From Bomarzo to the Marmore Waterfall

by Fabio Massimo Penna

From a book written in a precious and complex language, baroque and full of complicated rhetorical effects to a park dominated by bizarre statues of monsters. In the text "The spells of Bomarzo" the great art historian Maurizio Calvesi analyzes the path of the Sacred Woods of Bomarzo and the novel by Francesco Colonna "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" ("Battle of Love in Poliphilus's Dream") of 1467.

The park's initially conceived and built itinerary closely followed the theme of the Column's allegorical literary experiment. The literary work, divided into two sections, tells an allegorical journey and a love story, through the dream of such Polyphile who, finding himself in a forest, embarks on an initiatic journey that allows him to reach the beloved Polia. The two lovers enter the palace of Venus where the girl tells some nymphs about the birth of Treviso and the story of her love for Polyphile. The "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili" shows the extraordinary inventiveness of the author who creates a brilliant and precious language, a vernacular altered by the presence of syntactic and terminological models derived from Latin. In addition, the work is covered by repeated references to music, archaeology and art. Under the exhibited symbolism of the novel, the writer describes Polyphilus's initiation through a moral path that progressively leads him to the unveiling of a secret reality that allows him a renewed interpretation of the world and existence.  The novel shows the fifteenth-century love for hermeticism and esotericism, and the name of the protagonist himself falls within the allegorical dimension of the text as it means "he who loves so many things".  The Sacred Forest of Bomarzo (the sacred term is to be understood in the sense of magical or haunted), also refers to the theme of the enchanted forest that is typical of chivalrous poems. In the "liberated Jerusalem" of Torquato Tasso there is the famous scene in which Tancredi in the magical forest cuts the branch of a cypress and hears from the tree the voice of the beloved, and deceased, Clorinda, whose spirit was closed by Ismeno in the plant. 

The monster park was built at the behest of the lord of Bomarzo, Near Orsini, in memory of his wife Giulia Farnese who died young. According to tradition, the Sacred Grove was built by the architect Pirro Ligorio. Thesis less beaten are those who want the intervention of the sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammannati and the recent hypothesis that tends to see behind the grandiose project the hand of Michelangelo Buonarroti that would have flanked Near Orsini in the conception of the park. Let's go back, however, to what is almost certainly the author of the impressive project, Pirro Ligorio. The Neapolitan architect had a great culture in antiques and his archaeological passion, especially aimed at the Roman ruins, had also been expressed in the allegorical and hermetic forms of the Pio IV casina of the Vatican gardens. He began the excavations of Villa Adriana in Tivoli and wrote the text "Book of Antiquities of Rome" (1553).  His brilliant mind is also due to Villa d'Este in Tivoli with its sensational Italian garden full of nymphs, water features and fountains. In Bomarzo Ligorio frees his inspiration giving life to an exaltation of illusion, of the wonder declined in a series of cave sculptures representing monsters, gigantic beings, orcs, elephants in a kind of enchanted forest that celebrates the Mannerist magnificence. In creating this lesser place of fun and reflection Ligorio has been remade to the Renaissance humanists who had recovered the medieval conception of the hortus conclusus, a small green space surrounded by walls that symbolized an isolated area, far from the vices of the world. Particularly in the second part of the sixteenth century great architects were committed to tidying up the green areas often adjacent to the villas they designed. Composed as architectural works, these gardens were based on geometric rules, with square hedges or worked in unusual forms, with statues, fountains (not infrequently surprising water games were inserted) and showed an incredible balance between strict technical norms and great aesthetic freedom. Among the many paths of high scenic and ornamental value, the Sacred Woods of Bomarzo is highlighted for a taste of wonder that anticipates so many Baroque ideas (the greatest Italian representative of Baroque literature, Giambattista Marino, stated that "It is the poet's wonder").

Let's see some of the park's most impressive and impressive sculptures. Extraordinary in size and idea of power is the group of Giants, commonly identified in Hercules and Caco. Hercules represents the manly Greek ideal, the man who overcomes all obstacles thanks to his courage, and assumes a symbol of good while the foreman Caco is an expression of evil. The clash between the two takes place on the hills of Rome with Hercules who eventually kills the evil colossus. Also fascinating is the statue of the turtle with a woman with wings in her hand directly recalling an engraving of the Hypnerotomachia Polyphili and representing the contrast between the wings that refer to the spiritual elevation while the turtle "slow, dark, bulging would then symbolize an involutionary movement, a regress to incarnation" (Jean Chevalier-Alain Gheerbrant, Dictionary of Symbols, Rcs Books, Milan, 1986). Exceptional is the "leaning house", oblique construction built on an inclined boulder, which physically materializes the disorientation that the statues of the monsters generate psychologically in the regard. Those who enter the building, in fact, feel a strong sense of vertigo and bewilderment. The inclination of the house would refer to man's unethical propensity for vice. Image-symbol of the park is the building whose main entrance consists of the mouth of a huge ogre. In the midst of so much eccentricity, the classic temple from which Polyphilus is believed to have started is marked by his composure and harmony. With an octagonal dome, the structure has an avant-body, a pronao with tuscan columns topped by a pediment interrupted by an all-sixth arch, preceded by a low double-ramp staircase. Some scholars wanted to see in the temple a work of the great sixteenth-century architect Jacopo Barozzi called the Vignola but the intervention in the construction of the park of Bomarzo of the author of Villa Farnese in Caprarola, of Villa Giulia and of the Church of Jesus in Rome is controversial and still uncertain. 

Moving a few kilometers from Bomarzo you can admire the Marmore waterfall near Terni. It is the highest rapid in Europe thanks to its 165 meters in altitude divided into three jumps. It is a controlled flow waterfall due to the will of the Roman consul M. Curio Dentato. The work allows the waters of the Velino to flow into the Nera river through the canal called Cava Curiana. Over the centuries, many architects have intervened to make the jet of water more fluid by erecting new canals. Among them we must remember Antonio da Sangallo the young, who built the Cava Paolina canal. The genius of Antonio da Sangallo is also responsible for important works in Rome: the Palazzo Farnese (completed by Michelangelo) and a project for the basilica of San Pietro, abandoned by Michelangelo called to direct the works of the factory on the death of the Florentine architect. A legend is connected to the rapids according to which the shepherd Velino, who fell in love with the Black nymph who bathed in the waters below and unrequited by her, would have launched himself from a cliff to join his beloved for eternity. For the city of Terni the waterfalls are of fundamental importance due to the production of hydroelectric energy necessary for the city's industries.