'Nel cuore di tufo': vernacular architecture and the genius loci of Bomarzo PDF

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Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes An International Quarterly ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tgah20 ‘Nel cuore di tufo’: vernacular architecture and the genius loci of Bomarzo Katherine Coty To cite this article: Katherine Coty (2021...

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Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes An International Quarterly

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tgah20

‘Nel cuore di tufo’: vernacular architecture and the genius loci of Bomarzo Katherine Coty To cite this article: Katherine Coty (2021) ‘Nel cuore di tufo’: vernacular architecture and the genius loci of Bomarzo, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 41:2, 124-140, DOI: 10.1080/14601176.2021.1885855 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2021.1885855

Published online: 25 Mar 2021.

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‘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

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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 issn 1460-1176 # 2021 informa uk limited, trading as taylor & francis group vol. 41, no. 2 https://doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2021.1885855

‘nel cuore di tufo’ complexes define the topography of the region with its characteristic rises and depressions, creating calderas and crater lakes as well as tufo cones, ignimbritic plateaus, and lava domes.5 Currently dormant, the oldest volcano in the region is Monte Cimino, and the adjacent Monti Cimini are among the most elevated and densely forested patches of Tuscia.6 This interior zone of foothills to the west of the Tiber valley has been described as a ‘magic triangle’,7 where pristine nature is relatively untouched by human interventions. From this green heart, Tuscia stretches westward to the Tyrrhenian Sea, gradually turning from mesophilous woods of evergreens, oak, chestnut, and beech to macchia mediterranea – the shrubland historically adapted for agriculture or pastorage8 – and finally to the classic Mediterranean coastal landscape with umbrella pines and sandy, salty soil.9 The woodland is arguably the most characteristic feature of Tuscia, as the region was not subjected to deforestation to the same extent as Tuscany, Umbria, and southern Lazio due to its hilly, volcanic landscape, which made large tracts of the region inhospitable and relatively impassable.10 The region’s volcanic past largely defined its geological makeup, with most of the rocks being volcanic in origin. While Tuscia has some sedimentary rocks – including limestones such as travertine and clastic conglomerates like breccia – it is mainly composed of basalt, leucite, pozzolana, and various kinds of tufo, an extrusive stone composed of volcanic ash.11 Easily the most pervasive of these materials, tufo is relatively young in terms of its geological age, making it soft, porous, and weak against erosion, as shown by many crumbling hilltowns built from this material, the best known of which are Calcata and Civita di Bagnoregio perched atop slowly disintegrating mesas (Figures 1 and 2). Tufo comes in different colors, ranging from red and yellow to gray; these different types of stone are well known to the inhabitants of the region, who can differentiate the salt-and-pepper gray of peperino – which comes in two varieties, tipico and delle alture – from the lighter gray of nenfro.12 The volcanic past has made Tuscia a region of contrasts, where rough buttes alternate with densely forested mountains and gullies, creating a landscape of extremes that stands in marked contrast to the surrounding territories. From the steep Monti Cimini to the lunar-looking badlands of the Valle dei Calanchi near Bagnoregio, the Tuscian topography is largely defined by rock formations. Their dips and swells create a network of winding ravines and sharp buttes, which often obscure the horizon in a dizzying juxtaposition

figure 1.

Calcata and surrounding forre. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Ad de Roij.

of exposed and high with narrow and low places. Vegetation grows thick in these gorges – frequently referred to as forre or fossi (Figures 3 and 4) – reducing the natural light that reaches the hiker, who must brave thick brambles and sandy, unstable soils when exploring the forested valleys. In these wooded depths of Tuscia, the horizon is often obscured by the crests of nearby hills, while sightlines rarely extend more than a couple of kilometers. The landscape’s stark contrasts create a sense of topographical illegibility and impenetrability, with disorienting forre that can only be successfully negotiated by those intimately familiar with the local topography. The forre are a lush tangle of vegetation, stone, and water that give the impression of entering an enclosed and isolated canyon. J. B. Ward-Perkins described them as seams running along steep hills, exaggerated through millennia of erosion13; while Christian Norberg-Schulz referred to ‘a kind of “underworld” profoundly different from the everyday surface above’, where one experiences a visceral sense of confinement.14 Yet, surprisingly,

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studies in the history of gardens and designed landscapes: coty

figure 2. Civita di Bagnoregio and the Valle dei Calanchi. Photo: Pixabay, Creative Commons license.

