An island where the memory of Giulia Farnese,a photographic exhibition dedicated to her, a restored 16th century church: these are the ingredients that will accompany visitors to the Bisentina Island, on Lake Bolsena, which from Friday 21 June and until 3 November is reopened to the public for the third year, with the possibility of booking a guided tour with a new route.
After the restoration wanted by the Rovati family, owner of the island since 2017, it is accessible again the large church of Saints Giacomo and Cristoforo,a piece of history of the Farnese, the noble Renaissance family from Lazio who governed the surrounding lands through the Duchy of Castro.
Guided tours (26 euros for adults, 15 for ages 6-15) last a couple of hours and can be booked on the website www.isolabisentina.org. For transport to the island it will be necessary to purchase a separate ticket at the two departure piers: Bolsena and Capodimonte.
The church was originally built and dedicated to St. John the Baptist by
Ranuccio Farnese the Elder, who wanted a mausoleum on the island for his family. It will be Cardinal Alessandro Farnese the Younger who will build the imposing monument that we see today: the church of Saints Giacomo and Cristoforo, whose construction began in 1588 based on a design by Giovanni Antonio Garzoni da Viggiù, and ended at the time of Odoardo Farnese at the beginning of the 17th century. It was Odoardo himself who commissioned Annibale Carracci to paint the altar paintings, which were looted over time.
The church, accessible for the first time
after a long restoration which restored the original structure leaving the signs of time to shine through, it hosts the exhibition
‘The Lady of the Unicorn. Giulia Farnese and the Bisentina Island of the photographer and director
Manfredi Gioacchini, to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Giulia Farnese. Descendant of Ranuccio Farnese the elder, whose remains are kept in the church, the noblewoman was an emblematic character who linked the events of her and her family to the papacy of Alexander VI Borgia.
The only existing plaque in the church it is precisely that of Ranuccio, also restored to give it the right reading. Other family members were also buried in the church, including the young cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, Alessandro’s brother, Pierluigi Farnese and Gerolama Orsini. There is no certainty about her Giulia Farnese but in her will, still preserved in the State Archives of Naples, she expressed her desire to be buried on the island. A copy is on display for the 2024 season inside the church.
The exhibition ‘The Lady of the Unicorn. Giulia Farnese and the Bisentina island’, set up in the church, there rtells the story of Giulia Farnese’s life through images of the places she frequented,from Capodimonte to Carbognano, from Castel Sant’Angelo to Palazzo Farnese, the places that were the scene of the life and events of the very young wife of Orsino Orsini, lover of Rodrigo Borgia and sister of the future Pope, Paul III, as well as a skilled entrepreneur, benefactor and champion of women’s rights, and herself a free woman.
“This exhibition is the result of a search that began to find Giulia, but which then turned into a real one unicorn hunt”, said Sofia Elena Rovati, director of the Bisentina Island Project and curator of the exhibition, “as if this mythological animal had been chosen by her to tell about herself, in a moment in which its beauty became too uncomfortable to continue to be celebrated by the great painters of the time”. The unicorn is a way to respond to the ‘damnatio memoriae’ for “the most beautiful woman of the Renaissance” who “today does not have a face”: “He is seen portrayed sleeping in the lap of a young woman, as in Domenichino’s fresco in Palazzo Farnese in Rome”, explains Sofia Elena Rovati, “other times in decidedly more daring attitudes as in the cycle of frescoes in the Carbognano Castle; depending on where we are, the unicorn tells us a different version of Giulia’s life, making her a complex, intriguing but contemporary character. I dare say, a feminist ante litteram.”
This year the visit itinerary also includes the octagonal chapel of Santa Caterina designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and located on a 22 meter high rock spur and the chapel of the Crucifix or Monte Calvario, which preserves a precious crucifix attributed to the hand of Benozzo Gozzoli. For the first time it is possible to admire also the foundation stone of the churchinside the same building.
Among the woods of the island it is possible to admire the site-specific work by Federico Gori, Il Vello d’Oro, a resin dome covered in gold leaf integrated into the oldest holm oak, to isolate it from humidity. The work began a project of commissioning contemporary artists in dialogue with the ancient monuments present on the island. This year’s initiatives include the publication of Francesco Barberini’s volume ‘In flight on the Bisentina island’ on the migratory flows and sedentary avifauna that make the island a privileged and fundamental oasis for the protection of biodiversity.