Bomarzo
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Bomarzo is a town and ''
comune A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...
'' of the
province of Viterbo The province of Viterbo () is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Lazio region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Viterbo. Geography Viterbo is the most northerly of the provinces of Lazio. It is bordered to the south by the Metropolitan Cit ...
(
Lazio Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants an ...
,
Central Italy Central Italy ( or ) is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), a first-level NUTS region with code ITI, and a European Parliament constituency. It has 11,704,312 inhabita ...
), in the lower valley of the
Tiber The Tiber ( ; ; ) is the List of rivers of Italy, third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the R ...
. It is located east-northeast of
Viterbo Viterbo (; Central Italian, Viterbese: ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Lazio region of Italy, the Capital city, capital of the province of Viterbo. It conquered and absorbed the neighboring town of Ferento (see Ferentium) in ...
and north-northwest of Rome.


History

The city's current name is a derivation of ''Polymartium'', first mentioned in the ''Historia Langobardorum'' by Paulus Diaconus. The etymology ''"polis martium"'', city of Mars, suggests a Roman origin. However, archeological evidence for a Roman city has not been found so far. However, a Roman brickmaking factory established nearby may have been owned by
Domitia Calvilla Calvisia Domitia Lucilla (also known as Domitia Lucilla Minor and Domitia Calvilla, ), was a noble Roman woman who lived in the 2nd century. She is best known as the mother of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Descent Lucilla was the daughter o ...
, the mother of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It was a historical
fief A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...
dom of the
Orsini family The House of Orsini is an Nobility of Italy, Italian noble family that was one of the most influential princely families in Middle Ages, medieval Italy and Renaissance Rome. Members of the Orsini family include five popes: Pope Stephen II, Step ...
, whose
castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...
is at the edge of the densely built town, until it was sold to Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere in 1645. Lante was elevated to the title of ''Duke of Bomarzo''.


Main sights

Bomarzo's main attraction is a
garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
, usually referred to as the ''Bosco Sacro'' (
Sacred grove Sacred groves, sacred woods, or sacred forests are groves of trees that have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world. These are forest areas that are, for the most ...
) or, locally, '' Bosco dei Mostri'' ("Monsters' Grove"), named after the many larger-than-life sculptures, some sculpted in the bedrock, which populate this predominantly barren landscape. It is the work of Pier Francesco Orsini, called ''Vicino'' (1528–1588), a
condottiero Condottieri (; singular: ''condottiero'' or ''condottiere'') were Italian military leaders active during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The term originally referred specifically to commanders of mercenary companies, derived from the ...
or mercenary and a patron of the arts. He was greatly devoted to his wife Giulia Farnese, daughter of Galeazzo Farnese, Duke of Latera, (not to be confused with her maternal great-aunt Giulia Farnese) and when she died, he created the gardens. The design has been attributed to Pirro Ligorio, a well known architect and antiquarian of the time. The park of Bomarzo was intended not to please, but to astonish, and like many
Mannerist Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...
works of art, its symbolism is arcane; for example, one large sculpture is of one of
Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...
's
war elephant A war elephant is an elephant that is Animal training, trained and guided by humans for combat purposes. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge (warfare), charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elep ...
s, which mangles a
Roman legion The Roman legion (, ) was the largest military List of military legions, unit of the Roman army, composed of Roman citizenship, Roman citizens serving as legionary, legionaries. During the Roman Republic the manipular legion comprised 4,200 i ...
ary, and another is a statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of "fruits of the earth" 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 on an obelisk says. Enigmatic verses in Italian by Annibale Caro, Bitussi and
Cristoforo Madruzzo 200px, ''Portrait of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, Portrait of Cristoforo Madruzzo'' by Titian (1552). Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo. Cristoforo Madruzzo () (5 July 1512 – 5 July 1578) was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal and state ...
, some of them now eroded, were inscribed onto stone beside the sculptures. The reason for the layout and design of the garden is largely unknown: perhaps they were meant as a foil to the perfect symmetry and layout of the great
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
gardens nearby at Villa Farnese at Caprarola and
Villa Lante Villa Lante is a Mannerism, Mannerist garden of surprise in Bagnaia, Viterbo, Bagnaia, Viterbo, central Italy, attributed to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. Villa Lante did not become well known until it passed to Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rov ...
at Bagnaia. Next to a formal exedra is a tilting building, the so-called ''Casa Storta'' or Twisted House. A small octagonal temple was added about twenty years later to honor Orsini's wife, Giulia Farnese. During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the garden became overgrown and neglected but in the 1970s a program of restoration was implemented by the Bettini family, and today the garden, which remains private property, is a major tourist attraction. In recent years, a number of the stone sculptures have had fences put around them. The surreal nature of the Parco dei Mostri appealed to
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
and the great surrealist
Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
, who discussed it at great length. The poet André Pieyre de Mandiargues wrote an essay devoted to Bomarzo. Niki de Saint Phalle was inspired by Bomarzo when she created her ''Tarot Garden'' in Tuscany. The story behind Bomarzo and the life of Pier Francesco Orsini are the subject of a novel by the Argentinian writer Manuel Mujica Láinez (1910–1984), ''Bomarzo'' (1962). Mujica Láinez himself wrote a libretto based on his novel, which was set to music by Alberto Ginastera (1967). The opera '' Bomarzo'' premièred in Washington in 1967 but in Argentina it was banned by the military dictatorship. The Dutch magic-surrealist painter Carel Willink used several of the park's statue groups in his paintings, including ''The Eternal Cry'' and ''Balance of Forces''. A mystery novel by Linda Lappin, ''Signatures in Stone'' (2013), investigates the symbolism of the Sacred Grove, its relation to the myth of
Persephone In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Persephone ( ; , classical pronunciation: ), also called Kore ( ; ) or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the Greek underworld, underworld afte ...
, and recent theories concerning the designer of the park.


Sources

* * Elli Mosayebi, Christian Mueller Inderbitzin "Bomarzo - Beobachtungen anhand einer neuen Karte", Institut für Landschaftsarchitektur, ETH Zürich, 2005, * Richtsfeld, Bruno J.: Der "Heilige Wald" von Bomarzo und sein "Höllenmaul". In: Metamorphosen. Arbeiten von Werner Engelmann und ethnographische Objekte im Vergleich. Herausgegeben von Werner Engelmann und Bruno J. Richtsfeld. München 1989, S. 18 - 36.


References


External links


Pictures from town, buildings and the castle of Bomarzo
* GigaCatholic (episcopal see) with titular incumbent biography links
Pictures of the Monster Park from Culture Discovery Vacations











Bomarzo gallery

Gorgeous Grotesques, by Paula de la Cruz, GARDEN DESIGN, Nov/Dec 2009
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Lazio Populated places established in the 1550s 16th-century establishments in Italy