It was a historical fiefdom of the Orsini family, whose castle is at the edge of the densely built town, until it was sold to Ippolito Lante Montefeltro della Rovere in 1645.

The park of Bomarzo was intended not to please, but to astonish, and like many Mannerist works of art, its symbolism is arcane; for example, one large sculpture is of one of Hannibal's war elephants, which mangles a Roman legionary, and another is a statue of Ceres lounging on the bare ground, with a vase of "fruits of the earth" perched on her head.

The many monstrous statues appear to be unconnected to any rational plan and appear to have been strewn almost randomly about the area, sol per sfogare il Core ("just to set the heart free") as one inscription on an obelisk says.

The Dutch magic-surrealist painter Carel Willink used several of the park's statue groups in his paintings, including The Eternal Cry and Balance of Forces.

A mystery novel by Linda Lappin, Signatures in Stone (2013), investigates the symbolism of the Sacred Grove, its relation to the myth of Persephone, and recent theories concerning the designer of the park.