Voyages to the House of Diversion 
Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Science


September 2015 - The Italian Job

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After an exceedingly busy August the opening week of September saw preparations underway for our second expedition to Italy. Before that there was still time to fit in brief visits to Hanwell, Farnborough and Enstone. One of the tasks at Hanwell was to complete the recording of some of the features explored during the course of the Big Dig. Out on the lake, having bailed out the returning waters, I cracked on with drawing the scattered stones that may or may not be of significance in marking the original limit of the island. In an idle moment I also checked what I had long suspected that a stray block uncovered on the island had been prised out from the bottom of Sir Anthony's Bath. I tried it and it was a perfect fit... almost.



September     September
Set up for drawing on the perimeter of the island.                                             The missing slab from Sir Anthony's bath reinstalled.




At Farnborough work was going on to repair and reinforce the edges of Sourland Pool. As there had been more in the way of clearance of undergrowth I went to take a look at and photograph the sluice at the far end of the pool. In doing so I examined the material from the fabric of the dam which had been disturbed by construction work. Significantly many of the stones appeared worked and after careful searching two of them turned out to be window mullions, presumably of the seventeenth century. Something very interesting is going on here involving the demolition of earlier structures and the work undertaken to create the eighteenth-century park.



September     September
The sluice at the far end of Sourland Pool: the outfall looking east and the intake looking south.




September     September
Repair work on the edge of the pool uncovers some architecture.




Lazio 2015


September15
The Orsini Palazzo at Bomarzo, where it all began, view looking east.


Following contacts earlier in the year with Dr. Lindsay Sharp, former director of London's Science Museum we hatched a plan to make a series of visits to the famous Parco del Mostri at Bomarzo in order to study in detail aspects of water management and especially Lindsay's idea that the park contained a number of automata powered or animated by water. The gardens are well known for their large collection of bizarre sculptures cut from the natural rock in the sixteenth century at the behest of one Vicino Orsini a local nobleman and one time soldier who between 1547 and 1583 when he died created an extraordinary landscape. The study of the garden has in the past been undertaken on the basis of attempting to understand the significance of the imagery and its parallels with contemporary literary sources. Our aims were rather more modest... we just wanted to see where the water went!




The man himself.



Monday September 14th.
September15



After gathering everyone together Verna, Michael and Lindsay and I left  for Bomarzo traveling down towards Viterbo then on to a small motorway heading east. We drove down through the outskirts of Bomarzo to park up in reasonably quiet and spacious car park at the ‘Park of Monsters’. Inside the rather attractive new visitor centre with shop and small café we handed over the email from
Signor Bettini to a lady in the ticket booth who produced a memorandum of agreement for me to sign promising, amongst other things, not to undertake any immoral conduct! By this time one of our Italian contacts, Federica, had also arrived to come round with us. So on to our first visit to the Sacro Bosco. We spent a couple of hours looking at peripheral features: sites of pools and other tanks and worked boulders, although the dating was clearly problematic. Then we worked our way down into the better known areas of the site: through a possible lake – now dry, past an inscription ( as adopted by Polyolbion Archaeology) and into the extraordinary collection of sculptures and fountains and more sculptures and fountains all set amongst curiously formed boulders of massive dimensions. This was very much by way of a preliminary inspection to get our bearings and to get a grip on the scale of the task before us… and what a task. One thing that became clear very quickly was that this was a multi-period site, not only with respect to alterations during the sixteenth century but also the presence of earlier remains, Etruscan, Roman, early Christian and so on plus later modifications. We returned to the visitor centre for lunch around 1.30 and said farewell to Federica and boyfriend then after lunch poked about up the road a little picking out more boulders, with and without cisterns and other features. We returned to the main park for another hour or so whilst I contemplated the opening shots of our campaign to record the key water features across the whole park.



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The opening day of the campaign: taking a look at a series of stone tanks, posing proudly in front of 'Mente parte a parte' and Lindsay off piste with more worked stone.




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I took a stroll a little further down the lane to take a look at this drinking trough.



