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Be prepared. Be very prepared. Be prepared to be shocked and frightened. Be very scared I am going to take you on a journey.
What we have here is a magical Mystery Tour.
Some years ago we visited Hawkstone follies near to Shrewsbury the fantasy playground of the local family who built it to shock and surprise dour Victorian ladies . The Alton Towers of its day.
Well this garden will shock and makes Hawkstone feel tame in comparison.
We had seen our gardening guru Monty Don visit this garden and it was on our list of must sees this time round. Bear with me . Let me set the scene.
You have to imagine a theme park of sorts but a bit more restrained. No rides, no noise, nothing jarring. You have to imagine a nobleman who was so distraught at the loss of his wife Guilia Orsini that he built a garden his sacred grove his sacro bosco in her memory. Think Taj Mahal – same idea to commemorate a lost love but this one is seriously weird.
Vicino Duke of Bomarzo was a dreamer. He had to be to come up with
this gem of a place. He was a soldier and a poet. He bought the land. Perhaps he was mad with grief when he bought it. He wanted the rocks and stones in the woodland. He had no intention of moving any of the stones. His garden was carved out of the local stone wherever it lay in the garden. No overall plan if a stone was there and it lended itself to being carved it was carved. He seemed to stand by the philosophy that within each block of marble or within each stone was something waiting to come out. And come out they did . The sculptures are monstrous. Some crazy, some seriously wierd . All have an iconography some we can still understand but others lost in the mists of time.
After his death the garden fell into disrepair and the sleeping monsters and giants lay quiet for over 300 years under weeds and grass. Rediscovered by artists including Dali in the 1930’s it was somewhat loved but only brought back to life in 1953 by a local art lover.
Bear with me and I will walk you round the garden as if you were
with me.
Let us pay our entrance fee of 8 euros each and pick up our map of the garden. All the statues are numbered so we can walk around each in the order intended by the builder.
The first statues we see are The Sphinxes who welcome us to the garden. They ask you to consider your verdict of the garden as you wander round. Can you read the inscription. No not really but these ask you look at the garden and see it as one of the seven wonders of the world. They look puzzled don't they?
On to Proteo with his collosal head and wide gaping mouth. A sea monster. In the distance just out the corner of my eye I can see a half ruined mausoleum. The garden twists and turns and around a corner we find nothing but around the next the Lotta di Giganti the wrestling giants. The struggle between good and evil. The usual story . Hercules is fighting with Caucus who stole food from the poor. In between the statues are native trees, shrubs , bushes and water features. A small stream runs through the valley. This is not
a garden of flowers or romance. It is rather a sad place. You feel the heartache etched into each statue . The hurt of losing someone or something.
In a corner hidden away (sometimes we will have to look hard for the hidden statues) La Tartaruga the turtle a symbol of Venis. The turtle looks at a whale. Now use your imagination here. It is a whales mouth with teeth but with no body. Does not matter though.
A winged Pegasus is a tribute to the Orsini family. The nyphaneum and fountain has dolphins , the three graces and muses. The landscape opens out to Il Teatro a small theatre and roman garden.
From the theatre walk with me to the strangest sight in the garden. A house that defies gravity , that makes you think it is you that is hallucinating or suffering from vertigo as it leans at strange angles. It serves a practical purpose of taking the walker from one level of the garden to the higher parts. I think we prefer the vertigo to the practicality of the building.
Sit down with me on an Etruscan benches set up along the paths
for the weary walker to sit upon and ponder the meaning of life or just to ease tired legs.
Look around the corner and see the strangest of the sculptures the Orge. L,Orco the king of the underworld. His mouth gapes open as if he is going to eat me alive. His teeth like jagged knives are there ready to tear me to shreds . Above him I can read the words all reason departs which is a reference to Dante with his Abandon hope all who enter here. Walk with me – I am going inside between his open mouthed teeth and you can join me sitting at this table and we can picnic and watch the world go by. I think the Orge is the best statue in the garden. Do you agree?
Where are the plants you ask me? There are cyclamen growing everywhere it is more a garden of green grass , moss and stone. Of overgrown decay. A melancholy sort of place. I feel it at every corner and turn.
Lets continue and meet Il Drago the dragon and L’elefante with a castle on its back. Neptune and dolphins and winged furies.
Is there anything to compare? Probably not. This is one seriously weird garden but one that is truly fascinating to walk around and to try to understand its meaning. It is stunning beautiful and quiet and we had the place to ourselves which made it even more special .
If you get chance to visit make sure that you do. If not hopefully I will have inspired you to look this garden up on the internet and find out more about it. And if you never get there perhaps this will make you feel as if you have walked its paths with me.
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