![]() A favorite haunt of Salvador Dali who was so (predictably, one could argue) taken with the macabre wonderland, it is said to have inspired his creation of The Temptation of St. In the 1930's, the gardens and its monsters slowly began to rise from their slumber of indistinctness, luring artists and historians to visit the monuments and wonder over their meanings. The Rediscovery of the Gardensįor centuries after his own death, Orsini's gardens at Bomarzo remained nearly obscure and anonymous. While Orsini later remarried, his 'Sacro Bosco' remained a darkly sardonic homage to Giuliana. The noblewoman for whom the monsters danced died before the gardens could be completed, leaving a grief-stricken Orsini to continue alone what would now serve as a macabre memorial to lost love. Alas, Giuliana was never to see her husbands folly come to fruition. A great beauty in her own right, Orsini's wife was the granddaughter of 'Giulia la Bella', the so-called 'Venus of the Vatican' made famous by her seduction of Pope Alexander VI in the late 1400s. It is said that Orsini dreamt the park in a fantastic effort to capture the devotion of Giuliana. Peter following the death of Michelangelo and with the creation of Villa d Este in Tivoli, to agree to bring his disturbing and seemingly haunted dreams to life. ![]() Indeed, one of the myriad mysteries surrounding Bomarzo is how Orsini managed to entice Ligorio, an architectural genius credited with the completion of the Cathedral of St. Over the next thirty years, the concept was to become an exquisite - albeit wildly esoteric - example of 16th century Mannerist-style landscape architecture designed by Pirro Ligorio. A garden where rolling lawns would collide with jagged stone, where jolting surprises would hide around each corner and where behemoth monsters would lay in wait under the shade of wild oaks. Shortly after obtaining the Duchy and following his subsequent marriage to first wife, Giuliana (née Farnese), Orsini began conceptualizing a plan to create a garden unlike any other. After returning from battle and following his father's death, Orsini inherited the Duchy of Bomarzo - in no small part through the influential political intercession of Alessandro Farnese, family friend and the future Pope Paul III. Pier Francisco Orsini, commonly known as Vicino Orsini, was a Renaissance-era patron of the arts, a soldier and a man who wore the emotional scars of war's brutality like a heavy cloak upon his privileged shoulders. So much so that in order to realize the full effect of the park's tortured beauty, one must take a dip into the mind of its creator. Rather, the often grotesque elements of "Sacro Bosco" were imagined to spur a somewhat morbid, wholly surreal sense of awe. Located in northern Lazio, the gardens of Bomarzo were never meant to delight with a lighthearted hand. Those are - roughly translated - the words whispered by Vicino Orsini introducing his Parco dei Mostri, or the Park of Monsters, to the world. "You who are wandering the world looking for great marvels, come here where everything speaks of love and art". In Viterbo, at the "Sacro Bosco" known as Bomarzo, the point is grandly illustrated. It is a bit of an understatement to say Italians have a certain penchant for drama. ![]() ![]() Voi che pel mondo gite errando vaghi di veder meraviglie alte et stupende venite qua ove tutto vi parla d'amore e d'arte - Vicino Orsini ![]()
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