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Hortus Conclusus was designed by Mimmo Paladino, one of the most important representatives of Italian Transavantgarde, together with the architects Roberto Serino, Pasquale Palmieri and the lighting designer Filippo Cannata in 1992 in one of the orchards of the convent of Saint Dominic in Benevento.
Hortus is an artistic installation which hides an interesting initiatory journey, which expresses an ancient and complex cultural syncretism through historical, biblical, alchemical, psychoanalytic, numerological, Masonic quotations. Hortus has been divided in two parts to reach this aim: one is more cryptic and arboreal but less sunny, the other is more open and sunnier and hosts the majority of the statues.
The most relevant figures are: a bronze horse with a gold mask on his face; an enormous disc collocated at the centre of the space; a figure with long arms used as a fountain; a shell, a bell, an equine head, a taurine skull with elongated hears and laid on lava rock. Among the works of the artist make their appearance pieces of columns, capitals, frontons which evoke the history of the city.

THE PLANTS

The artist has used in his project numerous symbolical vegetal species like roses (symbol of the divine blood), lilies (symbol of purity) and palms (symbol of glory) Chamerops humilis, a linden (Tilia spp) and a chestnut tree(Castanea sativa), located on a terrain elevation, three olive trees (symbols of peace), bamboo (symbol of coherence and ethic), a Giuda tree (Cercis sSiliquastrum), a nut tree (Juglans regia)

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)