Lazio Archives - The Patroclus

May 21, 2024September 9, 2024

The Etruscan Heartland – Tarquinia and Tuscania

In 2019 we made a visit to Tarquinia in northern Lazio to see the famous Etruscan necropolis. This is intended as a follow-up to a piece I wrote in 2021 about the Etruscans, titled “Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the Nine Gods He Swore”. That was largely built around a visit to an Etruscan tomb of comparatively recent discovery, near the town of Sarteano, and a visit to Chiusi, one of the 12 principal cities of the Etruscan homeland (and the “Clusium” of the poem by Macaulay from which I took the title of the article).

Another of the 12 cities of the Etruscan League was Perugia, which I can see in the distance from where I am writing this in 2024, although I am in the territory of the ancient Umbri on the other side of the Tiber.

A brief history, even briefer than in the earlier article, is that linguistics and DNA analysis of archaeological remains tell us that the Etruscans were for all practical purposes autochthonous to west central Italy, pre-dating the arrival of Indo-Europeans. They developed from an earlier Bronze Age culture called the Villanovans, and at their height their domains stretched from the Po Valley in the north to the coast south of Naples. Rome was part of their territory, and, of course, grew to rival and then dominate them – although the heroic tales which later formed part of the Roman “history” of writers like Livy can only have been true in the broadest of senses.

Although Rome bested Etruria militarily, Etruscan civilisation did not perish in flames. Instead it gradually became ever more Romanised, until Etruscan language, customs and people’s names ceased to be recognisable as such. The result was mostly but not entirely Roman, although with the exception of a few words of Etruscan origin, it is impossible to know how much Etruscan culture contributed to the synthesis.

“Tarquinia” is the name given by the Romans to the Etruscan city probably called Tarchna, which was also one of the Etruscan League. You will also recall that some of the Etruscan kings of pre-Republican Rome were called Tarquin. It seems extraordinary that the name should have survived unchanged from antiquity… and of course it didn’t. It was known as Corneto until 1922, when the Fascists, in their enthusiasm for ancient glories, changed the name back to the Roman version.

In Italy, the taste for antique Roman references, like Ferragosto for the August holiday, survived the fall of Fascism, so Tarquinia it remains.

On the way we passed the Lago di Bolsena, the lake named for the town of Bolsena – Roman Volsinii and before that Etruscan Velzna, another of the cities of the Etruscan league. It is a very beautiful area, even with the wind farms on the horizon, and it is not hard to convince oneself that the Etruscan heartland must have been quite an idyllic place.

Tarquinia

Tarquinia is located on high ground overlooking the nearby Tyrrhenian Sea – so the restaurants offer excellent seafood. It is a pretty mostly-medieval town with a few towers of the sort you find in San Gimignano, although not as tall.

We stayed in a B&B called “Antiche Mura” (the old walls). This was an accurate description as it was in a building just inside the old town walls, which offer a palimpsest of medieval bits on top of Roman bits on top of Etruscan bits on top of a small number of Bronze Age (Villanovan) bits.

Tarquinia Walls — The walls of Tarquinia, showing the different periods of their construction. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

The couple who ran the B&B were very nice and have a son who is living and working in Melbourne, so on the basis of that indissoluble bond we hit it off quite well. Of course it is not uncommon to meet Italians with friends and relatives in Australia, but it used to be that those friends migrated in the 50s and 60s. These days youth unemployment – the result of an over-regulated labour market – is so bad that any kid with a bit of get-up-and-go gets up and goes, creating a whole new generation of reluctant and homesick exiles. At least visits home are cheaper than in the 1960s.

Tarquinia, with the Tyrrhenian Sea in the distance, showing the town’s height above the coastal plain. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

The necropolis is in a field only a few hundred metres outside one of the town gates so the next morning we went there on foot. It was a warm day with bright sunshine and after a wet spring the wildflowers were going berserk, as were the bees. The whole place smelt like millefiore honey. Also going berserk with weed trimmers and tractor-mowers were the groundsmen employed by the council to mow all the grass and wildflowers, which was a bit of a shame but understandable as it would doubtless become a fire risk in summer.

