A larger-than-life sculpture garden with twenty-two monumental figures created by the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle stands in the countryside in the heart of Tuscany, Italy. Saint Phalle (1930–2002) was a monumental sculptress, painter, and filmmaker. She displayed her sculptures in top museums and outdoor gardens worldwide. Some of these sculptures enabled people to walk through and interact with them, while some even had playground slides. In 1955, Saint Phalle visited Park Güell by Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona and was deeply inspired. After she visited Sacro Bosco (Parco dei Mostri) in Bomarzo, Italy, Palais Idéal by Ferdinand Cheval, in France, and Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, in Los Angeles, CA, she decided to create her own sculpture garden based on symbols from the Tarot. In 1975, while on a health retreat in the Swiss Mountains, she dedicated her time planning her sculpture park and growing her vision into action. She purchased a fourteen-acre piece of land in Garavicchio in Tuscany, Italy, and worked on this project from 1978 till its official opening on May 15th, 1998, considering it her life work. The twenty-two monumental figures in the garden represent Mysteries figures from the Tarot Cards. They were constructed of reinforced concrete and covered with mirrors and ceramic mosaic. During the two decades Saint Phalle worked on the sculptures, she lived inside the sphinx-like Empress. Her bedroom was on one breast while the kitchen was on the second. The wall that surrounds the garden was created from local stones. In her words, Saint Phalle described it as “the separation of the world without and the world within. The wall symbolizes for me protection like the dragon who protects the treasure in fairy tales.” Read more...