Map - Giardino dei Tarocchi (Giardino dei Tarocchi)

Giardino dei Tarocchi (Giardino dei Tarocchi)
The Tarot Garden (Italian: Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, French: Le Jardin des Tarots) is a sculpture garden based on the esoteric tarot, created by the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) in Pescia Fiorentina, località Garavicchio, in the municipality of Capalbio, province of Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy. The park was opened to the public in 1998.

Niki de Saint Phalle, inspired by Antoni Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona, and Parco dei Mostri in Bomarzo, as well as Palais Idéal by Ferdinand Cheval, and Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, decided to make something similar in design for her monumental sculpture park based on the Tarot. In 1979, she acquired some land on top of an Etruscan ruin in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. There she built the Giardino dei Tarocchi, containing twenty-two monumental figures representing her idea of the greater Mysteries of the Tarot, constructed of reinforced concrete and covered with mirrors and ceramic mosaic. Some of the larger sculptural figures can be walked through; the artist herself lived inside the sphinx-like Empress for several years during the construction of the garden.

* Niki de Saint Phalle, Giulio Pietrocharchi: The Tarot Garden: The Tarot Garden. Benteli Zurich 1997, ISBN 978-3716510926.

* Niki de Saint Phalle: The Tarot Garden: Giardino Del Tarrochi. Edizioni Charta, Milano 1997, ISBN 978-8881581672.

* Carla Schulz Hoffman: Niki de Saint Phalle. Bilder-Figuren-Phantastische Garten. Prestel, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3791339832.

* Philip Carr-Gomm: Sacred Places. Quercus Publishing, London 2008, ISBN 978-0857383440.

* Jill Johnston, Marella Caracciolo Chia, Giulio Pietromarchi: Niki de Saint Phalle and The Tarot Garden. Benteli, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3716515372.

 
Map - Giardino dei Tarocchi (Giardino dei Tarocchi)
Country - Italy
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Italy (Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands; its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of 301230 km2, with a population of about 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome.

Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home to myriad peoples and cultures, who immigrated to the peninsula throughout history. The Latins, native of central Italy, formed the Roman Kingdom in the 8th century BC, which eventually became a republic with a government of the Senate and the People. The Roman Republic initially conquered and assimilated its neighbours on the Italian peninsula, eventually expanding and conquering a large part of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. By the first century BC, the Roman Empire emerged as the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin and became a leading cultural, political and religious centre, inaugurating the Pax Romana, a period of more than 200 years during which Italy's law, technology, economy, art, and literature developed.
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