A note on Nomenclature

There are no agreed sets of names for the various features within the garden found in the published literature about the site. For our purposes we rather unimaginatively numbered everything with the code BMZ15 then with individual monuments being sequentially numbered with particular features labeled alphabetically, hence BMZ15/29d is a later cut in the stone to drain the basin below the Pegasus fountain. For verbal descriptions I have stuck with names as printed in the official guidebook as sold on entry to the park entitled:

BOMARZO
THE PARK OF THE MONSTERS
realised in 1552 under the name of
VILLA OF THE WONDERS
ALSO  CALLED
THE SACRED WOOD
AN ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL COMPLEX
UNIQUE OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD





Tuesday September 15th.

The first working day at Bomarzo began at an area generally  viewed as the site of a lake. It lies at the southern end of the garden and was defined by an unconvincing series of walls and terraces and was reportedly held in check by a stone dam to the north. On the west side was a short section of wall pierced by a castellated archway with a small stone hut attached on the south side. It all looked terribly convincing but didn’t appear on any of the published plans, hmmm… Michael and Lindsay spent their day mastering the art of leveling and produced profiles running north to south and east to west across the area whilst Verna recorded the features of what was to be the first of a series of worked boulders and associated low walls. I began a 1 to 10 elevation drawing of the wall identified as a dam. Unfortunately it contained what looked like an embrasure closed by a large vertical stone pieced by three circular holes one above the other. Lindsay saw it as a point at which pipes could have been taken out but I wondered about early loopholes for guns. It was very strange and although there was some evidence that a couple of the lower stones had been water eroded it was not consistent. Indeed looking west along the line of the dam this major wall did not appear to continue all the way across although it was backed for some of it’s length by a subsidiary wall that looked rather casually thrown together and later and not up to the job. Was there really a lake here?


September15
Detail of embrasure with holes, view looking north.




September15
Stone by stone field drawing of BMZ15/1, let's just call it a wall for now.



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Michael and Lindsay get to grips with leveling across the possible site of a former lake.                                               The north east corner of the dam BMZ15/1 and 3, looking north east




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A record shot of worked stone, BMZ15/8, everything gets a number! View looking south.    Walling BMZ15/5 and steps BMZ15/7 towards south end of lake looking north.




In the course of exploring the setting for this wall I worked my way round through the undergrowth past a quite spectacularly shaped boulder down to a section of wall which seemed to line up with our dam. Climbing up to confront the downstream side of the structure it turned out to be even more complex and so merit a return visit to draw this, stone by stone. Meanwhile Verna had completed the survey of the archway and hut and Michael and Lindsay had finished a cross section of the valley. It was time to stop. It had been a slightly slow day but we were all learning and adapting our methods to the strange environment that was Bomarzo. And finally just as we were about to leave we bumped into Signor Bettini and shared cordial greetings


Wednesday September 16th.

Olivier and Isabelle, our friends from Lille, had arrived the previous evening and headed over to Bomarzo for their first visit. Once at work Michael and I plunged into the greenwood and drew and planned the various wall fragments to the north east of the dam and managed to knock out a very creditable stone by stone elevation of the north face of the dam in short order. Verna and Lindsay got round and photographed the lakeside contexts. For lunch we met up with Isabel and Olivier and enjoyed fascinating discussions on the archaeology of the mind of Orsino (Isabelle’s phrase).





   September15     September15
After a slightly perilous scramble here is the view of the north face of the dam wall looking south, note the straight joint to the left of the embrasure and here is the east end of same wall looking west
with a massive amount of made up ground behind it and Michael looking quietly heroic.


THIS PART OF THE GARDEN IS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC






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Field drawing of BMZ15/1, north elevation


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The the east of the dam is a curious curving wall BMZ15/14 which bends round and slots in to another worked boulder further to the east.




The afternoon saw Michael and I heading up to the head of the lake and doing our best to survey using a range of cunning methods, and from a distance, the upper cascade and associated pool and steps and walling. Verna and Lindsay worked hard on a detailed plan of a worked boulder that seemed to bear some relation to the walling north east of the dam.




September15
Verna and Lindsay's boulder BMZ15/16, view looking west.




     September15     September15
The water enters the park at the upper cascade BMZ15/17, view looking south, where it enters a stone edged basin approached by steps BMZ15/18, view looking north west.



As the day drew to a close Michael and I headed down the valley and dropped in some additional temporary site data and got as far as the steps down to the terrace of the wrestling giants or whatever. Here was a nice little bit of structural evidence to be observed. Currently the descent is made by steps but there was an evidently new section of masonry which narrowed down the staircase and a curious corrugated ledge cut in the rock face along side. Back tracking a little it was clear, because the upper portion survived, that access to the lower terrace was via a ramp with stone strips acting as stops at regular intervals. This turned to the north at a landing but had been cut away and replaced by steps in order to clear the face of the stone for a large inscription. However, a line of fairly large stones looking like foundations suggested the width of the ramp as it turned and headed north towards the gigantic wrestlers.




