Medievalist revival drove 16th-19th century visual art and even theme park attractions.

Evidence

The revival of medievalism also influenced the visual arts, often including representations of monsters. One particularly interesting example is the Italian theme park called Parco di Mostri, whose ruins still stand today. This attraction, built between the years 1523 and 1585, remained popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and still stands today. Medieval aesthetics were also expressed in the Gothic style seen in the architecture of the period. William Beckford, the eccentric author of Vathek, took his fascination with the medieval so seriously that he became delusional, building a medieval retreat that included the highest spire in England (which collapsed while he was away in London), a 12-mile wall, and a pack of wild dogs reminiscent of the pack of wolves that surround Dracula’s castle. On one occasion an “uninvited visitor (the cousin of the painter W. P. Firth) was treated graciously by Beckford, then informed of the dogs that evening as he was ushered out the door. He spent the night in a tree.” Beckford incorporated Orientalism into his medieval lifestyle, calling himself “the caliph” and referring to his estate, Fonthill, as “Bagdad,” and identifying with his title character, Vathek. In his writing, Beckford was inspired by the darker imagery associated with Orientalism. In Vathek, “the monstrous, threatening genii found in The Thousand One Nights (more commonly known as The Arabian Nights),” were replaced with skies streaked with blood, a demonic Indian, and a monster named Vathek who commits numerous crimes, including the immolation (in a fiery pit resembling the hell-chambers seen in medieval painting) of 50 children. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 436

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question 3: the monster as self-portrait — Beckford literally played out his own monstrous Muslim identity, showing the image is a projection of the author’s inner darkness.
• ADDENDUM: Beckford’s Vathek immolating 50 children in a hell-chamber pit echoes the sacrificial imagery in ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses.’