Orcus, Orcus, Orcus…these were the hushed words old-school D&D types used to whisper to each other as a prank, hoping the dungeon master didn’t hear because you could potentially be facing the Demon Lord coming after you! As an aside, in the last few years, I began playing a D&D campaign again after nearly 2 decades. 1st/2nd edition hybrid for those who know. And we just beat Orcus! Err, but thankfully, the Lord of Undeath never came after this 45-year-old nerd in the real world, so I thought I might force the confrontation, travelling to Gardens of Bomarzo (also known as the Parko di Monstri or Park of Monsters) in Lazio, Italy so I could encounter the Boca di Orco (the mouth of hell) myself.
If I were to have a bucket list, it is to visit those artifacts and places that creators past meant to inspire wonder. Sometimes such things are easily accessible, but more often than not, these things don’t reside in a museum, but rather in open-air gardens like Bomarzo, or in complexes like Angkor Wat or Buddha Park (both of which I have yet to visit). Certainly, there are many other kinds of art that I appreciate, but I love these kinds of creations because they affect an earnest spectacle meant to uncynically remove the viewer from the commonplace of modern life and expose them to a higher plane of magical reality. In order to elucidate what I mean by an uncynical work of spectacle, I would juxtapose these works with places like Disneyland or one of the Catholic Churches in Rome, both of which are quite worthy of enjoyment, but who share a demonstrable, often tangential, purpose beyond simply inspiring awe.
The story behind the Gardens is quite romantic in every meaning of that word. They were originally constructed at the behest of one Count Orsini on lands below where his castle (still) stands. Orsini’s wife, who passed away at a young age, loved the fantastical, so he had the Gardens built in tribute to her, with her mausoleum becoming one of the constructed features on what became her final resting place (this temple-tomb is now where those who restored the place are interred). The Garden grounds are filled with a wide variety of Mannerist sculptures hewn from local stone (a signature element of that art style). They include depictions of Hannibal on elephant back, a Pegasus, Hercules defeating Cacus, Proteus, Cerebus, medusae, a leaning tower that one can walk through, and the Orcus, the mouth of hell.
In the years since it was first created, some of the sculptures have become quite worn or worse in the open air, but this has diminished neither their majesty nor the spell they cast in conjunction with the park’s sylvan beauty. On the day I visited, the air was cool, the grounds were lush and vibrant with growth, the many tree groves cast grand shadows, and bubbling sounds of running streams combined readily with the twitters of the song birds whose circles in the sky formed ephemeral halos. The looming presence of the Castle in the hills above could be seen clearly from the open-air portions of the park, giving me the feeling of a beneficent ruler watching over us visitors as we pursued its glorious enterprise.
As gorgeous as it is, by the 20th Century, the Garden had stood abandoned and had fallen into disrepair, the Orsini clan having long been out of power. But enchanting places have a hard time being forgotten, and a wave of artists like Cocteau and Dali rediscovered it, falling in love with its majesty and making it famous via odes, art, and production. Their interest led to the complex being refurbished to stand as the historical site it is today. As it is Mannerist, some of the pieces have been worn away by time, but what could be restored has been.
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My second book will feature this garden, and I will not go on any further on that. What I will claim is that I found the Orcus to be the star of the show. You can actually walk into it and sit on the bench inside. Across its outer lips the phrase, “OGNI PENSIERO VOLA” or “All Thoughts Fly” has been etched into the stone, a poetic nod to the cave’s capacity to amplify one’s speech. It’s a perfect slogan for the entire garden, and I am truly grateful I had a chance to grace its sublimity, if you get a chance, do check the place out.
