Nestled between Rome and Florence, the Italian hillside town of Bomarzo appears calm and unassuming. But with a look down the hill, monsters appear. Just below a Renaissance palace is a 29-acre park, where mystery and wonder emerge from boulders and outcroppings of Tufo stone. More than 400 years ago, artists carved beasts and mythological figures into Pier Francesco “Vicino” Orsini’s land.

“When you’re there, the fantasy of it runs wild,” says art history Professor John Garton, who is working on an international project to preserve the site crafted in the late Renaissance period, between 1550 and 1585. He first visited Bomarzo in 2014.