Turtle - Parco dei Mostri - Bomarzo, Italy - DSC02467

The garden was created in the 16th century. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio and the sculptures to Simone Moschino. Located in the lower part of the wooded valley below the Orsini Castle, it is inhabited by grotesque sculptures and small buildings immersed in natural vegetation. The Bomarzo Park was not designed to please, but to amaze, and like many works of Mannerist art, its symbolism is enigmatic: examples include the large sculpture of one of Hannibal's fighting elephants maiming a Roman legionary, or the statue of Ceres sprawled on the bare ground with a vase of greenery on her head. Many of the monstrous statues seem to have had no rational plan and seem to have been scattered almost haphazardly, sol per sfogare il Core ("only to free the heart"), as an inscription on an obelisk reads.

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