Word: orsini
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...beaten track 60 miles northwest of Rome stands one of the strangest witnesses on earth to man's love of the curious and bizarre. Near the Villa Orsini at Bomarzo is a whole sculpture garden of beasts and ogres carved from volcanic rock (see color pages) on the site. Rarely has sentiment taken a more bizarre turn. Created in the 1560s by Duke Pierfrancesco ("Vicino") Orsini, the sculpture garden was meant not only to astonish and delight, but to serve as a memorial to Orsini's deceased wife...
...English scholars indicates that, far from being a surrealist chamber of horrors, the garden was originally a rather solemn effort to combine the wonders of the ancient world with figures from a pagan sacred grove. With sphinxes on either side of the entrance to give fair warning, Vicino Orsini did all he could to create the impression that some otherworldly spirit had brought the strange stone figures into existence, left no record of who the actual sculptors or stonecutters were...
Some of the sources of Orsini's inspiration can be guessed at. The ogre seems borrowed from the Mouth of Hell leading to Pluto's cave, as illustrated in medieval manuscripts on Ovid. The curious words ringing the ogre's mouth-Lasciate Ogni Pensiero Voi Que Entrate (Abandon all thought, ye who enter)-refer to the cup of forgetfulness ancient Greeks thought was drunk before crossing the river Lethe. The dragon-fighting lions (probably an oblique reference to political feuds) derived from a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. The elephant with castle was a symbol used...
With Eggs. For the rest of his life, Felice Orsini was one of Europe's most wanted men, trailing from country to country, spying, mounting fantastic plots and making sporadic forays into his homeland. In London, where he was rapturously welcomed, Orsini let his vanity drive him to his last, most hare-brained exploit-an attempt on the life of France's Emperor Napoleon III. It was a crazy choice, because the Emperor had declared himself ready to fight for the cause of Italian independence. But, Orsini argued, if only Napoleon were removed, all other thrones in Europe...
...Vatican State Secretariat had the last word. Said an official spokesman: "The rank of Prince Assistant to the Holy See will be filled by Aspreno Colonna alone. It is to be expected that Filippo Orsini will have sufficient respect for himself and for others not to show himself at the Vatican again...