'The pleasure of ruins' is a book by Rose Macauley. She had a blurb about Ninfa in it. If ruins could talk, and the stories they can tell will be amazing. However the garden of Ninfa has seen its own glory days in the Middle ages and then its own ruin. While it was untouched during WWI, it was close to the action during WWII. Correction, during WWI it was a place they kept captured Austrians prisoners of war. It was very close to the action during WWII when the Allies tried to capture Monte Cassino and destroyed it. An appeal was sent to the Pope to ask the Allies to spare bombing certain historical sites. The Caetani family were in Ninfa and the nearby castle at Norma, high in the hills. One of the Caetani women hung a bed sheet on the castle roof saying 'Americans live here'. Marguerite Caetani was American!
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