Traditional high rise living: old stone rubble homes clustered around the Palazzo Orsini, a grand Renaissance ducal palace developed for the wealthy Orsini family in the 1500s from a medieval castle on volcanic rock above Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy. The palace was mainly created by retired military leader and arts patron Pier Francesco Orsini, known in his lifetime as Vicino Orsini.
Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy: traditional tall stone rubble houses, built on volcanic rock, share a hilltop once occupied by a medieval castle with its replacement, a grand Renaissance palace built in the 1500s for the powerful Orsini family. The homes cluster around the Palazzo Orsini di Bomarzo and would once have housed the family’s servants and staff. The castle was converted into the palace over several 16th century decades. 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 as Vicino Orsini. Other architects and artists who worked on the palace included sculptor Francesco Moschino and 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: 2848px × 4288px
Location: Bomarzo, Lazio, Italy
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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