Friday, June 09, 2017

A medieval Pompeii

As one visitor long ago wrote of the garden of Ninfa and describes it as 'a medieval Pompeii.' One of the people in my group asked if the stones were there for effect. How ignorant! Ninfa was once a prosperous medieval city with 7 churches, city walls, castles and stone buildings. It was destroyed by neighboring village people because of jealousy and fell into disrepair for hundreds of years. The Caetani family has always owned it and in the last few decades has drained the Pontine marshes, got rid of the malarial mosquitoes and rehabilitated Ninfa. Today the Fondazione Roffredo Caetani runs the place. There's no other garden like it in the world.

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