Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Italian Gardens - Sacro Bosco

It's the end of February and there's not much in the way of gardening to do here in Canada. So, I watch my favourite gardening shows. They give me my gardening fix, ideas and dreams of gardens I want to visit.

"Monty Don's Italian Gardens" is one show that fuels my dreams. Monty focusses on Renaissance gardens in Italy in this four part series. The key to gardens of this style were symmetry and harmony.

There is one garden, however, which does not follow the path of Renaissance symmetry - 'Sacro Bosco', or 'Sacred Wood',  in the Villa Orsini of Bomarzo. It contains fantastic, gigantic mythological sculptures, carved from the rock, found in the garden. It was designed by the then famous architect, Pirro Ligorio, for Prince Pier Francesco Orsini (1523-1585).

You can watch this episode here (fast forward to time of 35:10):



You can see all the episodes at the TVO website.

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