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Observations on the steps down to Giant's Terrace, BMZ15/22b remains of the original ramp looking south with traces of the ramp where it has been cutaway to the east, looking north west.




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At the foot of the stairs are a line of large stones BMZ15/15 which may represent the foundation for the ramp cut away at a later date to permit the inscription on the terrace wall.




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And here they are, the famed wrestling giants... or BMZ15/23 as we like to call it... , view looking north.




Thursday September 17th. Villa Farnese, Caprarola



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Click here for details of our visit to the gardens.



Friday September 18th.

We returned to Bomarzo suitably inspired by the gardens of the Villa Farnese and keen to track down manhole covers, sockets for taps and what have you. My time was spent in  producing some reasonably detailed plans of the so-called lake, still big question marks about this, the worked boulder above the so-called dam (ditto.), the walling next to the arched entrance, the steps down to the giant’s terrace and possible site of ramp, the so-called dam itself ( ditto, ditto) and then, mainly after lunch, the Pegasus terrace with eponymous fountain. This proved to be an extraordinarily complex series of mini-monuments packed into a small area, probably something like 20 individual contexts. Verna spent the day photographing the same area in enormous detail whilst Michael and Lindsay worked heroically leveling nearly thirty spot heights on the upper two terraces. As part of their explorations they did come across an intriguing stone lined depression which could potentially we a conduit feeding into one of the grotesque mask fountains.


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Steps BMZ15/24 down to the lower terrace by the Pegasus Fountain, looking south and more steps  BMZ15/27 down to the tunnel in front of the Tortoise looking south, not sure what is happening with the wall on the right.




September15                 September15
The Tortoise with Fame on its back BMZ15/26, views looking south. We had the notion that fame could have spouted water out of her trumpets (as at Villa Garzoni)
which would then have sprayed down into the mouth of the Orca in a satisfying way possibly then swirling round and out to soak suitably positioned spectators.




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View looking west of the steps down in front of the Tortoise and the moderately scary view you get of the Orca's mouth as you turn the corner.


THIS PART OF THE GARDEN IS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC




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                        Between the Tortoise and the Pegasus Fountain is this curious circular 'planter' BMZ15/28,                                 The eastern lip of the Pegasus Fountain showing the emplacements
                        view looking south, there is another one on the slope below the Rotunda                                                              for the statues of the muses and the later cut BMZ15/29d to drain the
                        and indeed one on top of the Rotunda itself, made of separate stones,                                                                    basin of standing water.
                        they don't look to have held water so what were they?




September15
                        The Pegasus Fountain BMZ15/29 view looking north west and showing the stone blocking to the housing for the fountain's pipework. Much has been written about the famous tilt to the basin but I
wonder if it is simply the result of an earth slip, note the way it seems to have broken away from its base on the left hand side.




September15
Another curious feature BMZ15/30 described by some as a column base it looks like a pair of millstones to me, again on something of a tilt, looking north east.




    September15     September15
A view of the Orca from the terrace next to the Pegasus fountain and the site of a possible small dam to bring the water level up to the Orca's chin, both views looking south east.




     September15
Looking north west along the terrace from the Pegasus Fountain into the Nymphaeum.





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In the Nymphaeum: seats backed by the three graces BMZ15/35 and round the corner more benches plus nymphs BMZ15/34, both views looking south west.




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Detail of seats in the Nymphaeum BMZ15/33, north east side. We suspected initially that the central roundels may have been the site of a series of small fountains but absence of suitable drainage facilities make this unlikely.




September15
The Dolphin Fountain BMZ15/36, view looking north





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Details: BMZ15/36b stones closing cut for pipes, BMZ15/36c square depression and channel in front of fountain and a dolphin and urn at the south east end with stub of pipe.   





Saturday September 19th.

The day began, unusually, with a demonstration of drone flying around the farm house by Marcus, one of Lindsay’s friends, Marcus, from Sweden, showed us a very impressive piece of technology but a little frightening. In flight it sounds like a crowd of angry bees. Lengthy conversations about the legal implications of operating this equipment rapidly lead to the conclusion that it was not for everyday use.


