Franco Maria Ricci, the publisher behind Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, just completed a 17.5 acre maze at Fontanellato, Italy. His labyrinth of bamboo hedges near Parma reportedly comes in at five times the size of the Pineapple Garden Maze on Hawaii, the largest permanent hedge maze in the Guinness Book of Records. The maze will open to the public in 2012 once a visitors’ center is built. [image & story via the guardian]
Riccis’ maze will join several other elaborate, life-size puzzles around the world. SpotCoolStuff has a great roundup of some of the most magnificent mazes. Here are a few:
Visitors to the 16th Century Longleat House in Wiltshire England can roam around the ground’s safari park and lose themselves in the hedge maze. The maze is difficult enough to pose a challenge even to some puzzle experts and easy enough for everyone to find their way through . . . eventually.
Unlike other a-mazes, the walls of the maze at Château & Jardins de Villandry in Villandry, France are short enough for adults to see over. Even so, wandering the gorgeous maze hedgerows seen here looks like great fun. And what better backdrop can you have for a maze than a French 14th-century fortress that doubles as a World Heritage site?
The Ashcombe Maze in Shoreham, Victoria isn’t particularly large, but a series of special maze events, including mystery puzzles and hidden gnomes hunts—makes up for its size.
Villa Pisani, Il Labirinto (Venice, Italy) was created in the early 1700s and is supposedly the world’s most difficult to solve. Napoleon himself is apparently among those who were perplexed by the maze.
Visita few more incredible mazes at SpotCoolStuff.
