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Digital Bomarzo
Study of a Renaissance Designed Landscape
The Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo, Italy
Pier Francesco “Vicino” Orsini’s 29-acre sculpture park (ca. 1551–85) in Bomarzo, Italy features a wooded hillside populated with a mix of figures, beasts, and architecture. These elements are carved in situ from boulders and outcroppings of tufo stone scattered across the sylvan landscape. It is one of Europe’s earliest examples of a landscape designed to surprise the visitor with sculptures of the monstrous, exotic marvels of the world. In recent years, the park has been the site of an international team’s efforts to gather digital data using laser scanning, photogrammetry, and ground-penetrating RADAR to create an open-access digital model. Clark University professor John Garton (Visual and Performing Arts) leads this international collaboration aimed at preserving the site and stimulating research. He has curated a new exhibition featuring digital mapping, video, and photography arranged to illustrate both the “sacred grove” and the research team’s interdisciplinary study.
In this gallery talk, Garton will address these questions: How can technology make this landscape visible in new ways? How do ways of seeing structure scholarly interpretations? Can new data also inform the recreation of the Sacro Bosco’s now-defunct waterworks? Come experience the graphics and compelling questions emanating from the Digital Bomarzo project.*
Refreshments will be served. Admission is free and open to the public.
This exhibition is sponsored by the Higgins School of Humanities at Clark University and will be on display through May 21, 2023. Hours may vary. Please contact HigginsSchool@clarku.edu for more information.
*Digital Bomarzo is an international collaboration involving John Garton (Clark University), Luke Morgan (Monash University), Cosimo Monteleone (University of Padova), Rachele Bernardello (University of Padova), and Paolo Bordin (University of Brescia). #digitalbomarzo
About the Curator
John Garton is Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Clark University. He has authored Grace & Grandeur: The Portraiture of Paolo Veronese (Brepols/Harvey Miller: Turnhout, Belgium & London, 2008) and co-authored and co-edited New Studies on Old Masters: Essays in Renaissance Art in Honour of Colin Eisler (Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies: Toronto, 2011). He has published numerous scholarly articles on topics ranging from Titian’s portraits, to Leonardo’s siege craft studies, to the symbolism of the sculpture in the Sacro Bosco, Bomarzo, Italy. In fact, Professor Garton is co-author and co-editor of a forthcoming 2-volume book, The Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo: Landscape and Sculpture in Renaissance Lazio, a parallel and complementary endeavor to the Digital Bomarzo project.