September15
Not my reaction to low flying drones but the Mask of Proteus-Glauco BMZ15/19 viewed from the north with site of a shallow rectangular pool in front of it.



Off to Bomarzo for around 11.00 p.m.. Verna continued her mission to photograph the extant monuments whilst Michael and I worked with the level to put some points down across the stream on the east side of the valley. Lindsay arrived a little later and set to work planning a small series of stone carved tanks set amidst what looked a little like a formal sixteenth century garden replete with terraces and rectangular pools. I then continued with my campaign to produce a series of annotated plans from the lowest terrace. Probably the most significant ‘discovery’ was the base for a set of steps going up from the terrace containing the repositioned Hermes to the terrace next to the river god. A  close examination of he sleeping nymph and the folds of her drapery provoked a discussion regarding the importance of ensuring natural drainage off the surface of sculptures, could these be chasings for pipes? Probably not. On a brief expedition to the northern limit of the park I came across a further set of small rock cut cisterns but these were full of water! At the end of the day Verna and I returned to the feature we had named Lindsay’s Bath where I lent a hand to finish off the planning and pop on some heights so we could draw a profile.



 September15    September15     September15
Fountain with nymph BMZ15/38 views looking south east: mask from collapsed eastern flanking wall, general view, detail of overhead fountain nozzles




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The Theatre Terrace: south east wall with slit windows indicating an internal staircase BMZ15/39, south west wall with remains of steps and balustrade for banister BMZ15/40.




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Lower portion of steps to south east of the Theatre BMZ15/41 and the theatre itself view looking south west.




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The Theatre: detail of the curious sloping fountain basin and detail of a detail showing the location of the central nozzle and the course of the pipe feeding it.




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The Theatre: grid over the outflow from the central fountain and overall view looking north west.




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We have to show this one too, the Leaning House BMZ15/42 view looking north west.



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And here's a nice little detail, because the backward sloping bench would collect water a small drain has been cut in it.




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The Hermes on the Theatre Terrace looking north east, these were moved from the southern part of the garden.  Bath BMZ15/44 and repositioned stones at the north end of the Theatre Terrace, looking north west,
there are two baths flanking the old approach ramp from the north which were originally in front of the two masks flanking the Fountain of the Nymph.




September15
Field sketch of worked boulder south of the car park aka Lindsay's Bath.






Sunday September 20th. Pitigliano



September15


Click here to read about our trip to this largely unknown site



Monday September 21st

So back to work after our day off! Communications with the powers that be had been equivocal to say the least, we had in principle been given permission to make a visit to the Villa Lante at Bagnaia but the terms under which we were visiting were unclear, especially as the garden was not open on Mondays. It turns out there was a reason for this as Monday in Bagnaia is market day and the main road up to the garden from the motorway is clogged up with stalls. We twisted and turned through assorted back streets and after a couple of false starts found ourselves at the gates of the villa… which were predictably closed, so we called and called and man appeared who, equally predictably, knew nothing of our intended visit and no he wasn’t opening up anyway. Fortunately we had a fall back plan which was to drive on to Bomarzo just 20 minutes down the road.

Once there, after a restorative cup of coffee, Michael and Lindsay continued leveling and Verna continued photographing. I began by doing a fairly rough and ready survey of the  terraced areas and two rectangular pool like features south of the visitor centre and car park. Nobody really seems to have allowed for a more formal garden on the slopes below the palace and the fact that existing earthworks have been overlooked is a little perplexing, however, we are beginning to recognize twentieth century work in the garden and there is one particular point where modern steps have been inserted into the wall of one of the pools and the difference between them and the more eroded earlier walling seems clear.



September15     September15
Steps down into the smaller of the two sunken areas south of the visitor centre, the steps look modern, the walling? Not so sure, view looking south west. Two terraces up, an old metalled roadway, view looking north.


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The  bank between the trackway and the 'picnic' terrace, view looking south.



September15    
The complex of stone tanks, an ornamental fountain or a functional lavatoio (wash house)? View looking east.


I don't often quote Wikipedia bit this seems apposite:  'Water was channelled from a river or spring and fed into a building or outbuilding built specifically for laundry purposes and often containing two basins - one for washing and the other for rinsing - through which the water was constantly flowing, as well as a stone lip inclined towards the water against which the washers could beat the clothes. Such facilities were much more comfortable than washing in a watercourse because the launderers could work standing up instead of on their knees, and were protected from inclement weather by walls (often) and a roof (with some exceptions)'.





