Scenes that today evoke grandeur and awe were in many cases abhorrent to a seventeenth-century eye, at least among the Europeans who were educated enough to record their impressions. Mountains in particular were thought to be aesthetically offensive. They were called “warts,” “boils,” and even in one bizarre case “nature’s pudenda.” As late as the eighteenth century, travelers through the Alps would often ask to be blindfolded to avoid looking at the awful scenery.
