Deep pink or light red geraniums flowering against the blurred background of a traditional terracotta pantiled or pan-tiled central Italian roof below the Palazzo Orsini, a grand ducal Renaissance palace dominating the small town of Bomarzo in the Lazio region.
Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy: traditional terracotta pantiles, encrusted with lichen and stepped in ridges, cover a roof in the main street of this small town, built below the Palazzo Orsini, a grand ducal palace converted from a medieval castle in the 1500s for the powerful and wealthy Orsini family. The Orsini were among the most influential princely families in medieval Italy and Renaissance Rome. They were a powerful force within the Roman Catholic church, producing five popes and no fewer than 34 cardinals. The palace was created over several decades. Its first architect was the Sienese painter Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536) with later work carried out for the military leader, intellectual and humanist arts patron, Pier Francesco Orsini (1523-1583), known in his lifetime as Vicino Orsini. Other architects and artists who worked here included sculptor Francesco Moschino and followers of Baroque painter Pietro da Cortona. Vicino expressed his love for his wife, Giulia Farnese, by creating a terraced garden, The Villa of the Wonders, below the palace and then dedicating it to her memory after she died in the 1560s. The terraces host enigmatic larger-than-life statues and grotesque Mannerist artworks by architect and painter Pirro Ligorio (c. 1512-1583). They include an ogre’s face with a walk-in open mouth, wrestling giants, war elephants and the Casa Storta or Twisted House, built to lean backwards and with sloping floors. The Orsini sold the palace in 1645 and in 1836, it passed to the Borghese family. It now belongs to the Bomarzo municipality.
Size: 4288px × 2848px
Location: Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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