After that I returned to the terraced area next to the leaning tower and recorded the absence of flanking stairs to the sometimes named ‘Theatre of Love’  and the presence of three phases of walling. I was also quite taken by the measures to ensure that although the tower was seriously tilted water would not gather on the backward sloping bench. I also  spent time on the square vaguely medieval looking tower on a massive boulder on the next level up. After a little scrambling I was able to peer inside the tower in an inconclusive way, it would be very useful to see this as a water tower (cf. Modave) but the evidence is less than conclusive. Next it was on to the river god, neither Neptune or Pluto seemed plausible to us and on the basis of similar figures at Caprarola we were happy to ascribe him to the Tevere or River Tiber which the water from the park flows into a few kilometres to the east. Next up the possible site of a fountain in the form of a reproduced Meta Sudans from Rome , a very heavily rebuilt structure at best… more to do tomorrow but where would the water have some from? One speculative point that emerged during the day was regarding the uneven degree of wear on and between different sculptures. Some are so heavily worn as to be describable as 'smoothed by age', others remain sharp and crisp, could there have been a measure of re-cutting?



September15     September15
A fish head, large but quite jolly looking flanking 'Neptune' (sorry to disagree here but as Michael said, 'Where's his trident?'), both views looking south east.
As far as we could see the only source for the water in the pool below was the smaller fish head he has his hand on.  




September15
The pipe exiting from the outer pool below 'Neptune', presumably taking water down to the fountain in the centre of the Theatre.




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Just round another corner we have the Sleeping Woman BMZ15/46 (other commentators have taken a less than charitable view of her), view looking south and a small mask fountain BMZ15/47, view looking west.




September15
On the slope above the mask fountain evidence of a culvert BMZ15/47/c to bring water down from the terrace above, this kind of evidence is remarkably thin on the ground.




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The enigmatic square tower BMZ15/49 perched on a boulder above a small cavern, view of the south corner looking north and the interior looking north east.




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An interesting technique for capping the tower wall.  View of the terrace behind the tower looking west. Water for the tower would have to have been brought across from here.




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Lost in thought perched on one of the two seats BMZ15/48 facing this view: the tower and cavern BMZ15/51looking west.




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BMZ15/51 or the Rotunda or Meta Sudans (a famous fountain from the good old days in Rome): view looking north, view looking south and view looking down onto the lower level of the heavily rebuilt structure.




 September15    September15     September15
Ceres BMZ15/66: irregular shallow stone basin looking north, view of eroded figure looking north west, fun and games on her back, more upsidedownness, view looking south east.


In a letter dated 1578 Orsino commented that his son who he called, one hopes fondly 'il figgliaccio' or ugly son was already 'half a giant' and that together with Oranteo, his daughter, they had managed to turn everything upside down! So here's a radical idea could elements in the garden have been elaborate tributes to his children?




Tuesday September 22nd.

As this was the last day before Lindsay’s departure for the UK in his car with our equipment we tried hard to complete all the key photographic and surveying tasks. We also committed to an early start so the first couple of hours were blessed with cool temperatures and few visitors. By now we were operating down at the far northern end of the garden and Michael and Lindsay were introduced to further stone tanks cut in the top of a distant boulder adjacent to a small stone shed with basin. This was subject to careful recording whilst I worked my way down towards the stream in search of the last major feature to be visited, a large rectangular basin with possible fountain attached. This had all been in quite ruinous condition but had recently been restored, presumably with an eye to opening a further section of the garden to the public. Most striking was the dam / wall / causeway which closed the northern side of the tank and the upper course at least was partly supported on corbels. A close parallel to the dam / wall / causeway by the upper lake but not exact and the whole thing rather compromised by  a heavy degree of repair work. There were several other features of interest in the area which I documented before returning to the main part of the garden to finish drawing the potential meta-sudans, Verna had been taking pictures all morning and we finished off with the so-called faux Etruscan tomb façade, still not sure about this, and some more worked boulders by the path back to the visitor centre.



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Another set of boulder top tanks BMZ15/56, these still partially water filled, view looking south. Michael and Lindsay prepare to get to grips with it all.