Tarquinia Necropolis, a mound covering a tomb covered in flowers, before the groundsmen got to them. The “chimney” is an air vent to the tomb space below. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

Tarquinia must have been a pretty big place, as demonstrated by the size of its necropolis, which has about 6,000 known graves (of which 24 or so are open to visitors). These mostly date from the 5th, 4th and 3rd Centuries BC. The wealthier Etruscans buried their dead in large walk-in tombs, decorated with brightly coloured frescoes. The tombs in Tarquinia started to be rediscovered in the 1860s, but over the years many have been broken into and despoiled by landowners and grave robbers looking for gold jewellery who discarded or destroyed other relics. And they have been caught up in the illegal trade in ancient artefacts which has seen parts of some frescoes chiselled off and sold overseas. And to complete the sad story, the frescoes in the graves which were uncovered in the 19th Century have gradually faded on exposure to the outside air. In almost every case the colours were much less vibrant than in the Sarteano tomb (excavated in the early 2000s) we visited the previous year.

Tarquinia Tomba di Leopardi — Tarquinia. The “Tomb of the Leopards”. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back, three images stitched in Photoshop (click to enlarge).

The tombs are underground and many of them are visible as small humps in the field. Only a couple can be approached by the original long stone-lined passages; most are accessed by steps leading down from a little hut built for the purpose. When you get to the bottom of the steps there is a glass door preventing access to the actual burial chamber, and you press a button to turn on an electric light to illuminate the interior. You then peer through the glass, trying to see past the condensation on the inside and all the fingerprints on the outside left by the last school group. Making decent photographs is challenging.

Tarquinia Tomba di Baccanti — Tarquinia. The “Tomb of the Bacchantes”. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

The paintings are fairly conventional – the spirit of the deceased was believed to hang around the burial place so they tried to paint it to look like a nice place to be. In one case the inside was actually painted rather effectively to look like the inside of a tent pitched on a hunting trip.

Tarquinia Tomba Caccia e Pesce — Tarquinia. The “Hunting and Fishing” tomb. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

Tarquinia. A banquet in the “Tomba di Bettini”. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

In many others the paintings are of banquets with musicians and dancers. But in most, in the centre there is a painted false door that symbolises the door to the underworld, and in some cases there are representations of the demons or demigods who will accompany the soul thither. Historians call these figures Charons, like the ferryman of the Greeks, but these Etruscan Charons tended to have blue skin and drove chariots rather than rowing boats. The Charon in the tomb we visited in Sarteano the previous year had white skin and red hair.

Tarquinia Tomba di Caronti — Tarquinia. The “Tomba di Caronti” with the blue-skinned demigods on either side of the door to the underworld. Hasselblad 501C/M camera, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens, CFV-50c digital back (click to enlarge).

We toiled around the entire necropolis and I went into all of the 24 tombs, while Lou was a bit more discriminating and only went down those which looked good on the signs outside, or if I came back up and reported them as worth seeing.

Afterwards we visited the town museum which is housed in a fine palazzo, much renovated over the years to include renaissance and baroque touches on its medieval base. It contains lots more Etruscan stuff, and also some reconstructed tomb chambers containing the original frescoes which were removed and reassembled inside the museum. Nearby there was a fine gelateria, and there was another even better not far away.

Tuscania

After parting from our hostess with many protestations of mutual esteem, we returned to Umbria via a town called Tuscania (which, confusingly, is not in Tuscany but in northern Lazio). We went there because we had driven through it on the way to Tarquinia and thought it looked nice. As indeed it turned out to be – so we stayed a bit longer and had a picnic lunch in a park.

Tuscania is very ancient but was not one of the 12 cities of the Etruscan league. The area is obviously rich in Etruscan remains though, given the number of sarcophagi and funerary statues dotted around as public decorations. It is one thing to read that there there are a lot of Etruscan remains, but when the town council starts using them as garden ornaments, it does kind of make the point.

Tuscania is quite close to the port of Civitavecchia which is where the cruise ships call in to Rome and it is a destination for coach trips for cruise passengers. A couple of buses turned up while we were there but the occupants were all fairly elderly so we managed to outrun them to the ice cream shop, which was possibly even better than the ones in Tarquinia.

April 30, 2023November 19, 2023

Viterbo – Wet Bishops in the Papal Palace

Viterbo is a substantial town about eighty kilometres northwest of Rome, with some interesting history and historical sites. In the 13^th Century it was the scene of a rather farcical stand-off involving the election of a Pope and the removal of a roof.

The more recent history is not inspiring. After the German army abandoned Rome in 1944 they set up their headquarters in Viterbo, which led to it being heavily bombed. Many ancient buildings were destroyed or damaged – in fact in the duomo or cathedral most of the columns have chunks of stone missing as the result of bomb explosions. When the rest of the building was repaired they decided to leave the columns as they were, as a reminder.

