What is Bomarzo known for?

Vicino Orsini's 16th-century stone-monster garden, attributed to Pirro Ligorio, built in mourning for Giulia Farnese. The condottiero family who held Bomarzo from the medieval period and built both the Palazzo above and the garden below. Hazelnut growing area surrounding the village; Bomarzo is a member of the Città della Nocciola network.

Bomarzo is a comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio region of Italy, about 50 kilometers from Terni.

Lazio · Viterbo

Bomarzo

The Tuscia village below the Sacro Bosco, the 16th-century stone-monster garden built by a grieving condottiero for his dead wife.

50 km / 31 mi

Nearest hub (Terni)

1,674

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Bomarzo sits on a lava spur of the Monti Cimini, fifteen kilometers east of Viterbo, on the wooded edge of the Tuscia. The town itself is small and medieval, dominated by the Palazzo Orsini above it. The reason to come is in the wooded valley below: the Sacro Bosco, also called the Parco dei Mostri, a Mannerist sculpture garden commissioned by Pier Francesco Orsini, called Vicino, between 1547 and his death in 1588. The design is attributed to Pirro Ligorio and the sculptures to Simone Moschino. Vicino built it after the death of his wife Giulia Farnese, and the inscriptions across the rocks make clear that the garden was meant to astonish rather than please: a leaning house, a giant tearing a man in two, an ogre's mouth carved into the bedrock with a stone bench inside it as a tongue. The garden was abandoned for centuries; Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau visited in the 20th century. The Bettini family restored it in the 1950s.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Bomarzo fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip

Gallery

10 photos · scroll →

Known for

Sacro Bosco (Parco dei Mostri)
Mannerist sculpture park commissioned by Vicino Orsini between 1547 and 1588, with stone giants, an ogre's mouth, and a leaning house.
Palazzo Orsini
Renaissance residence of the Orsini family above the village, built into the medieval rocca, partly used as a school and museum.
Centro storico
Medieval village on a lava spur, with stepped lanes leading from the lower piazza up to the Palazzo Orsini.
Piramide Etrusca
Pre-Etruscan or Etruscan altar carved into the bedrock in the woods near the village, rediscovered in the 1990s.
Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Parish church in the village center, with a Cosmatesque-style floor and 16th-century frescoes.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through October is when the Sacro Bosco does what it was designed to do: stone monsters rising out of wet, green moss in the wooded valley. May and early June bring the strongest light through the chestnut canopy. July and August are hot in the open parts of the park but cool in the shade. September and October pull thin crowds and the Cimini hills turn rust and gold. November through March, the park stays open but the colors flatten. The Orsini palace above the village is open mostly on weekends in winter. Hazelnut harvest runs in late August and September; the village still smells of it.