A Reproduction of an Etruscan Tomb in the Parco dei Mostri at Bomarzo

Abstract

Bomarzo is a small town, typical of the tufa region around Viterbo, perched on a foothill of the Ciminian Mountains ninety kilometers north of Rome, 2.5 kilometers west of the Tiber. Etruscan tombs have been found nearby at Pianmiano, Piano della Colonna, and Monte Casuli, and there was probably an Etruscan, then a Roman settlement on the site. After apparently continuous occupation in late antiquity and the medieval period, a castle was built in the eleventh century. The Orsini family has local connections as early as the fourteenth century, and Gian Corrado Orsini, who came into possession of the town in 1502, immediately began to transform this castle into a Renaissance palace. Vicino Orsini, who ruled from 1532 to 1585, avidly continued this building activity in the town while simultaneously laying out a large pleasure garden below the west edge of the city plateau.1