Viterbo duomo, interior showing 1940s bomb damage to the columns. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

These days Viterbo is a provincial capital in northern Lazio (the region that includes Rome). The growth associated with that, and the post-war reconstruction, has led to a lot of unappealing urban development around the historic centre. But the medieval stuff that was preserved, or has been restored, is worth the trip. The centro storico has a pleasant, relaxed air.

Viterbo Piazza del Gesù — Viterbo, Piazza del Gesù in the historic centre. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Entering the centro storico from the north, the first substantial buildings you get to are the Palazzo del Podestà and the Palazzo dei Priori, built as the seat of municipal government in the Middle Ages, and as in so many other Italian towns, still serving that function, although the medieval architecture of the originals was modernised during the Renaissance.

Viterbo, Palazzo dei Priori exterior. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

You see lots of lions in one form or another on these buildings, as the lion is the symbol of Viterbo and is featured on the town’s coat of arms.

Viterbo Palazzo del Podestà — Viterbo, Palazzo del Podestà. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

A few minutes’ walk from the Palazzo dei Priori brings you to Piazza San Lorenzo, where you will find the duomo and the Palazzo dei Papi (Palace of the Popes). Here, apart from the baroque facade of the duomo, everything is more starkly medieval.

Viterbo Piazza San Lorenzo — Viterbo, Piazza San Lorenzo and the duomo. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

In the 13th Century the situation in Rome became a bit unstable due to fighting between powerful families, so the papal court decamped to the comparative security of Viterbo, where a palace was built to house the Pope and his administration.

Viterbo Palazzo dei Papi — Viterbo, Palazzo dei Papi. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

The Palazzo dei Papi is a forbidding-looking building. The uniform greyness of the local stone doesn’t help, but nonetheless one comes away with the impression that the 1260s were not a time of conspicuous gaiety. At one end of the building there is an interesting loggia, alas partly covered by scaffolding at the time we visited.

Not all the building works in the papal palace were successful. One of the Viterbese popes, John XXI, died from injuries sustained when a new roof collapsed on him while he was asleep in bed.

In 1269-71 the palace was the scene of a rather infamous papal election, which remained deadlocked for two years due to intrigues, bribery and power politics. As I recall reading, the French bishops were under orders from the King of France not to vote for anyone but a Frenchman, and the others wanted anyone but a Frenchman.

The elector bishops looked like staying deadlocked, until the governors of Viterbo started to get tired of it all (the electors and their substantial entourages were after all being lodged at public expense). First the town authorities locked the delegates into the great hall of the palace. When the bishops did not take the hint, the governors then ordered that the roof of the hall be removed, whereupon the bishops pitched tents in the hall in order to shelter from the rain (the holes for the tent pegs can still be seen in the flagstones).

On display in the hall you can find a letter to the governors from the bishops, asking that one elderly bishop be allowed to leave on account of his age and infirmity, and on condition of his having renounced his right to vote.

Finally the food supplies were reduced to minimum rations, at which point the bishops gave up and chose Gregory X (not French). Gregory is mostly now remembered for changing the procedures for papal elections to something pretty much like those used today, in order to avoid similar impasses.

A succession of Popes ruled from Viterbo for a while before returning to Rome. However in 1309 Pope Clement V (a Frenchman) moved the Papacy even further away to Avignon, so the French won in the end.

After poking around the Papal Palace, the Duomo and the municipal museum, we found lunch in a trattoria in a nearby square. Despite not being far from Umbria, we have noticed before that when you cross the Tiber valley into Lazio, the cuisine changes a bit – in particular there is a lot more seafood on the menu.

For us, another attraction of Viterbo is the picturesque medieval quarter, along the Via San Pellegrino. It is understandably in regular demand as a film set.

Viterbo Via San Pellegrino — Viterbo, Via San Pellegrino. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

We spent a pleasant afternoon wandering along Via San Pellegrino and the side streets that run off it. It all looked very nice in bright sunshine, although on a rainy night one might think back to those bishops and cardinals sulking in their tents in the roofless hall of the Palace of the Popes.

August 17, 2022November 19, 2023

A Little Place in the Country – The Villa Farnese at Caprarola

Intended as a fortress, then converted into a palace, the Villa Farnese in Caprarola is above all a monument to one of the most powerful families in Renaissance Italy.

