Volume 18, Number 2 · February 10, 1972
The Monsters of Bomarzo
By Edmund Wilson
Among the uniform amenities of Italy there is one patch of ugliness and horror. The Orsini Park of Bomarzo strikes a deliberately discordant note. The explanation of this strange phenomenon has so far been hidden in mystery, and the best one can do about describing it is to begin by recounting its legend. According to this somewhat fantastic story, one of the Orsini dukes, whose real name was Pier Francesco but who was known by the nickname Vicino, designed toward the end of the sixteenth century a garden of a sensationally eccentric kind, which exhibited a varied assortment of grotesque and horripilating figures, executed in the soft local tufa by a captive from the battle of Lepanto.
Feature, 2766 words
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