La Scarzuola

Hidden in the hills of Umbria, between Rome and Florence, is TOMASO BUZZI’S MASTERPIECE of architectural fantasy, LA SCARZUOLA, begun in 1956 around an abandoned 13th-century Franciscan monastary. This decades-long project has become his aesthetic legacy, continued since his death in 1981 by his nephew, who sees visitors by appointment. French writer Patrick Mauriès decodes the esoteric assemblage of symbols and the accumulation of architectural references that comprise Buzzi’s Ideal City. text by PATRICK MAURIÈS photography by GIANNI OPRANDI   In the garish light our Google-obsessed culture shines on everything ever written, said or done, it is reasonable to assume that there is nothing that has not already been inventoried, sorted, and aerially surveyed by the all-seeking lenses of our electronic gaze. But there are hidden places on certain maps where you might find a strange collection of architectural constructions secluded deep inside forgotten Tuscan valleys, reachable only via long,…