The Farnese family accumulated a fair bit of real estate. If you have been to central Rome there is a good chance that you will have seen the massive Palazzo Farnese (now the French Embassy), or the beautiful Villa Farnesina across the Tiber, with Raphael’s famous frescoes. If you have visited Parma you might have seen the elegant “Palazzo del Giardino”, also a Farnese palace. This post is about one of the most remarkable, in the town of Caprarola north of Rome.

The Palazzo Farnese in Rome, August 2022, somewhat disfigured by scaffolding and hoardings. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Villa Farnesina in Rome. Hasselblad 501 C/M camera, CFV-50c digital back, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens (click to enlarge).

Parma Ducal Palace — The “Palazzo del Giardino” (Ducal Palace) in Parma. Hasselblad 501 C/M camera, CFV-50c digital back, Zeiss Distagon CF 60mm lens (click to enlarge).

The Farnese Family

We met the Farnese family when they were the villains of the story, violently subduing the city of Perugia. This time they get to be the heroes – which is not really surprising since they are telling this story themselves.

Although claiming ancient origins, the Farnese family first came to the notice of history in the 12^th Century, with a power base north of Rome. In the interminable Guelph versus Ghibelline wars of the Middle Ages, they generally turned up on the Guelph side, ie the side of the Papacy. It seems they knew where the family’s future fortunes lay.

And stupendous fortunes they were, built on acquisition of noble titles and huge estates, mercenary soldiering on behalf of the popes, and shameless simony and nepotism. “Simony” refers to the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices and anticipated rewards in the afterlife, like Papal indulgences. “Nepotism” comes from the Latin word for “nephew” and was coined to refer to the practice of Popes granting lucrative high offices – ecclesiastical or secular – to their (ahem) “nephews”.

There were other ways to power. Alessandro Farnese, later Pope Paul III, owed his Cardinal’s hat to his sister Giulia. She was the mistress of Pope Alexander VI, and persuaded him to make her brother a cardinal.

Caprarola

In 1504 Cardinal Alessandro Farnese splashed out on the purchase of the estate of Caprarola in northern Lazio, in the heart of his family’s historical power base. He then commissioned his favourite architect Antonio Sangallo to design and build a large fortress on the site.

We have already met both Alessandro and Sangallo, later in their careers. Forty or so years later, Alessandro was by then Pope Paul III, and, having ordered the subjugation of Perugia by his ~~nephew~~ son Pierluigi, he commissioned Sangallo to build a huge fortress at the south of the town, to keep it that way. All this is described in my earlier post on The Buried Streets of Perugia. But for now the Papacy lay in the future for Alessandro Farnese.

Alessandro’s brief to Sangallo for Caprarola, it seems, was for a military structure, similar to that which he would one day build in Perugia. It was to be a pentagonal fortress in a good defensive position, with bastions that could provide raking fire on attackers. That a prince of the Church thought it prudent to design such a building tells you a bit about 16^th-Century Italian politics. When things in the city got a bit awkward, it was time to head to the country estate and pull up the drawbridge.

In any case the fortress was never completed as planned. In 1556 Pope Paul’s grandson, another Alessandro Farnese and another cardinal, had the half-built fortress converted into a lavish country villa by an architect named Giacomo Vignola. It seems that the mood was a bit less bellicose half a century later, but the bastions are still visible at the lower level, and the finished villa retains the pentagonal shape of Sangallo’s original project. And the villa was still used as somewhere to retreat to whenever the Farnese found themselves on the losing side of papal politics.

The Villa

The villa is in the late Renaissance, or “Mannerist” style, and sits on a slope, with formal Renaissance gardens up the hill behind. The front of the building faces south-east, in the direction of Rome. This aspect of the building was doubtless dictated by the topology of the site. It is nonetheless rather appropriate that while the Farnese were enjoying breakfast on their balcony, they were looking towards the city that would always be at the front of their minds – the source of their power, and of threats from rival families. Immediately in front of the building is a massive piazza.

Villa Farnese from the piazza. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Walking up to the front entrance across the piazza, we were not accompanied by a ceremonial guard, so we felt pretty small. Actually, you would probably feel fairly small even with a medium-sized ceremonial guard, which was presumably the intention.

Looking south-east from the Villa Farnese, in the direction of Rome. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Once inside you realise that the pentagonal shape is hollow, and that each floor has a gallery around the edge of the central space.

