Sacro Bosco site features

The Sacro Bosco lies along the bottom of a wooded valley beneath the Orsini castle at Bomarzo, and the first thing to understand about it is that it has no plan. The sculptures are strewn through the trees rather than arranged, most of them larger than life, and a good number were cut directly from outcrops of bedrock where those outcrops happened to be -- so the figures sit at the level the rock gave them, half-sunk, tilted, facing whichever way the stone ran. The landscape between them is largely bare.

The walk

You come down into the valley rather than along it. Verses in Italian were carved beside the sculptures -- the first by Annibal Caro in 1564, others by Bitussi and Cristoforo Madruzzo -- and some have eroded to the point of illegibility, which means that a number of the figures no longer carry the one thing that was meant to explain them.

The set pieces come at you one at a time with nothing linking them: Pegasus rising from a fountain; two sirens; a whale; two bears; a dragon set on by lions; Hannibal's elephant with a Roman legionary gripped in its trunk; Cerberus; a tortoise carrying a winged woman on its shell; a giant tearing a man apart; a triton in a niche; Ceres twice over, once sitting and once standing, one of them on the bare ground with a vase of greenery balanced on her head; a sleeping nymph; Aphrodite; and a scatter of colossal fruit, pine cones and basins. There is a small theatre cut for the purpose.

The mouth

The figure everyone comes for is Orcus, a head carved into the rock with its mouth open wide enough to walk into. Across the upper lip is cut OGNI PENSIERO VOLA -- all thoughts fly -- and the carving makes good on it: the chamber is shaped so that a whisper spoken inside is heard clearly by anyone standing at the foot of the steps outside. People used to eat in it. A table was set inside the mouth, so that diners were consuming and being consumed at once.

The two buildings

Near a formal exit gate stands the Casa Pendente, the Leaning House, a small watchtower-like building put up deliberately out of true. At the top of the garden is the Temple of Eternity, an octagon mixing classical, Renaissance and Etruscan manners.

The Orcus mouth

The figure Bomarzo is known for: a head cut into the rock with its mouth open wide enough to walk into, OGNI PENSIERO VOLA -- all thoughts fly -- carved across the upper lip. The chamber behind it is shaped so that a whisper inside is heard clearly from the foot of the steps outside. It was used as a dining room, which, as the art historian Luke Morgan notes, put diners in the position of eating and being eaten at once; the mouth is also only a fragment of a body, which is what makes it grotesque rather than merely large.

Hannibal's elephant

A war elephant with a Roman legionary caught and being mangled in its trunk -- one of the clearest statements of the park's intention, which was to astonish rather than to please.

The Leaning House

A small watchtower-like casina beside a formal exit gate, built deliberately out of true, and dedicated to Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo, a friend of Vicino Orsini and his wife and one of the three poets whose verses were carved beside the sculptures.

The Temple of Eternity

At the top of the garden: an octagonal building mixing classical, Renaissance and Etruscan manners, raised as a memorial to Giulia Farnese, whose death is the reason the garden exists. It now holds the tombs of Giovanni Bettini and Tina Severi, the twentieth-century owners who restored the park.

The carved verses

Allusive lines in Italian cut into the stone beside the sculptures -- the first by Annibal Caro in 1564, with others by Bitussi and Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo. Several have eroded past reading, which is why so little of the garden's own explanation of itself survives.

Ceres, twice

Two figures of the goddess, one seated and one standing. The seated one lies on the bare ground with a vase of greenery balanced on her head -- the kind of composition that makes the park's symbolism feel arcane rather than merely unfamiliar.

The bestiary

Pegasus rising from a fountain, two sirens probably representing Proserpina, a whale, two bears, a dragon set on by lions, Cerberus, Proteus carrying Orsini arms, a tortoise with a winged woman on its back, a triton in a niche, a sleeping nymph, Aphrodite, a giant tearing a man apart, and colossal fruit, pine cones and basins scattered among them.

The theatre

A small theatre of Nature, cut into the garden among the figures.