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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
bergantino, Castelgandolfo, diana baths, domitian, goddess diana, Italian hidden treasure, Italy, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set, Rome photo workshop
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap Each in his narrow cell for ever laid The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard (written in Stoke Poges) The drift from the land from the 1950s onward has left many Italian villages […]
camposanto, cemetery, chianti, gray's elegy, Italian hidden treasure, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set
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 […]
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 […]
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
Late Spring: The Season of Wildflower in Italy. Spring in Italy may have been slow in coming this year, but all that rain means even more wild flowers – especially poppies. Come to Tuscany and Umbria in June and you will see the brightest and most colourful wild flowers anywhere in Europe. Normally poppies last […]
Italian-holidays, photography-workshop, poppies-field, poppies-photos, Tuscany