Bomarzo Park, Lazio, Italy 1/2014

An Italian fellow camper in Pisa suggested we’d visit Bomarzo, the Sacred Grove, on our way to Rome. Colloquially called the Park of the Monsters, it is located in the Province of Viterbo in northern Lazio, Italy.

Quite extraordinary, the Parco dei Monstri was built in 1552! That’s 562 years ago. This alone is quite amazing. Duke of Bomarzo, Nobleman Pier Francesco Orsini (1513-1584), known as Vicino, created the Sacro Bosco (Sacred Grove) as a memorial to his beloved wife Giulia Farnese. Its location is at the bottom of a rather steep damp canyon that explains all the moss covering the larger-than-life sculptures carved out of local stone and bedrock. Unlike most sculptures where the rock is moved and then sculpted, all of the huge figures in the park were created on the spot, the boulders and stones being far too big to move.

There have been various interpretations and much speculation about this strange garden but the reality is, even with inscriptions found, much of Vicino’s precise intentions have been lost, made doubtful, or at least ambiguous by the passage of time. Much of it remains romantic speculation but maybe that is sufficient to satisfy our curiosity and spark our imagination.

Filed under:
Italy, Trans-Eurasian Odyssey by Turtle Expedition