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The small hut BMZ15/33 nearby, partially cut in the rock, view looking north west, and containing a basin, a bottle and a pole




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Down to the valley floor view of pool and possible fountain looking north, detail of the fountain looking south west.


THIS PART OF THE GARDEN IS NOT CURRENTLY OPEN TO THE PUBLIC



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The dam and causeway BMZ15/57 at the north west end of the pool looking south.  Channels cut in rock to the south east of the pool BMZ15/62, looking south.




September15    
More rock cut water filled basins BMZ15/63 north of the dam looking north.





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The Etruscan ruin BMZ15/54 , fake or real? View of pediment from south, view of columbaria from north.




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The Monumental Vase BMZ15/64, rather ungainly proportioned but it stands in a small basin and looks as it it should have been watered, view looking south.




         


After lunch the others made a start on recording further features up the hill towards the palazzo whilst I hiked round by the lane to take a look at the triumphal entry from the outside. This was a snatched moment as we had made an arrangement to met with Signor Bettini, this proved to be a very productive session. We were able to take a look at some of the early publications in the display cabinets and then in conversation with Verna, all in Italian of course, we were able to discuss some key points including the fact that both entrance arches had been relocated: the triumphal arch from the lower northern end of the park where it framed the main entry that then lead up the ramp to the terrace in front of the leaning house. The castellated archway had been relocated from a position further to the east where it had originally faced the other way and framed a view up to the palazzo. We tried to establish information concerning the possible location of formal garden terraces on the hillside below the palazzo and to the east of the stream. Signor Bettini agreed that the terraces were old but told us that the potential pool areas dated back only 40 years. He had no explanation for their presence and I remained fairly convinced that there was antique stone work to be seen here. Anyway it all ended amicably with Lindsay handing over a first draft of his magnum opus and us being offered beer and an invitation to return on Wednesday for a technical talk with one of the gardeners and on Friday to meet the conservation architect working on the restoration!



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On the slopes up towards the town: a complex of shaped boulders and walls BMZ15/79 and 80 looking north east, niches carved in stone BMZ15/78 looking north and a small spring a little further down the hill with carved portal BMZ15/77 looking east.





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A fine entrance gate on the west side of the garden view looking north, moved we understand from a position on the other side of the valley. A little further to the south a turn in the park wall, not a break but a nicely rounded corner before the wall plunges down into the ravine, view looking north.


   


Wednesday September 23rd. Villa Lante, Bagnaia

September15



You can read all about our return visit here.



We decided to head on to Bomarzo where Signor Bettini had invited us to interview his head gardener, Fabrizio on the subject of water supply so after lunch we sought him out. After extensive questioning we got no further than an insistence that the stream was the only source of water in the park and all the fountains were fed from that, the uppermost feature, we have termed the meta-sudans was not a fountain but simply a viewpoint. If this is the case the water has to be carried behind the wall to the giants’ terrace and then distributed down to the lower levels. We also discussed the possible existence of the upper lake. Fabrizio confirmed its existence in a slightly equivocal way and went on to say that originally there was water in the rectangular basin in front of the Mask of Proteous. He also seemed to confirm
Signor Bettini’s point that the two potential rectangular pools were modern additions to the scene and that some of the smaller rectangular stone basins were washing places.

Next on our list of things to do was to make the ascent to the old town and palazzo. We spent some time examining a bastion like feature on the hillside immediately below the town. It had been suggested that this had been a large water tank but the structure had been so heavily restored that it was no longer clear exactly what was going on. We also took a look at the rather sad remnants of a modern fountain which apparently had cost many thousands of euros and had run for a couple of years but was now derelict. It was a bit of climb up the old town but views down to the park were impressive as were the views up to the Palazzo Orsini. Unfortunately it was only open at the weekend so we meandered around the impossibly picturesque medieval town before returning to the car.



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View from the town looking west across the park.




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This bastion like feature BMZ15/81 has recently been remodeled to form a car park, Lindsay believed that it was formerly a large water storage tank.



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Up the road a little the sad remains of a modern but now neglected fountain.




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The south eastern gateway to the town of Bomarzo  and buildings in the square opposite the Duomo.




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Another Orsini bear adjacent to the Duomo steps.                                                                               The Via del Lavatoio (Laundry Road) leading down towards the park.




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Picturesque medieval steps and street and the facade of part of the palazzo.




