Giusti Garden
Renaissance hillside garden with a fire-breathing stone mask, carved grotto and a staircase cut through the hill.
This guide to Giusti Garden in Verona begins at the fire-breathing stone mask above the entrance, carved by the sculptor Bartolomeo Ridolfi to genuinely terrify visitors. It traces how the Venetian knight Agostino Giusti turned this hillside behind his family's old wool-dyeing yard into a garden in 1570, cutting a shell-lined grotto and a hidden spiral staircase straight through the rock and the city's old walls. You'll hear how an English traveler passing through in 1611 described the place, and how a hidden flue lets the mask still breathe smoke and flame today. Climb the cypress steps slowly - they're carved stone, not planted greenery.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.