Ground floor gallery, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

Inside, the rooms are lavishly decorated, with every square metre of wall and ceiling put to use. As is frequently the case in Renaissance palaces, each room has a theme. Sometimes the theme is obvious and sometimes it would need fairly recondite knowledge to spot all the references. Fortunately for those who are not Renaissance humanists, these days there are plenty of explanatory panels.

Villa Farnese Winter Apartment — Winter Apartment, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Villa Farnese Room of Jupiter — Room of Jupiter, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Villa Farnese Spring Room — Spring Room, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

The Royal Staircase

You access the upper floors by means of the “Royal Staircase”. In this period staircases were an opportunity for architects to show off their skill. The mathematical complexities of their design, the combination of strength and delicacy, and the visual attractiveness of curves and spirals, could come together to show both technical and aesthetic mastery. Vignola seems to have hit all the marks on this occasion.

Villa Farnese Royal Staircase — Royal Staircase, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

And of course the walls and ceiling of the stairwell provide more real estate for decoration.

Deeds and Maps

Upstairs the decoration gets even more impressive, and when you enter “The Room of the Farnese Deeds” you realise you are in a Farnese family theme park. Enormous frescoes show great world events in which the family took part. Here the Farnese Pope Paul III and the Emperor Charles V wage war on the Lutherans, accompanied by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and his brother Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza.

Villa Farnese Room of Farnese Deeds — Room of Farnese Deeds, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

Here the French King Francis rides out from Paris to meet Charles V on the way to chastise the Belgians (or something), accompanied naturally by Cardinal Farnese, the “ambassador of great affairs”.

Room of Farnese Deeds, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

It would be a bit nauseating were it not for the sheer pomposity of it all which renders it a bit ridiculous to modern eyes. Freud would no doubt have said that Alessandro was compensating for something. Here is the ceiling, in which almost every panel is a Farnese doing deeds, or angels cheering them on.

The Room of the Maps contains maps of the whole world as it was known in the 16^th Century. So no Australia and New Zealand, obviously. It apparently so impressed one of the Popes that he commissioned a similar thing for the Vatican.

Villa Farnese Room of the Maps — Map of the World in The Room of the Maps, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Vatican Gallery of Maps — The “Gallery of Maps” in the Vatican. The Farnese thought of it first. Hasselblad 501 C/M camera, Zeiss Planar C 80mm lens, 6x6cm film back, Fujichrome Velvia 50 film (click to enlarge).

The Gardens

As you complete the tour of the villa, you find yourself in the lower of the two gardens – a formal and symmetrical Renaissance garden which is presumably similar to the 16^th-Century original. You can imagine the younger Alessandro strolling here, in quiet conversation with some confidential envoy bringing news of developments in the Vatican.

Villa Farnese Lower Gardens — The Lower Gardens, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

From the lower garden you wander uphill through a chestnut wood. I don’t know what was planted here 450 years ago but the absence of buildings or landscaping suggests that it was intended to simulate a wild landscape. Then you get to the something called the “Secret Garden”, presumably because it was invisible from the main villa. The Secret Garden is approached through a corridor of some pretty exuberant Mannerist waterworks and statuary, starting with a catena d’acqua or “chain of water” which leads up to a pair of colossal statues of river gods.

Villa Farnese Secreet Garden — The “Catena d’Acqua” leading up to the Secret Garden, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Villa Farnese Secret Garden — The Secret Garden, Villa Farnese. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge).

Beyond the statues are another pair of gardens and a charming building called the “casino”. By most standards this would be considered a substantial dwelling but in the context of the Villa Farnese it is obviously just a little summer house.

After the Farnese

Unusually for a Farnese cardinal, the younger Alessandro left no direct heirs. The villa passed to his relatives, the Dukes of Parma and Piacenza. In the 18^th Century the Farnese line died out and their property passed through marriage to the Bourbon kings of Naples.

After the unification of Italy in the 19^th Century the villa became the property of the Italian state. For a while the villa was used as a residence for the heir to the Italian throne, but under the Republic it is now a museum.

The “casino” in the upper garden is used as a residence for the President of the Italian Republic. I don’t know if President Mattarella gets to use it very much, but I hope he does. It would be a nice place to get away from the complexities of political life in Rome for a while, just as it was five centuries ago.

June 5, 2022September 3, 2024

The Sacred Wood of Bomarzo

Hidden away in the countryside to the north of Rome, outside a town called Bomarzo, is a mysterious place referred to as the Sacro Bosco or “Sacred Wood” or the “Park of Monsters”. It is mysterious because its creator intended it to be.