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The west face of the Palazzo overlooking the park.

Thursday September24th.

A day off so we decided to head up the road to the north for the hill top town of Orvietto. Just half an hour away we parked in a huge modern car park and walked up a series of sloping walkways and staircases (the escalators had been turned of) into the heart of the town and quite spectacular it was too. After a quick coffee we began with a visit to the cathedral, generally recognised as one of Italy’s finest medieval buildings, strikingly banded in white and green marble the west front is a tour de force of decorative surfaces and mosaics. The interior is comparatively austere but the transept chapel frescoes are astonishing, particularly the north transept with work by Signorelli,  which features some wonderful grotesques in the scroll work which make Bomarzo’s sculptures appear rather tame. I then lead everyone on a lengthy walk to the end of town to visit the rocca, great views, the Etruscan temple, closed, and the  Well of St. Patrick, full of visitors, so we headed back to the cathedral and did its associated museums, some archaeological some art historical with a number of standout pieces including a library with marvelous painted walls, a brilliantly light footed St. Michael perched on the back of a dragon and a troop of angels folding back a set of bronze curtains to reveal the seated Virgin within.

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Orvietto viewed from the south west.

Friday September 25th.

In keeping with the arrangement we had made with Signor Bettini earlier in the week we returned to Bomarzo for 11.00 to meet with the architect Maria Louisa Del Guidice who for the last eight years has been supporting the restoration work in the park. We began our discussions in the café where over maps and with scribbled annotations she confirmed many of the hypotheses we had been developing. It was clear that much remained to be discovered concerning the details of the water supply but the outlines were clear. The water is derived from the stream and a conduit  taken from the  shallow rectangular basin in front on the Proteous mask must have run broadly along the line of the current path down towards the river god fountain. From this line inter-locking terracotta pipes took water off to the other fountains on the lower levels and then discharged water into the stream. Unfortunately she had no knowledge of any automata associated with the park and her main conclusion about Orsino was that he was a bluff soldier with influential friends and interesting ideas but without the financial clout to mimic the gardens at Bagnaia or Caprarola. We raised the issue of the worked stones scattered round the park and she indicated that the features cut into them could be of any age from Etruscan to the last century and that they were a combination of house platforms, animal troughs and washing places with the occasional tomb thrown in for good measure.

To our pleasant surprise she then offered to take us round for further discussions on the ground. She was quite clear that the landscaping south of the visitor centre was all about providing recreational areas for early groups of visitors and that the land below the palazzo was given over to productive practices such as the cultivation of fruit trees. She was less sure how the water had been taken from the upper cascade nor were we able to establish exactly how the main dam with its curious loop hole actually functioned. Down at the fountain of Pegasus she was of the opinion that the basin had slipped following the construction of the feature and that there was nothing particularly symbolic about it. We did discuss the possibility that the water level in the stream was higher at certain points through the agency of a series of lesser cascades. The effect of one of these could have been to raise the water level adjacent to the Orca so as to give the effect of the mouth rising out of the water.




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Discussing the water levels adjacent to the Orca with Maria Louisa.                                                                                    Trekking up the ramp from the lower pool.




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Two sets of pipes we had missed entirely on the Theatre terrace, BMZ15/78 north of the Nymph and BMZ15/77 north east of the Leaning House.




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Signor Bettini leads a discussion on the position of the outflow from 'Neptune'.

She was not terribly convinced by the idea that jets of water  squirted up around the seats of the nymphaeum but was not able to say for sure. She was able to point out a line of terracotta pipes taking water away from the standing figure next to the theatre and down across in front of the leaning house. She had no particular suggestions regarding our idea that the tower had in fact been a water tower but certainly didn’t dismiss it out of hand. We were then granted access to the lower zone where the current work was being undertaken on what she called the piscine. Her idea was that the stream had been diverted to fill the pool with water which then flowed out at the far end. In discussing the relocation of the entrance arch she made it clear that in her opinion the original approach to the garden was from the north bringing visitors in past the lower pool and fountain and up the ramp on to the terrace by the leaning house.

Finally back up to the river god fountain where we compared notes on the stub of pipe emerging from the outer part of the basin. She confirmed that some of the sharper edged sculptures had been restored in the last century and shared with us the intriguing idea that the elephant sculpture was to commemorate the death of Orsino's son at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. That was about it so after a final round of thanks and farewells we returned to base camp and the expedition was all but over. All that remained was a huge amount of plan, section and elevation drawing to process back home and a lot of thinking to be done.





