This is one of the two statues that flanks the back entrance (now the main entrance and ticket booth) to Villa Palagonia in Bagheria. This is one of about 70 strange and fantastical statues left from the original 600 or so that decorated the gardens and grounds of the “Villa of the Monsters,” built in the 18th century. German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited Villa Palagonia in 1787 and described it as a place filled with “elements of madness.” Certainly, in the late 18th century, such a place was shocking to see. To him, it was a grotesque expression of the unconscious.