he also found these spaces ‘idyllic’,15 a sentiment echoed by Ersilia Pannucci, who wrote that the forre possess a certain ‘bucolic’ quality, where profound silence is punctuated by the movement of water, the singing of birds, and the chatter of cicadas.16 Moss, lichen, and a variety of climbing plants adorn the winding tufo walls, while the light that filters through the canopy of evergreens, beech, and oak is dappled and moody, casting large patches of shade. The undergrowth is dense, brambly, and chaotic. A cushion of desiccated leaves and twigs blankets the ground, amplifying the visitor’s footfalls. Above the forre, the eye is met with a great and heaving sea of green; but, despite the higher elevation, one can barely see beyond the next tall ridge blocking the distant prospect that would have helped one situate oneself within a larger cohesive landscape. Inhospitable to the outsider, Tuscia is thus a world apart from the nearby regions, with their gently undulating hills and expansive planes. Unlike the broad valleys and long hilltop vistas of Umbria or the Roman campagna with its ‘majestic and controlled rhythm in the articulation of the masses, in

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figure 3.

Fosso Castello, Chia. Photo: Alamy, Alessandro Caputo.

a subordination of the single figures to slowly rising or falling movements’,17 the landscape of Tuscia lacks the visual unity of distant horizon lines or the measured recession of the foreground into the middle- and background. In the words of Norberg-Schulz, the ‘violent contrasts between forms, powerful juxtaposition of mass and space, mountain and valley’ also distinguish Tuscia from the volcanic yet easily legible, ‘classical’ landscape of the Alban Hills, where the eye is treated to a ‘distinct and easily imaginable relationship between masses and spaces’.18

Bomarzo and its environs Bomarzo is situated in the eastern corner of Tuscia on the northern side of the Monti Cimini, its larger environs wedged between foothills and the forre. The historic town clings to the edge of a relatively narrow spur of rock that rises above the woodlands (Figures 5 and 6). To the east lie the Fosso Morello and the forested areas of Cagnemora, Tacchiolo, and Santa Cecilia; while the

‘nel cuore di tufo’

figure 4.

figure 5.

Fosso Castello, Chia. Photo: Katherine Coty.

Bomarzo facing northwest. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, ildirettore.

figure 6.

Bomarzo facing south. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, ildirettore.

western side holds the Sacro Bosco, the Fosso Castagnolo, and the rougher, more densely wooded areas of the Selva di Malano and the Bosco del Serraglio. With the exception of the northernmost tip of the town that overlooks the Tiber valley, where Tuscia begins to cede to Umbria, Bomarzo is surrounded on three sides by rocky heights that contrast with densely wooded depths. The sense of uncertainty and spatial disorientation that one experiences while approaching Bomarzo prepares the visitor for an encounter with the Sacro Bosco, concealed by the tangled sea of vegetation below the town. There are few clues in the topography indicating how to arrive at the destination. While Vicino Orsini, familiar with the lay of the land, could point out the location of the Sacro Bosco from the loggia of his palace, a stranger to the place might miss the park altogether. Without any evidence of the original approach to the site, it is uncertain if there has ever been a single prescribed route connecting the town and the park, with visitors simply having to take Vicino’s word that something wonderous awaited them among the trees and rocks.

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studies in the history of gardens and designed landscapes: coty This lack of topographical legibility stands in marked contrast to other gardens and villas of the Cinquecento that were generally characterized by clear spatial relationships. Visitors to the garden of the Villa Lante in nearby Bagnaia, for example, can easily track their movement from one space to the next, whereas the visitor to the Sacro Bosco is swallowed whole by the forest, unable to discern a clear path to any specific endpoint or even back to town. The winding wooded paths that one had to traverse to reach the Sacro Bosco seem to continue in the interior of the park, building anticipation for the hidden spectacle. Yet, devoid of a clear distinction between the ‘out there’ of the wild, untouched nature and the ‘in here’ of the orderly garden, the Sacro Bosco blends with its surroundings, not only blurring the lines between designed and vernacular landscapes, but also mobilizing the characteristics of the local topography in a way that playfully brings out and enhances the unique spirit of the place. This imaginative dialogue with the surrounding landscape also extends to the enigmatic stone monuments that populate the forests around the garden, making Vicino’s designed bosco part of a whole network of vernacular boschi. The Bosco del Serraglio and the Selva di Malano, as well as Tacchiolo, Cagnemora, and Santa Cecilia, have scattered ancient structures and mysterious monuments carved from the boulders of living tufo (Figures 7 and 8). These markers show unmistakable signs of human workmanship, with many of them shaped into massive, hulking cubes or stepped platforms. While these ancient stone structures that encircle the town as a vast web of necropolises, ruins, and other remnants of past civilizations have no direct replicas in the monsters of the Sacro Bosco, they engage in the same interplay between the manmade and the natural, the sculptural and the organic (what was described in the sixteenth century as the ‘Third Nature’), exciting the viewer’s curiosity with wonder (meraviglia) and confusion. Although some of these monuments – such as the two Sassi del Predicatore, the Altarone, and the Piramide Etrusca – have received apocryphal names from local inhabitants, little is known about their creators, functions, or the original significance. To the uninitiated, these strange forms, like the monsters of the Sacro Bosco, ‘resemble themselves and nothing else’, inviting questions rather that providing answers. Scholars tend to agree that these monuments were carved between the seventh century BCE and the first century CE for ritual

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figure 7.

