Venerable homes with patched rubble walls, long drain pipes and replaced windows seem to grow out of volcanic hilltop rocks at Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy. They stand next to the Palazzo Orsini, a grand Renaissance ducal palace created by 1500s retired military leader and arts patron, Vicino Orsini (1523-1583).
Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy: venerable traditional homes with lengthy drain pipes, replaced windows and stone rubble walls patched and repaired countless times stand as if moulded to volcanic hilltop rock that used to bear a medieval castle. The houses now stand beside a Renaissance palace, the Palazzo Orsini di Bomarzo, created out of the castle over several 1500s decades and once owned by the powerful and wealthy Orsini family. Its first wing was designed by Sienese architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536) with later work carried out for the condottiere (mercenary captain), intellectual and humanist arts patron, Pier Francesco Orsini (1523-1583), Duke of Bomarzo, known in his lifetime as Vicino Orsini. Other architects and artists who worked on the palace included sculptor and architect Francesco Moschino and also followers of the 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 her death in the 1560s. The terraces host enigmatic larger-than-life statues and grotesque Mannerist artworks by architect and painter Pirro Ligorio (c. 1512-1583), including a 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 so-called Park of the Monsters or Parco del Mostri is also known as Bosco dei Mostri (Grove of the Monsters) and Sacro Bosco (Sacred Wood). Bomarzo is a small town north-west of Rome and north-east of the provincial capital, Viterbo. The Orsini family sold the palace in 1645 and in 1836, it passed to the Borghese family. It now belongs to the Bomarzo municipality, which uses Vicino Orsini’s Gallery apartment as its offices.
Size: 4288px × 2848px
Location: Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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