Voyages to the House of Diversion 
Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Science



Sunday September 20th. Pitigliano



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The site of the garden viewed from the Palazzo Orsini looking north


After a full week’s work and then a little more, Sunday was not quite a day of rest, after breakfast everyone (in three cars) headed off to Pitigliano which lies around 40 kilometres north west of Montefascione. The purpose of this excursion was to visit the rather neglected site of another Orsino family garden on a ridge to the north east of the town. We parked behind the bus station then hiked up the hill to the dilapidated and overgrown Parco degli Orsini. A few picnic benches were scattered about in a scrubby patch of woodland bounded on the north by a partly collapsed fence. In order to access the period features we had to step over the remains of the fence and slip down into a dizzyingly steep ravine. The whole thing was heavily wooded and at first it appeared that there was nothing to be seen but after a little scrambling around we began to spot a series of sheltered rock cut benches connected with stone steps and partially collapsed terraced walkways. By this time the others had joined us and it was clear that there would never be options for examining the monuments in any detail by drone. Any kind of survey would have been immensely challenging so we contented ourselves with photographing the main monuments.


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There's a signpost, this must be the way.     The first monument a seat in a carved recess with a low curving wall in front of it, looking west.





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More or less immediately below a second seat carved in a niche with side window, looking west, and just round the corner another bench looking east




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A carved remnant of a female figure... other interpretations are available, looking north west plus two intrepid explorers (Ask Michael about his ravine experience).




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A further carved stone, possibly a seat, we're moving along the face of the hill heading east, and a seat allegedly poised between the legs of a giant, there's an early photograph where it looks quite convincing.




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Verna poised on top of an ancient wall, quite a lot criss cross the slopes, looking south and a final set of seats up on the brow of the ridge looking north east.




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Cut stone faces near the present entry to the park looking north east.


This occupied the morning and was a salutary experience in terms of experiencing a Renaissance garden which had truly been neglected for nearly 500 years. Heading back down then up into town we were suitably impressed by the aqueduct which the Orsini family had commissioned to bring water into town along a bridge which spanned the former rock cut defensive ditch which cut the town off from the ridge to the east. Just inside the gate we stopped at a Pizzeria with some of the slowest service in Italy.  Further up into the town was a public fountain at the end of the aqueduct which was framed by an attractive set of arches and expressed water through three different sets of nozzles from three different periods, the original lion leaking water between his paws was best. The Palazzo Orsini dominated the entrance to the town and the whole complex was wide open to the public. We took in the archaeology museum first, a modern and attractively designed facility with useful labeling in Italian and English. The state apartments of the palazzo were open separately as the diocesan museum filling up a rather attractive building with a lot of unremarkable religious art and artefacts. The only highlight was a sixteenth century portrait of Niccolo Orsini who bore an uncanny resemblance to Lindsay! It was all a little dry so an ice cream in a gellateria on the other side of the square was very welcome. We finished our visit with stroll through the town, very attractive in a medieval kind of way, we ended up at a small modern facility which show cased some rock cut Etruscan remains intermingled with medieval and later wine cellars.
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Still a sucker for Renaissance fortifications, two bastions at either end of the wall that isolates the town on its peninsula: the north bastion looking south west and the south bastion looking north east.




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The enormously impressive aqueduct built in 1545 by Gian Francesco Orsini to bring water to the town, view looking west.




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And at the end of it all the public fountain with fountain heads of a least three different periods lining up, views looking south and south west.








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The Palazzo Orsini converted from a thirteenth century fortress by the architect Giuliano  de Sangallo, entrance looking east and well head in the central courtyard.




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Rock cut features in a small open air museum ranging from Etruscan to nineteenth century. 

 

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And here's how to find the garden remains. They're to the north of the town and are marked on this tourist map as the Parco di Poggio Strozzoni or Strangler's Hill Park... hmm.
My ancient Blue Guide describes the place thus: 'Outside the town on the road to Sorano is a gateway which forms the entry to Poggio Sterzoni once a famous park created by Niccolo IV Orsini in the 16C. The carved statues, steps and niches exploit the natural rock formations of the site. It is here that Count Orso Orsini strangled his wife Isabella degli Atti in 1575'. Well that explains it then.




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