Abstract of the book
In this book, the author proposes a walking tour as a metaphor of the soul within the Horti of the Popes of the Vatican citadel. Indeed every garden is a metaphorical path for those who create it, but also for those who find themselves crossing it or describing it.
A spiritual green path revisited and repainted by the author herself this time, with the help of the gardener and manager of the Vatican Gardens, Luciano Cecchetti, from 2009 to 2014. A utopian project approved by His Exc. Mons. Carlo M. Viganò, at that time the General Secretary of the Governatorate at the Vatican. A garden that was never completed though, due to Mons. Viganò’s sudden charge-transfer to Washington D.C.
In the text, the author leads her reader into a green imaginative world full of scents and colours, never forgetting to respect what had been thought by the creative mind of the architect of Pope Pius XI, Giuseppe Momo.
The triphasic dantesque journey tramples on the different styles of this historic “garden of many gardens“, which certainly appears well kept, but unfortunately dull due to their vivacity, normally given by the colours of the flowers, which has been lost over time.
From the English grove to the French-style garden, to the Italian-style garden hosting the Japanese one, the author passes, tells and covers them with shapes, lines, lights and colours: “(…) meadows or slopes dotted with flowering bulbous plants” ” (…) vaporous vegetal openings of climbing roses (…) to weave sparkling tapestries (…)”
Of each garden, the author retraces its history and symbology, insinuating herself into the personalities of the popes protagonist of this garden, and plays with anecdotes, senses and imagination.
And “the garden gradually gives her life“. A complex and fluid text, difficult and light, where falls and rebirths alternate and at times it become poetry, history, literature, symbol…
An engaging text in which you come across with that Knowledge that every historic garden (ancient and contemporary) brings along…
Welcome comments on the book:
I just finished reading your masterpiece. I spent some time making the various “postponements” which, in some cases, required illuminations.
And so you have allowed me not only to make your masterfully described spiritual journey with you, but you also allowed me to gain new knowledge and information. It was exciting to read your book which I would define as a mixture of prose and pure poetry…
Among the abundant foliage of the trees, I resumed my mental silence and understood that the mind alone could not feed the soul. It was necessary that I also involve the senses, that I put them on alert.
But the senses require the nakedness of the soul, so that talents and limits can reveal themselves and then give themselves…” these sentences are verses for me.
Congratulations, dear Anna for your descriptive skills and for making visible what was invisible for me.
Angela M. teacher