The ancient church occupies a site once sacred to the Etruscans. Lake Bolsena was the centre of their cult. The charm of the place lies in its desolate remoteness in the swamps near Lake Bolsena. Until the 1920s malaria was the scourge of the Italy. Often entire communities were decimated because the origins of the […]
Read More Italy hidden treasure to photograph, lake Bolsena, photographic set, photography-workshop, san lorenzo vecchio, St Cristina bolsena, st John Baptist
Just outside Pitigliano lies the Parco Orsini commonly known locally as Stranglers Park, and thereby hangs a tale………… Orso Orsini was a prince of wild ways. Wayward brother of the cultured condottiero Niccolò, he married the beautiful Eleanora degli Atti di Morlupo, whose name was long but her life short. He strangled her in a […]
Read More Bomarzo, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, Orso Orsini, photographic set, photography-workshop, Pitigliano, secret garden, Tuscany, Vicino Orsini
There is an extraordinary atmosphere in the sacred glade so it is no surprise that this has been a sacred place for thousands of years. The Sacred Glade was Christianised, but something of the ancient magic remained: the frescoes that remain in the church are testimony to that. The church was cut into the rock […]
Read More archeo-acoustics, Etruria, etruscan, Ischia di Castro, paganism, phallus, Poggio Conte, shamanism, yoni
“Sunrise glowed red as I climbed along the gorge; when I reached the grove, I saw the altar slab all scattered with brightness, like the harper’s robe. I put down my load, and prayed to Apollo.” Poggio Conte will appear immediately familiar to anyone who has read Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, a novel […]
Read More Etruscan cemetery, Italian hidden treasure, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, Poggio Conte, san colomba, Tuscany
One of the interesting lost sites within an hour of Orvieto we made a Camera Etrusca excursion to the hermitage of Ripatonna. Much of what is now known as northern Latium north of Rome on the borders of Tuscany was until the 1930s a veritable wilderness. Saracen pirates had scourged the area and malaria had […]
Read More etruscan, Italian hidden treasure, Italy, Italy hidden treasure to photograph, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, Ripatonna Cicognina, Tuscany
I have no idea why, but it was my dream as a child to find underground Roman ruins at the bottom of the garden. This dream was to come true when my wife and I moved to Castel Gandolfo in 2002. We rented a flat in the grounds of a villa once owned by Visconti, bought […]
Read More bergantino, Castelgandolfo, diana baths, domitian, goddess diana, Italian hidden treasure, Italy, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, Rome photo workshop
Rome is known as the Eternal City and no city on earth has a comparable wealth of ancient ruins. The tireless documentor of Roman ruins Piranesi (1720-78) made a good living selling his topographical images to visitors on the Grand Tour. But whereas Canaletto used lenses and the camera obscura to ensure that his views […]
Read More Castelgandolfo, emissario, Italian hidden treasure, lake Albano, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, Piranesi
Italy has an extraordinary amount of antiquities that are simply abandoned; no ticket office, no maintenance, no security, just overgrown. Sometimes I come across a place purely by chance, sometimes I have been tipped off by a local, sometimes because I have read about it and have made a search. I will endeavour to post […]
Read More Alban Hills, Diana Temple, Genzano, Golden Bough, Italian hidden treasure, james Frazer, Nemi, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, rome, Rome photo workshop, William Turner