Sacro Bosco/Villa Orsini

As pure fantasy, this garden is without equal. It was made in a wood and many of its giant sculptures were carved from living rock. Stylistically, Bomarzo represents a step towards the drama of the Baroque. Poking gentle fun at the egotistical iconography of the Este and the Medici families, it is also a pre-cursor of the English landscape garden. With the elegant taste of a renaissance duke, Vincino Orsini created features with some resemblence to those in a modern theme park. But his aims were altogether serious. Orsini was a military captain with literary tastes. He conceived the garden as a Sacred Wood (Sacro Bosso), inspired by the description of Arcadia in Virgil's Aeneid. There is an enormous laughing mask. A moss-covered tortoise supports a statue of fame. A leaning house illustrates the corrupt state of the world. A stone dragon sits beside an oversized Etruscan vase. The figures came from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The garden reaches its culmination in a Temple of Divine Love. The Sacro Bosso does not appear in pre-1950 books on Italian gardens. Public interest revived after an enthusiastic visit by the surrealist painter Salvator Dali in 1948.