“Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus.”
A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.
— Song of Songs, 4:12
The Barco Borghese, on the upper platform of a vast Roman-era terracing, is a place of twofold nature: below, the largest known complex of vaulted substructures — some two hundred chambers; above, a four-hectare esplanade that over the centuries alternated between hunting ground and orchard. It is here that the Pope’s Orchard lives again today.
What a “Barco” is
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the term “Barco” referred to the part of a great suburban villa that was enclosed by a wall and originally reserved for hunting. It was a fashion widespread among the great families: there was the Este Barco below Tivoli, the Medici Royal Barco, the ducal Barco of Ferrara. The enclosure set apart a world of its own, a tamed nature held within precise boundaries.
From the hortus conclusus to the pomarium
To this idea of an enclosed space belongs the tradition of the hortus conclusus, the “enclosed garden” of early-medieval origin which, through monastic mediation, reached the Renaissance garden laden with secular and religious symbolism. As the utilitarian section of the historic garden (viridarium), the pomarium — the orchard — developed, often preserving the enclosed geometric form with a cross-shaped layout and, at its centre, a fountain or the tree of life. The ducal pomarium of Massa and the episcopal one of Bolzano are well-known examples: to this type the Barco’s orchard also belongs.
