Villa Della Torre Allegrini

This guide to Villa Della Torre in Verona opens inside one of four monstrous carved fireplaces, mouths built to unsettle visitors, attributed to sculptors from Giulio Romano's circle. It turns to the humanist who commissioned the house, Giulio della Torre, and his sons, one of whom served the reforming bishop Gian Matteo Giberti while quietly entertaining religious ideas the Inquisition would later call heresy. You'll follow the carved journey from that demon's mouth toward a lion and two unicorns, and out to a grotto shaped like the mouth of hell. Notice how the ramp climbs from that grotto toward a chapel at the top of the property.