The Villa Della Torre, built for Giulio Della Torre (1480–1563), a law professor and humanist scholar in Verona, was a parody of the classical rules of Vitruvius; the peristyle of the building was in the perfectly harmonious Vitruvius style, but some of the stones were rough-cut and of different sizes and decorated with masks which sprayed water, which jarred the classical harmony.
“The building was deformed: it seemed to be caught in a strange, amorphous condition, somewhere crude rustic simplicity and classical perfection.” The fireplaces inside were in the forms of the mouths of gigantic masks. Outside, the garden was filled with disturbing architectural elements, including a grotto whose entrance represented the mouth of hell, with eyes that showed fires burning inside.
The most extraordinary features found in the rooms at Villa Della Torre are the sixteenth-century fireplaces. These unique artifacts are huge, monster-like faces, with large gaping mouths and vampire fangs. To fully grasp their brutal, primitive force, as well as the subversive art of Giulio Romano, just imagine the flames burning inside their jaws.
In the gardens of Villa Della Torre, it is easy to grasp a ray of sunshine to which a verse of poetry, a form of art or a meditative moment can be attributed.