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The south end of the visitor centre incorporates an earlier farmhouse with tower, could a park keeper have lived here and kept his eye on things? Detail of the hand pump to the right is a small marble bowl.



I like this:

"Bomarzo is a torment to the exegetes... There have been comparisons with oriental art. Its execution has been called raw and dilettantish, but also a work of refined sculpture. It has been read as the perilous wood of the chivalric romances; a place of the triumphal entry of sovereigns, a biography in images of Vicino's military career; a pilgrimage through the pagan sacred mountain. It has been explained as a Neoplatonic sanctuary, a creation of Epicurean philosophy, the itinerary of the soul from human to divine love and a hieroglyph of the alchemical work.'

Joscelyn Godwin in The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance,  Boston: Weiser Books 2005 page 171.

One could also add it has been put forward as a visual interpretation of texts as varied as Ovid's Metamorphosis, Colonna's Hypneromachia Poliphili and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. How many of these commentators took to heart Orsini's own inscribed words which describe the garden as being, 'only like itself and nothing else'?


 


Our focus was unrelentingly on the ways in which water had been used in the park and all our recorded features and most of the photographs were concerned with gathering data for that investigation, however, it would be foolish to ignore the other remarkable features in the garden even if they have no discernible contact with water, so with that in mind here are a selection of other images from the Park of the Monsters.




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The Elephant and Castle looking south east.                               The Battling Dragon, head looking north east.                                                           The Ogre looking south east.





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The Etruscan bench looking south west and Cerberus looking south.




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The Proserpine bench looking south west and pine cones and acorns lining the hippodrome, view looking east.




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The Mermaid Echina, two lions and a harpy all grouped at the eastern end of the hippodrome and viewed from the west.



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A view of the lions showing some curious cuts in the rock at their feet.


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In the hippodrome an Orsino heraldic bear with traces of the original paintwork remaining, looking north.




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More rock cut anomalies: two pairs of broad parallel grooves about the Ogre, looking north east.                         Steps and rock cut house platform east of the former lake, looking north east.



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A rock cut sarcophagus BMZ15/65 looking north west, ancient or modern?




Some Personal Conclusions


After the best part of nine days working in the Park of Monsters and getting to know its layout and inhabitants it might be worth trying to sum up some initial thoughts. I hope to publish something reasonably scientific in the next couple of years about the use of water in the park but now it's time for a little speculation. However, having said that and at the risk of being seen as terminally unimaginative I'm afraid I cannot buy into the idea that there was some guiding principle or overarching design that Orsini applied to the site. Quite the contrary, my feeling is that the site was developed piecemeal over the course of many years and items were inserted into the park as opportunity and fancy took him. I suspect his sense of humour was exercised to good effect in some of the sculptured work. Another general point; the garden is difficult to interpret for three reasons: it is part of a very fluid landscape subject to earth tremors and land slips; it has been occupied off and on for several thousand years and since the mid-twentieth century it has been heavily restored and to some extent remodeled. Much has been read into the layout but one of the deciding factors has to be the random occurrence of suitable masses of stone for shaping, another is the point at which water can be conveniently brought in to supply the few fountains that were present. The sculpture appears rather coarse and crude, the product of local craftsmen perhaps and where the appearance is otherwise they were probably bought in (Fame) or subject to restoration in the 1940s (The Dragon's head). Let's take the Pegasus Fountain, some authors cite it's lowly position as evidence of Orsini's equivocal attitude towards scholarly learning but then its current location is simply one of the few spots where you will get anything like a decent jet of water out of the fountain. Other authors comment on the symbolic importance of the tilted bowl but then it looks to me as if it's just slipped a little perhaps in a minor earth tremor. Fascinating though it all is and doubtless offering intriguing insights into the mind of its patron it seems to me to be primarily a very personal project undertaken on a limited budget.... 'a little thing but mine own'. One final worry, I invested 90 euros in a splendid book, Bomarzo: il Sacro Bosco edited by Sabine Frommel and published in 2009 by Electaarchitecttura. This contains 350 pages of closely argued and informative papers by some of Italy's leading experts in their fields and I can't read a word of it! I wonder what I'm missing.



 

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 The Temple, an exquisite little building, view looking north.