Il Bosco della Ragnaia

Il Bosco della Ragnaia - San Giovanni d'Asso

I discovered this place many years ago, almost by chance, with my Guide. Since then I am been visiting it a few times, each time with a different mood and and searching for different things. Yes because it is not a place you just go to to see something: it's a magical, mystical place that triggers a journey into yourself, a great place to go to look for answers or, if you don't have questions to answer, to search for some.

Let's proceed in order. It's hard to define it: it's not a garden, it is not a park, it's not a raw forest. It's all of these words plus more. It is the result of more than 15 years of creativity of the american artist Sheppard Craige. It is made of two main parts: the first and more ancient is into an old forest with very tall trees, the second instead unfolds in a open valley in which the artist has been free to design the landscape and plant trees at his will. The contemporary work of art is an "ongoing prject", in continuous evolution and without a defined project. It is open any day from sun raise to sun set (unless closed for major work in progress or major issues) and entrance is free. 

By the entrance a sign explains the simple rules of the place, with the last being the most important and characteristic: "Each free interpretation of the Forest is hoped for. Audacity always."

In fact the artist does not provide any explicit or implicit meaning, but provides uncountable stimulations so you are supposed give your own interpretation, emotions, get answers or raise new questions.

The best times to visit natural places is early in the morning or, as second option, late in the evening, an this location is not exception. I never managed to meet other visitors during my visits and this is the best experience you can have. In fact it is pretty much a secret place ti visit, not popular at all, and this makes the experience really unique, as described below.

After the entrance you are welcomed by a path that gives the false impression to enter an "Italian Garden", with an interesting collection of terracotta pots, that already are pre-announcing you are accessing something unconventional and that you should expect more "odd things" to come.

Here on the right you can see a slideshow representing some of these pots. 


The path brings you not at a villa but in the beginning of the "upper forest". Like an overture of an opera, the forest is opening to you and you are surprised by some human artifacts, some of which you can understand the possible use, like a stone table or, better, an altar; some other instead are quite odd, like a set of white pillars, and your fantasy and curiosity is engaged.


As you carefully proceed choosing different path options, suddenly the "lower forest" reveals to you with a breathtaking overview over the ancient part of Bosco della Ragnaia: it is waiting for you something like 20 meters (70 feet) below. You probably want to keep looking for a bit from this position, before taking the stairs (holding at the handrail, as it is one of the rules of the Forest) that brings you down to it.

As you look around from above and from below, you will spot a number of human artifacts that will trigger your attention and curiosity for the different shapes, styles and contrasting emotions they trigger. hat would be the purpose? You are engaged and intrigued into an exploration of the area, that will result in an exploration inside yourself while trying to give a sense of what you see.

As you descend, not only your attention is attracted by these "artificial" details, but also the nature is strong and there is a race about what is more emotional between the human made handworks or the Nature.

Due to the very tall trees, you are descending in a darker and colder part of the forest, where the green is very intense and kind of attracts you to get closer, step after step into the lower forest.

The sound is charming: the birds and other forest animals that are always present are very loud here, and there are a few water fountains and waterfalls that can be heard too providing a constant background whispering. Moss is covering most of the human artifacts and you have the clear sensation of entering a magical place.

If you are lucky as I am been, you will not meet any other human being and you will have the clear feeling the Nature is opening in front of you and closing just after you. Once you keep quiet (by the way, it's another rule of the place), make sure no cell-phone rings and are dressed with not too contrasting colors, you may melt into this Nature and have the possibility to see and feel many animals that have elected their home in this peaceful and magical place. I found, among many birds, the nice hoopoe, and once in the late afternoon I had close encounters with a group of roe deers.

Another intriguing fact is that, each time I visited, and I visited in different parts of the day, I always find signs of work in progress: tools, wheelbarrow, structures, water hose... but I never find any worker at work! Letting the imagination run, it feels like somebody was at work until a few minutes before and just fled away as I approached, like if they were hobbits or gnomes and cannot be seen, and they were obviously hidden watching each single move I did. So better I did behave!


When completing exploring the lower forest, that can take you from 30 minutes to an hour depending on how much you are meditating, you will reach the limit of the forest wondering if there is more. And yes there is... once crossing the limit of the forest and just when you don't expect any more suddenly you are hit by a wide valley that, at a fist glance, looks odd: there is an order - not order that feels much unnatural, yet not typical human logic made.

Welcome on the most recent part of this modern work of contemporary art. The first time I visited it, about 6 years ago, this part was just being planted. In my most recent visit instead it is much grown up, not just because of the trees are taller and consolidated, but also in term of human artifacts and messages spread everywhere, both in written and unwritten forms.


Usually most people prefer one or the other part, the older or the new. In the older the Nature voice is stronger than the whisper of the artist artist. In the new, the other way around as the artist has modeled the nature and his stimulations are stronger and more dense.

Visiting the modern part can take you another half of hour or one hour, or more if you are captured by the many many messages the author is sending you, and if you want to get your own meaning. The area is wider than the ancient part and there is more to walk and to climb trough the valley and hills: the pictures I took are covering only part of it.


Once you have finished with your exploration and you are ready to exit from this magical place, the path leads you back from the ancient part and then back to the entrance or parking lot, trough the same path you have been trough one or two hours ago.


When walking trough this path before, into the dark of the forest, it was transferring a sense of mystery and curiosity, preparing your senses to something special. Making it the other direction, toward the light, give instead a sense of peace and calm, because all that was experienced, because you are walking back to the known world but hopefully with new ideas and maybe with new questions.

Most likely on your way out you will be thinking how this experience changed you. Try to remember this feeling, as most likely it will help you to concretize the good insight inspired by being in this place. And, believe be, if you come back other times, you will have more and new inspirations, since the Bosco della Ragnaia is a real artistic masterpiece, the kind of art that can be confused with magic. Each time it will be different, because year after year new pieces are added, but also because you are changing and so your relation with the messages that will hit you each time in a new way.

To probe further:

• Official web site of "Il Bosco della Ragnaia"
• Photographer Laurent Kalfala shots
• thinkinGardens UK magazine article, by Roy Stuart

All pictures of this post are original and © 2012 by Ascanio Orlandini