, Fortuny Museum Archive; 1.1, 1.5 ©National Portrait Gallery, London; 1.3, 1.4 ©Tate, London 2016; 1.7 Courtesy of Museo de la Biblioteca Nacional de Espana, Madrid; 2.1 ©National Trust Images/Andrew Butler; 2.2, 6.3 ©Society of Antiquaries, London (Kelmscott Manor); 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 4.1, 6.2, 6.4 ©William Morris Gallery, London Borough of Waltham Forest; 2.7, 3.1 ©Country Life; 2.8, 2.12, 3.2, 4.3, 5.3, 6.1 ©Claudio Franzini for Fortuny Museum; 3.3 Courtesy of Cornell University Library (Icelandic and Faroese Photographs of Frederick W.W. Howell); 3.6 ©Bridgeman Images; 3.7 ©Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; 5.1, 5.4, 6.5 ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London; 7.1 ©Museo del Traje, Madrid/Photo Munio Rodil Ares; 7.2, ack.1 ©Fabrizio Giraldi.

  Every effort has been made to trace or contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention, at the earliest opportunity.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This little book grew out of an invitation to visit Venice, from Shaul Bassi and Flavio Gregori of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, for the Incroci di Civiltà (Crossings of Civilisations) literary festival in May 2011, jointly organised by Ca’ Foscari University, the Municipality of Venice and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. The visit was very happy and I am very grateful for the invitation. I should like to thank Shaul and Flavio for everything they did for my husband and myself. And I should like to thank my Italian publishers, Einaudi – in particular Andrea Canobbio.

  I should also like to thank Daniela Ferretti, the Director of the Museo Fortuny and her colleagues Cristina Da Roit and Dennis Cecchin.

  We were made very welcome at Morris’s houses, the Red House at Bexleyheath, Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire, and the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. The William Morris Gallery recently won a prize for Museum of the Year and is splendidly and inventively designed. Rowan Bain, Anna Mason and Gary Heales have been extremely helpful with the illustrations and design of this book. We discovered Peta Smyth Antique Textiles, in Pimlico, where we were shown many Fortuny fabrics, and told about dyes and designs.

  As ever my publishers Chatto & Windus have been both efficient and imaginative. I should like particularly to thank my editor, Jenny Uglow, my publisher, Clara Farmer, and Charlotte Humphery. Very few authors can have been given such care and enthusiasm with the choice of illustrations. I am also grateful to my editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Robin Desser.

  Stephen Parker has designed this book with his usual brilliance and care, both inside and out.

  My Italian translators and friends, Anna Nadotti and Fausto Galuzzi, have been both helpful and enthusiastic, as always.

  My agent, Zoe Waldie, at Rogers Coleridge and White, has been steadily supportive and full of ideas, as have my agents at ILA, Sam Edenborough and Nicki Kennedy. In America, thanks to my agent, Melanie Jackson, and to my lecture agent, Steven Barclay, who shared some of his knowledge about Fortuny’s world.

  I could not have written this book without Fiona MacCarthy, whose scholarship and wit bring Morris and his world to life. She has become a friend during my work on this book and has answered all sorts of questions.

  Thanks to my husband, Peter Duffy, for much more than patience with the usual habits of writers. We have visited galleries together, both in Venice and in England, and his ideas are always exciting and useful.

  And I am lucky that my assistant, Gill Marsden, came back – as I was reaching the end of this book – after ten years in Wales and made my life almost orderly. It is true that I can never thank her enough.

  Credit ack.1

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A. S. Byatt is the author of numerous novels, including The Children’s Book, The Biographer’s Tale, and Possession, which was awarded the Booker Prize. She has also written two novellas, published together as Angels & Insects, five collections of short stories, and several works of nonfiction. A distinguished critic and author, and the recipient of the 2016 Erasmus Prize for her “inspiring contribution to ‘life writing,’ ” she lives in London.

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