Shaded by trees and lightly cloaked in a patina of moss, the massive stone figures stare down at the awestruck visitors. What kind of garden features the screaming face of a terrible ogre that’s like a doorway to hell, a mythical giant hero literally tearing his foe from limb to limb, one of Hannibal’s elephants goring a legionnaire, and a Siren’s legs splayed along the ground? You may well ask. The answer is the Park of the Monsters, an amazing monumental complex tucked away 65km north of Rome.
The Garden of Bomarzo, as it’s also known, was created under the directive of mercenary leader and patron of the arts Pier Francesco Orsini during the mid-16th century. Broken-hearted at the death of his wife, Orsini decided to channel his energies into this intense personal project, which spanned some thirty years. Orsini commissioned Pirro Ligorio – the great architect better known for his formal waterworks at Villa d’Este – to make his weird and wonderful dream a reality.
Too larger-than-life to be frightening, the Garden might better be described as gobsmacking. In keeping with the Mannerist style in which it was built, it was designed to astonish rather than please its audience. It eschewed the harmonious proportions of the declining Renaissance, in favour of exaggerated forms – and arcane symbolism. The taste was for the mythical and the monstrous. This was a place in which wild fauna met the wilder side of the human imagination.
Some have tried to comprehend what drove Pier Francesco Orsini to conceive of such a place – what inner demons were haunting him – but, like the exact meaning of many of the pieces in the Garden, perhaps some things are best left in obscurity.
ok…I’m one of those people who opened the door raat ke 2 am pe to keep a doll ghar ke bahir which my neighbors child had left ghalti se 'cuz I wasnt able to sleep with the doll in the house:bummer:
mujassma kind cheezon se aik ajeeb khauf aata hai mujhey....like dolls ,statues and those little decorative items which are like miniature statues....i cant tolerate being around them :(
