Italian Renaissance sculpture Research Papers (original) (raw)

Nel cuore di tufo': vernacular architecture and the genius loci of Bomarzo katherine coty Rarely are the characteristics of a people and the region they live in so intimately linked as they are in Tuscia. In the silence, nestled between the copper-colored walls of the forre (almost like churches excavated from tufo, whose vault is the sky), there resonates an arcane but unmistakably present air of subtle enchantment. The landscape, the rocks, the trees, the air itself, are impregnated with it. 1 In his article inaugurating the issue of the Quaderni dell'Istituto di Storia dell'Architettura (1955) devoted to the Sacro Bosco, Arnaldo Bruschi suggested that this enigmatic garden was an extension or distillation of the bewitching atmosphere of the surrounding region, a strange but ultimately natural product of the otherworldly landscape around Bomarzo. While Bruschi's discussion sometimes veers into florid, lyrical passages, his reading rings true with anyone who passes through Tuscia and the Monti Cimini on their way to Vicino Orsini's bosco of marvels. The region thrums with a powerful and pervasive genius loci, of which the Sacro Bosco seems a condensed expression. Bruschi did not shy away from sharing his subjective and even poetic experience of the place that we are often cautioned against in the world of professional scholarship. 2 This reliance on personal and scholarly intuition, however, seems fully appropriate in the discussion of the Sacro Bosco, as the garden traffics in a currency of wonder to elicit atypical responses from its visitors. Rivers of ink have been spilled situating this site within the context of Renaissance literature, antiquarianism, or fascination with monstrosity; yet, as the field of Bomarziana expands, we might still feel compelled to follow Bruschi's lead and probe further into the relationship between the Sacro Bosco and its surroundings. It is with this methodological license allowing me to draw on the subjective experience of the site and its genius loci that I turn to a closer examination of Vicino's garden. My particular focus in this article is the role that tufo-the pumice-like volcanic rock from which the bosco's figures are sculpted-plays in the vernacular culture of Tuscia, which allows me to frame the garden within the discourse of local identity. Geography and geology of Tuscia Key to demonstrating how designed landscapes of sixteenth-century Tuscia engaged in dialogue with their surroundings, the idea of the genius loci is also necessary for explaining how this region differs from the rest of Lazio, Tuscany, and Umbria. For our purposes, Tuscia can be defined as an ovalshaped area bounded on the eastern side by the Tiber river and the Tyrrhenian coast on the west, which borders on Sovana, Aquapendente, and Orvieto to the north, with Lake Bracciano and Veii forming its southernmost reaches. Drawing on the description of Tuscia by Claudio Margottini, Laura Melelli, and Daniele Spizzichino as a cultural landscape 'where human modifications contrast with and overlap the natural landforms', 3 these boundaries largely coincide with the area of the distribution of tufo, which enabled the local tradition of rock-cut architecture peculiar to this part of central Italy. Tuscia is almost entirely comprised of three volcanic districts: the Monti Volsini that encircle Lake Bolsena, the Vico-Cimino complex (which includes Lake Vico and the Monti Cimini), and the Monti Sabatini surrounding Lake Bracciano. 4 Active during the Pleistocene era, these volcanic