Parco dei Mostri

Park of the Monsters (Parco dei Mostri in Italian), also named Garden of Bomarzo, is a Renaissance monumental complex in Bomarzo, in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, Italy. The gardens were created during the Fifteen Hundreds. They are composed of a wooded park, at the bottom of a valley where the Orsini castle was erected and populated by sculptures and small buildings scattered among natural vegetation.

The park's name stems from the many larger-than-life sculptures, some sculpted in the bedrock, which populate this predominantly barren landscape. It is the work of Pier Francesco Orsini, called Vicino (1528?1588), a condottiero and patron of the arts, greatly devoted to his wife Giulia Farnese; when she died, he created the gardens. The design was attributed to Pirro Ligorio. During the 19th century and deep into the 20th the garden was overgrown and neglected, but in the 1970s it was restored by the Bettini family. Today the garden, reamaining private property, is a major tourist attraction.

The park of Bomarzo was intended to astonish, and like Mannerist works of art, its symbolism is arcane: examples are a large sculpture of one of Hannibal's war elephants, which mangles a Roman legionary, or the statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of verdure perched on her head. The many monstrous statues appear to be unconnected to any rational plan and appear to have been strewn randomly about, sol per sfogare il Core ("just to set the heart free") as one inscription in the obelisks says. Allusive verses in Italian by Annibal Caro (the first one is of him, in 1564), Bitussi and Cristofaro Madruzzo, some of them now eroded, were inscribed besides sculptures. The reason for the layout and design of the garden is largely unknown: perhaps they were meant as a foil to the perfect symmetry of the great Renaissance gardens at Villa Farnese and Villa Lante. Next to a formal exedra is a tilting watchtower casina, Casa Storta (Twisted House).

• The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi rione in Rome, Italy. Standing 26 metres (85.3?feet) high and 20 metres (65.6?feet) wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. The fountain at the junction of three roads (tre vie) marks the terminal point[3] of the "modern" Acqua Vergine, the revived Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 13?km (8.1?mi) from the city. (This scene is presented on the present fountain's fa?ade.) However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22?km (14?mi). This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years.[4] The coup de gr?ce for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer. The Roman custom of building a handsome fountain at the endpoint of an aqueduct that brought water to Rome was revived in the 15th century, with the Renaissance. In 1453, Pope Nicholas V finished mending the Acqua Vergine aqueduct and built a simple basin, designed by the humanist architect Leon Battista Alberti, to herald the water's arrival. In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding the earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sketch possible renovations, but when the Pope died, the project was abandoned. Though Bernini's project was torn down for Salvi's fountain, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it was built. An early, striking and influential model by Pietro da Cortona, preserved in the Albertina, Vienna, also exists, as do various early 18th century sketches, most unsigned, as well as a project attributed to Nicola Michetti[6] one attributed to Ferdinando Fuga[7] and a French design by Edme Bouchardon. Competitions had become the rage during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains, and even the Spanish Steps. In 1730 Pope Clement XII organized a contest in which Nicola Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei?? but due to the outcry in Rome over the fact that a Florentine won, Salvi was awarded the commission anyway.[9] Work began in 1732, and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Clement's death, when Pietro Bracci's Oceanus (god of all water) was set in the central niche. Salvi died in 1751, with his work half-finished, but before he went he made sure a stubborn barber's unsightly sign would not spoil the ensemble, hiding it behind a sculpted vase, called by Romans the asso di coppe, the "Ace of Cups". The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and "Trivia", the Roman virgin. The backdrop for the fountain is the Palazzo Poli, given a new facade with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters that link the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the gigantic scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork, and filling the small square. Tritons guide Oceanus' shell chariot, taming hippocamps. In the centre a robustly-modelled triumphal arch is superimposed on the palazzo fa?ade. The centre niche or exedra framing Oceanus has free-standing columns for maximal light and shade. In the niches flanking Oceanus, Abundance spills water from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks. Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts. The tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses (by 1730, rococo was already in full bloom in France and Germany). A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome.[10] Among those who are unaware that the "three coins" of Three Coins in the Fountain were thrown by three different individuals, a reported current interpretation is that two coins will lead to a new romance and three will ensure either a marriage or divorce. Another reported version of this legend is that it is lucky to throw three coins with one's right hand over one's left shoulder into the Trevi Fountain. An estimated 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day.[11] The money has been used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy.[11] However, there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain The Trevi fountain is featured in Respighi's symphonic pictures Fontane di Roma, and was the setting for an iconic scene in Federico Fellini's film La dolce vita starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni. The fountain was turned off and draped in black in honor of Mastroianni after the actor's death in 1996. The fountain is used for some scenes in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Part of the fountain is replicated at the Italy Pavilion at Epcot in Walt Disney World, USA.

The surreal nature of Parco dei Mostri appealed to Jean Cocteau and Surrealist Salvador Dali. Poet Andr? Pleyre de Mandlargues wrote an essay devoted to Bomarzo. Niki de Saint Phalle was inspired by Bomarzo for her Tarot Garden. The story behind Bomarzo and the life of Pier Francesco Orsini are the subject of a novel by the Argentinian writer Manuel Mujica L?inez (1910?1984), Bomarzo (1962). Mujica L?inez himself wrote a libretto based on his novel, which was set to music by Alberto Ginastera (1967). The opera Bomarzo premiered in Washington in 1967. In Argentina the opera was banned by the military dictatorship. The Dutch magic-surrealist painter Carel Willink used several of the park's statue groups in his paintings, e.g. The Eternal Cry and Balance of Forces.