The Swiss mansion where Gothic horror literature was born: vampires and Frankenstein emerged there

The year 1816 was quite peculiar, as summer didn't even exist: during that summer, the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia caused weather anomalies that lowered temperatures by several degrees in Europe, including Spain, and for this reason it is known as "The Year Without a Summer." What many would consider torture presented a tremendous opportunity to others; in fact, it is considered one of the most important periods of world literature of all time.

In that rare summer, great names in literary history such as Lord Byron, Mary and Percy Shelley, and John William Polidori gathered in the same house. The mansion in question was the beautiful Villa Diodati, a magnificent building located on the shores of Lake Geneva, specifically in the town of Cologny, and although this house located in the southeast of Switzerland and close to the border with France may seem irrelevant, but the truth is that it was the setting for two of the great works of Gothic horror.

Villa Diodati: the place where Gothic horror was created

This beautiful villa, built in the early 18th century , sits on the shores of the lake, just a few kilometers from Geneva's city center. Since its construction, it has become a meeting place for poets, writers, and scholars, including one of the great champions of Romanticism, Lord Byron, who renamed this mansion (previously called Villa Belle Reve, meaning "Beautiful Dream Villa") in honor of the family that had owned it years before.

The neoclassical mansion has no significant architectural significance, but rather its value lies in what happened within its walls and bucolic gardens that unusual summer almost 210 years ago. The villa's rooms became literary studios where some of history's greatest geniuses planted the seeds of Gothic horror and two monsters that remain extremely relevant even two centuries later.

How Frankenstein and the Vampire Came to Be at Villa Diodati

In the context of the "Year Without a Summer," Lord Byron traveled to Geneva with his family physician, John William Polidori, and settled in this villa , which was later visited by Mary and Percy Shelley with Claire Clairmont. The poor summer weather prompted the Romantic poet to propose a contest on a cold, rainy night, in which each participant had to create the most terrifying story possible.

In those three days, Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein , one of the greatest works of all time, which will have its umpteenth theatrical adaptation this year by Guillermo del Toro. Furthermore, physician John William Polidori created The Vampyre , the novel considered the seed of the Brucolacos stories and which preceded others like Bram Stoker's Dracula .