Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture. Vol. LX, 2016 Print ISSN 2285-5653, CD-ROM ISSN 2285-5661, Online ISSN 2286-1580, ISSN-L 2285-5653 EARLY MODERN GARDEN DESIGN ILLUSIONS AND DECEPTIONS. TWO DIFFERENT QUESTS FOR PARADISE - VILLA LANTE AT BAGNAIA AND VILLA ORSINI AT BOMARZO Alexandru MEXI1 1"Vasile Goldiş" Western University of Arad, 94-96 Revoluţiei Avenue, Arad, Romania Corresponding author email: [email protected] Abstract Considered some of the most fascinating examples of Mannerist gardens in Italy, Villa Lante at Bagnaia and Villa Orsini at Bomarzo, were conceived in the late 16th century as a kind of landscape and architectural expressions of the Man's quest for the Lost Paradise. Although they were designed roughly in the same period of time, they differ completely in almost every sence, but, in the same time, they complete each other in many ways. The following paper aims to compare the architectural layouts, planting designs and allegorical programmes of both gardens as to emphasize the way Paradise was seen in the late 16th century in Western Europe and to show two different landscape design mechanisms that try to mimic the quest for the (re)descovery of Eden. Key words: Paradise, garden philosophy, Mannerist, 16th century, Villa Lante, Bomarzo INTRODUCTION and animals provide food and medicine. They also reflect human traits, virtues and beliefs If we can consider the garden to be an image – and therefore serve as symbols – heraldic, a figure, then, walking through the garden, moral, philosophical and religious. At the through its paths may often be a real process same time, the visible world correspondes with of allegories - a process of figuration and most the divinely cosmos – the microcosmo reflects of all, especially in the Late Reneissance – a the macrocosm. To know this world is quest for finding God. Perhaps the most therefore to know God. " (Lazzaro, 1990) representative examples of this figurative process of some of the ideas the garden is MATERIALS AND METHODS trying to convey are the famous Italian Mannerist gardens of the sixteenth century; In order to understand the process of figuration and out of these, two stand out - they both and the quest to find the Lost Paradise that the complement but also cancel each other; they two gardens promise, one must first closely intertwine, but are fundamentally different, observe all of the components of Villa Lante they revolve around almost identical ideas and and of Villa Orsini. To this end, the following symbols, but convey different messages (apud. chapter aims to focus on reorganizing the Lazzaro, 1980). The two gardens, Villa Lante gardens’ elements in order to recompose the from Bagnaia and Villa Orsini or Sacro Bosco allegorical messages they intended to express from Bomarzo, build both on their own and when they were built. together a universe translated into a microcosm of symbols, alchemical allegories Villa Lante and the Retrieval of Paradise and meta-linguistic messages – they tackle the Villa Lante is probably the most interesting theme of Man’s return in Paradise but offer landscaping complex of the sixteenth century distinct solutions and variants: in Italy; it amazes through the architectural "The Renaissance Universe is hierarchical, structure adopted in the garden, the use of with God at the summit, human beeings in the slopes, water, by joining a Hortus Conclusus center, nature below, and each part related to with a bosco etc. But the most spectacular part the other. The natural world was perceived in of this villa is precisely the philosophical story terms of its usefulness for human needs: plants 247 it is trying to share through the arts, enclosing sacred places, and indeed the very architecture and natural elements. concept of the enclosure had been deeply The landscaping complex brings together two rooted in the vocabulary of the garden ever complementary compositions – the since the medieval term Hortus Conclusus mathematical garden or the tamed nature and identified its special character. Enclosing even the bosco or the wild nature – "Nature, the a small bed with a fence or even just a small very embodiment of ultimate divinity, was border was a means of making it sacred, so terrifying not only in its absolute power but that its symbolic value took priority over any also in its lack of content. Only mankind, the practical purpose" (Vercelloni and Vercelloni, political animal, intended something" (Scully, 2009). 