The hilly area of northern Lazio, not far from Rome, has much to interest the historically-minded traveller and photographer. In pre-Roman times it was of course part of the Etruscan heartland and significant necropoli still exist in places like Tarquinia. In the late Middle Ages and Renaissance some of the most wealthy and powerful Roman families like the Farnese and Orsini acquired large estates here, and noble titles to go with them. Medieval castles and grand Renaissance villas and palaces seem to appear on every skyline.

One such palace dominates the town of Bomarzo, the Dukedom of which was held by the Orsini – a family which, rather impressively, produced 34 cardinals and five popes over a period of almost a thousand years from the 8th Century. Yes, really.

Palazzo Orsini at Bomarzo. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

These days Bomarzo seems to be a quiet sort of a place, principally inhabited by old people whose job is to sit on benches and stare at passing strangers. In the mid-16th Century it was a bit more important, as the palace was owned by Prince Pier Francesco Orsini, known as Vicino Orsini.

The male members of these families generally went for either a military or a clerical life (sometimes both). The females made advantageous marriages or chose a religious life (seldom both). Vicino Orsini’s choice was to be a condottiere or mercenary captain. By the 16th Century such people were no longer the cutthroat freebooters of earlier ages, but those who provided and led the armies of the Papacy, France and the Holy Roman Empire in their dynastic and religious wars. They were also expected to be highly cultured patrons of the arts, following the tradition started by “Renaissance men” like Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino and Vicino’s contemporary Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este.

Vicino was married to Giulia Farnese. A marriage between such great families would probably have been an arranged one, but it must also have been happy, given the grief which afflicted Vicino on Giulia’s death. By the 1550s, in addition to channelling their grief into conventional religious contemplation, it was acceptable for humanists to seek the consolations of philosophy.

And so it was that in 1552 Vicino commissioned the Neapolitan architect Pirro Ligorio to create a curious garden full of strange monsters and arcane allusions to divert the melancholy mind.

Bomarzo — “Orco” in the Sacro Bosco. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

And what a strange place it was. This was the architectural period – just as Renaissance style was about to become Baroque – known as “Mannerist”, which produced some extraordinary effusions like the Cavalerizza in Mantua. So the garden of Bomarzo has nothing like the formality and symmetry of gardens like those of the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola (the subject of a forthcoming post).

Instead the garden is dotted with seemingly randomly-placed statues and structures – gods, mythical creatures, monsters, a Carthaginian elephant trampling a Roman soldier, and a house that seems to be falling over (but which you can enter). There are also a few bears, which feature a lot in Orsini imagery, as it is a pun on their name (orso means bear).

An Orsini Bear. Fujifilm GFX 50R camera, Fujifilm GF32-64mm R LM WR lens (click to enlarge)

A sleeping (or dead?) woman is attended by an alert little dog.

In isolation and together the statues are all interesting, even amusing, to look at. But as with a poem by T.S. Eliot, the educated “reader” of the garden would be expected to recognise the deeper allusions.

Similarly, dotted around the place are cryptic phrases like “ogni pensiero vola” (every thought flies) which appear to have some obvious meaning, but are also quotations from poets of the day, alluding to the subjects of those poems. In recent times the custodians of the garden have picked out some of the inscriptions in red paint – I don’t know what evidence there might be that this was the original intent. Indeed you might imagine that Vicino and Ligorio might have rather enjoyed the idea that the already-cryptic inscriptions might fade away altogether.

All that being said, there does not seem to be scholarly agreement on whether there is a “key” to the garden that unlocks its story. One theory is that the statues are intended to illustrate the story of a book called Hypnertomachia Poliphili, published in 1499 – one would think that would be fairly obvious if true.

At the top of the garden is a little idealised classical temple, dedicated to Giulia Farnese.

In the 19th Century, and for much of the 20th, the garden was forgotten and became overgrown. It came back into public awareness in the 1970s – championed by no less a connoisseur of the bizarre than Salvador Dalí – and a program of clearing and replanting began. It was deemed best for the local bishop to exorcise the place before being reopened to the public in 1980. But in its years of being forgotten, one wonders whether the grandmothers of Bomarzo would frighten naughty children with stories of the monsters hidden away in the woods below the town.

Sources

I originally wrote this article based on online material and the printed matter that you get when you buy your ticket for admission. But more recently a friend gave us a book called Monty Don’s Italian Gardens (Quadrille Publishing, 2011). In the article on Bomarzo Mr Don is scathing about the choice of trees used in the replanting.

Category: Lazio