With an insatiable appetite for the historic, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871-1949) consistently looked to the past for inspiration. His in-depth study of the history of art provided a wide visual vocabulary of patterns, colors, and forms that he emulated in his silk gowns, velvet cloaks, and upholstery textiles. Though his designs were regarded as shockingly modern, Fortuny’s attitude towards historical referencing is quite clear in his statement, ‘Nothing is new in this world, so I do not pretend to bring new ideas […].’ As a revivalist, Fortuny closely studied past designs to re-create them. His most famous design, the pleated silk Delphos gown, was inspired by the chiton worn by the Delphic Charioteer – an Ancient Greek statue (ca. 475-70 B.C) unearthed by archaeologists in 1896. Fortuny’s printed Knossos scarves were also inspired by archaeological discoveries of textile fragments in Greece. In addition to viewing designs of the past through archaeology, he also studied paintings for their portrayal of historic dress. Though he is mostly remembered for his fashion designs, Fortuny was first trained as a painter and he approached fashion with these sensibilities. He often copied patterns from cinquecento paintings held in the Accademia (specifically those by Vittore Carpaccio) on his velvet capes. With metallic pigmented paint, Fortuny stencilled onto his designs the glittering patterns of woven brocades and damasks from the Italian Renaissance. Fortuny was an ardent researcher of art history. His personal library is filled with a wide-range of illustrated books on artists, and 211 albums of photographs and reproductions of artworks that he personally organized for study. These albums provide a glimpse into Fortuny’s visual lexicon: a catalogue of influences. This talk will examine Fortuny’s design methods: how he emulated historic fashion by studying works from the history of art.