1991). If the landscaping mathematics The fountain has therefore a double role - suggests divine reason and talks about a invites the visitor to enter the garden, but also Heaven created by a mathematical God (Deus represents a hyphen which both separates and geometer) then the bosco or the forest links the wild garden with the rational one. represents the original chaos, the Fall and also Leaving the fountain of Pegasus behind, in the antithesis of Paradise. front of the visitor’s eyes appears the forest The garden uses artistic metaphors and takes (symbol of the unconscious and of anti-reason, the visitors on an allegorical route that chaos) from which point he can choose many includes the main historical stages or key paths, each sending him to a new adventure moments of the human life on its continuous and a new discovery. Among the most path to absolute reason, to finding Paradise significant such points of the bosco one might again – to illumination. This figural process remember a few elements such as: Il Barco, starts from the chaos of the forest and ends in the maze, the beaver’s fountain, the "geometry and perspective", but at the same mascarons’ fountain, the lions’ fountain, the time, it goes through several "checkpoints" fountain of Bacchus etc. that define the human condition from its Il Barco. Il Barco is actually a hunting annex appearance on earth until it reaches the built by Cardinal Ottaviano Riario Visconti, supreme goal – reaching illumination or grandson of the original owner of the complex, finding the lost Eden. the Cardinal Raffaele Sansoni Riario To be more exact, the route begins through a (Ehrenfried, 2007). The latter was the one who secondary gate and not at the primary (as one in 1498 closed the entire perimeter of Villa might think) that brings visitors face to face Lante with walls, making it a hunting park. with the fountain of the mythical Pegasus. The The building, which still bears the symbols of image, through the legend that revolves around Cardinal Ottaviano Riario Visconti (a snake this sacred animal (Chevalier and Gheerbrant, coiled around a flower), was used as a hunting 1995), suggests the fact that this place is the pavilion and later was incorporated into the origin of all things and of the adventure that bosco's structure aims to obtain the ultimate divine illumination. (https://villalante.wordpress.com/il-barco/). The place where the winged horse’s hoof hits The lions’ fountain. The Lions’ fountain the ground becomes the starting and the represents a statuary set, hidden deep in the inspiration point that will help man find the woods, and it is made up of a circular dip in realm of reason – the mathematical Heaven! stone with 4 symmetrically displayed lions (Don, 2008). with water flowing out of their mouths. There Located at the entrance of the complex, the is no known accurate information on the origin fountain of Pegasus can be found right next to and/or its significance, but this element is the very landscaping expression of Heaven – present even in the sixteenth century famous the mathematic garden; but the visitor is not plan of Villa Lante. allowed to get directly to it and neither does he (https://villalante.wordpress.com/il-barco/). know this garden exist. This garden takes the The mascarons’ fountain. The mascarons’ form of a Hortus Conclusus and a Garden of fountain is also hidden deep in the woods, and, paradise at the same time – "Originally, fences just as in the Lions’ fountain, there is not much were a practical land symbolical necessity for information on its origin or meaning. 248 Moreover, in the centre of the rectangular series of successive spaces, isolated from each basin that surrounds it, one can find an almost other physically and visually. They could only identical fountain with that on the right of the be experienced through movement, and the Diluvial Fountain on the upper terrace of the relationship between spectator and garden geometric garden became active rather than passive. " (https://villalante.wordpress.com/il-barco/). (Graafland, 2003 quoting MacDougall, ***) These parallels between the two distinct microcosms (the forest harden and the The water, which must be followed closely, mathematic garden) seem to realize stems from the so-called "Fountain of the connections between them, joining the two Diluvial" (Iliescu, 2014). It symbolizes the separate parts of the villa both physically and biblical flood that cleansed the world of symbolically, making them indissoluble. "impurities" and that provides through Beaver’s Fountain. This fountain also follows purification the chance of a new order of life. the same pattern, as it is not yet described in This allegorical fountain separates therefore any of the researched documents. Perhaps it the garden of knowledge from the infamous also aims to highlight the natural wilderness bosco. It is composed of three major elements, and it contributes to shaping that image and each creating a new image and outlining a new atmosphere of chaos. symbol that completes the allegories of this The Labyrinth. Unlike the other elements ensemble. The fountain leads the way to mentioned above, this one no longer exists thinking and reason, representing in the today. Given the fact that the symbolic philosophical semantics of the garden, the significance of the maze is made up of a "archaic harmony between man and nature" search process, it is perfectly plausible for this (http://www.lazio.dk/villa_lante_di_bagnaia.ht part of the garden to be located in the bosco m) – the relationship of interdependence and just to emphasize the chaos and incessant mutual respect between a rational being and search of the individual for a higher world.