One of Europe's oldest labyrinths opens to the public on a regular basis

Visitors to Bufalini Castle, a rare example of a historic stately home almost intact even in its furnishings, which stands in San Giustino in the province of Perugia, will be able, from Sunday, April 21, 2024 until October, to visit the labyrinth set within one of the largest and most important formal Italian gardens in Umbria. The castle, pertaining to the MiC, Regional Museums Directorate of Umbria, was born as a military fortress of the municipality of Città di Castello to defend the borders of the Papal State and was transformed in the mid-16th century by the Bufalini family into a villa of delights overlooking the Apennine landscape. Between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, its park was organized into seven main areas enclosed by perimeter paths set at the edge of the moat and boundary wall. One of these was occupied precisely by the labyrinth created for the leisure of the lords and formed by tall boxwood hedges. The layout, measuring approximately 670 square meters, is trapezoidal in shape with three distinct centers, with a single access, on either side of which two cypress trees, still living, were planted on November 4, 1694, and are among the oldest trees in the garden. In the castle’s archives are some drawings relating to its design and construction, in particular a plan dated 1706, the Pianta del palazzo e giardino della villa di S. Giustino dei sign.ri March.si Bufalini, from which it is possible to see how its layout has remained unchanged over the centuries. This suggests that at least part of the boxwood plants are those buried in 1692, making the labyrinth at Castello Bufalini one of the oldest in Europe.

“The labyrinth is not only an exceptional botanical work, but an esoteric idea that is transformed into an experience,” says Costantino D’Orazio, director of the National Museums of Perugia-Regional Directorate Museums Umbria “That’s why the reopening of the labyrinth at Bufalini Castle enriches the charm of a place that will hold many surprises for the public in the coming years.”

“The opening to the public of one of the most interesting hedge labyrinths on the Italian scene,” says Veruska Picchiarelli, Director of Castello Bufalini “It is part of a process of recovery and re-evaluation of other areas, both internal and external, of the entire complex, which will lead starting in the coming months to double and totally upgrade the tour route.”

One of Europe's oldest labyrinths opens to the public on a regular basis

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