Gardens of Bomarzo

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Gardens of Bomarzo
Sacred Grove
Sacro Bosco
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Orcus mouth
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Location Bomarzo, Italy
Coordinates 42°29′29.88″N12°14′51.27″E / 42.4916333°N 12.2475750°E / 42.4916333; 12.2475750
Created16th century
DesignerPirro Ligorio

The Sacro Bosco ("Sacred Grove"), [1] colloquially called Park of the Monsters (Parco dei Mostri in Italian), also named Garden of Bomarzo, is a Mannerist monumental complex located in Bomarzo, in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, Italy. [2]

Contents

The garden was created during the 16th century. [3] The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio, and the sculptures to Simone Moschino. Situated in a wooded valley bottom beneath the castle of Orsini, it is populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation.

History

The park's name stems from the many larger-than-life sculptures, some sculpted in the bedrock, which populate this predominantly barren landscape. It was commissioned by Pier Francesco Orsini, called Vicino, a 16th-century condottiero, and patron of the arts, greatly devoted to his wife Giulia Farnese (not to be confused with her maternal great-aunt Giulia Farnese, the mistress of Pope Alexander VI). When Orsini's wife died, he had the gardens constructed to cope with his grief.

During the 19th century, and deep into the 20th, the garden became overgrown and neglected, but after the Spanish painter Salvador Dalí made a short movie about the park and completed a painting actually based on the park in the 1950s, the Bettini family implemented a restoration program which lasted throughout the 1970s. Today, the garden, which remains private property, is a major tourist attraction.

The Leaning House Casa pendente 02.jpg
The Leaning House
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Lion sculpture
Elephant Bomarzo Park Elefant.JPG
Elephant
Fury Bomarzo2013parco04.jpg
Fury
Temple Bomarzo2013parco09.jpg
Temple
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Panorama

Description

Style

The park of Bomarzo was intended not to please, but to astonish, and like many Mannerist works of art, its symbolism is arcane: examples are a large sculpture of one of Hannibal's war elephants, which mangles a Roman legionary, or the statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of verdure perched on her head.

The many monstrous statues appear to be unconnected to any rational plan, and appear to have been strewn almost randomly about the area, sol per sfogare il Core ("just to set the heart free") as one inscription in the obelisks says.

Allusive verses in Italian by Annibal Caro (the first one is of him, in 1564), Bitussi, and Cristoforo Madruzzo, some of them now eroded, were inscribed beside the sculptures.

The reason for the layout and design of the garden is largely unknown; Liane Lefaivre thinks they are illustrations of the romance novel Hypnerotomachia Poliphili . [4] Perhaps they were meant as a foil to the perfect symmetry and layout of the great Renaissance gardens nearby at Villa Farnese, and Villa Lante. Next to a formal exit gate is a tilting watchtower-like casina, the so-called Casa Pendente ("Leaning House").

Sculptures

Monuments

Legacy

See also

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References

  1. Matteo Vercelloni, Virgilio Vercelloni Inventing the Garden 2010 - Page 73 "The Sacro Bosco (Sacred Wood) of Bomarzo, in Lazio, is a mysterious park full of curiosities, and monsters, located in what may once have been a ... "
  2. Caroline Holmes Icons of garden design: 2001 - Page 38 "The Sacro Bosco, or 'sacred grove', takes the Renaissance passion for garden symbolism to a climax. It is a bizarre collection of statues and architectural follies in a wood close to the border between Umbria and Lazio."
  3. (in French) Encarta Encyclopedia Encarta.msn.com Archived 2009-06-17 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 27 June 2009
  4. "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili – an object of Material Culture".
  5. Morgan, Luke (2016). The Monster in the Garden: The Grotesque and the Gigantic in Renaissance Landscape Design. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 9, 62, 133. ISBN   9780812247558.
  6. Koolbergen, Michiel (1984). In de ban van Bomarzo[Under the spell of Bomarzo] (in Dutch). Amsterdam: Van Dobbenburgh. pp. 88–91. ISBN   90-6577-0097.
  7. Jurek, Thom. "Anna von Hausswolff - All Thoughts Fly". AllMusic . Retrieved October 30, 2023.

Sources