Ciao, Caterina

You may not know the name, but you know the face. Caterina Boratto, known for her indelible performances in such Italian cinema classics as 8½, Juliet of the Spirits, and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has died in Rome. In a career that spanned nearly sixty years, from 1937 to 1993, Boratto was a visual icon—in 8½, she was called simply “La Signora Misteriosa,” and that moniker could serve for any of her best-known characters, but especially Salò’s Signora Castelli, whose nauseating stories (but related with such refined elegance) give the film its perverse backbone. La Repubblica has an obituary today (in Italian). Boratto was ninety-five.