Sasso del Predicatore. Selva di Malano, Bomarzo. Photo: Katherine Coty.

or commemorative purposes.19 To early modern viewers, however, they looked nothing like the forms typically associated with Roman antiquity and would have seemed to be puzzling, out-of-place artifacts. Lacking inscriptions or other identifying marks, they invite the viewers to invent their own meanings, much as one was presumably expected to do in Vicino’s garden of meraviglie. Divorced from their original function and context, these ancient monuments were effectively rendered mute, only able to mystify and bewilder those who stumbled upon them while trekking through dense and disorienting woodlands.20 Yet there was also certain eeriness in this seeming inexplicability of traces of long-absent people encountered deep in the forre. The garden playfully amplified, but also subtly domesticated, this experience, by blending the spirit of the surrounding countryside with epic or visionary literature like Orlando Furioso and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

‘nel cuore di tufo’

figure 8.

Piramide Etrusca. Tacchiolo, Bomarzo. Photo: Katherine Coty.

Tufo and the vernacular architecture of Tuscia A key component of this imaginative play between the Third Nature and the genius loci was the use of tufo throughout Vicino’s park. While it is generally accepted that the choice of this stone was mainly dictated by its ready availability and consequently low cost, I would go further by arguing that

tufo was a material expression of the site’s regional character. It is also my contention that this attention to the genius loci was integral to the larger discourse regarding local identity, materiality, and landscape that has ultimately defined the image of Tuscia. As a cultural signifier, tufo admittedly strikes a humble and almost homely note. It has a rough, gritty texture and can be found in a variety of subfusc colors ranging from salt-and-pepper gray to muddy ocher. This stone is ubiquitous throughout Tuscia and practically omnipresent in the life of all social strata of the region’s inhabitants. Bomarzo is among many towns and villages that are carved into cliffsides or perched atop great mesas of this rock, clinging to and echoing the organic undulations and sharp, craggy outlines of the local topography (see Figure 1, 2 and 5). Tufo also serves as the region’s main building material, used both as an additive and a subtractive substance, with some structures built aboveground from tufo blocks, while others carved entirely out of the living rock. Stone retrieved by excavating such underground rooms was utilized in both domestic and civic construction projects. Many homes in Tuscia are built out of – or into – masses of tufo and are outfitted with fixtures such as fireplaces and stairs that are made entirely of this material, with their inhabitants spending their entire lives surrounded by it.21 This practice of close cohabitation with tufo presumably went back to the first Etruscan settlements in the region, as exemplified by numerous rock-cut tombs or underground rooms that date to the pre-Roman period. Many hilltowns of Tuscia have several dozen cantine or cubic chambers beneath the living spaces that were hewn from the living rock. Dated as early as 800 BCE, they probably served as storage or burial sites for the region’s Etruscan inhabitants.22 These cantine show evidence of continual use through subsequent centuries, bearing traces of medieval and early modern alterations and becoming integrated into the homes of peasants and nobles alike. Record of their use to store perishable goods goes back to at least the medieval period, with their function as storerooms continuing to the present day. Since such reuse of rock-cut spaces was standard, many Etruscan cave tombs were repurposed as early modern peasant homes or, as they are sometimes still used now, shelters for livestock.23 The tradition of adapting partially underground chambers as dovecotes also began during the Middle Ages, the time when the rock-cut Roman Mithraeum in Sutri was converted into a Christian church. Entire cities like Orvieto and Sovana that perch atop large tufo plateaus conceal a warren of underground tunnels and rooms that link different spaces and

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studies in the history of gardens and designed landscapes: coty serve infrastructural purposes. These historical connections made palpable through the use of tufo not only draw together the past and the present, but also reveal important continuities in the region’s material and artistic practices. As compared to the neighboring regions, Tuscia’s vernacular architecture stands out because of its distinct material and stylistic characteristics. Tufo is hardly unique to Tuscia – it is commonly found throughout southern Lazio and as far as the Bay of Naples – and was extensively used by the Romans, especially in their early civic architecture, as acknowledged by Pliny the Elder in Natural History and Vitruvius in De Architectura.24 Nevertheles...