The storm-ridden night where modern horror was born

An immersive intellectual salon experience where historical figures engage in dialogue. Join conversations with Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and other luminaries at Villa Diodati, 1816.

A storm-ridden night at Villa Diodati, 1816. Thunder rolls outside as the guests gather around a candle-lit table.

Session Topics

  • Creation and Responsibility

    The ethics of bringing life into being, galvanism, and the responsibilities of creation.

  • Romantic Philosophy

    Poetry, liberty, ecstatic philosophy, and the Romantic movement.

  • Gothic Imagination

    The supernatural, the macabre, and the boundaries between science and the uncanny.

Environment

Soundscape: Thunder, rain, crackling fire, distant lake waves

Props: Candles, Storm sounds, Period-appropriate furniture

The storm gathers over Lake Geneva. At Villa Diodati, the guests have just arrived: Mary Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Claire Clairmont join Lord Byron and his physician John Polidori. The group settles in the main room as thunder rolls outside. The first words of the evening are about to be spoken.

Waiting for the conversation to begin...