Gardens in Piazza Mazzini

The square named after Giuseppe Mazzini is the centerpiece of the “della Vittoria” district, built beginning in 1911 on the vast area between the Rione Prati and the right bank of the Tiber. In the late 19th century, this part of the city was used for military exercises but, on the occasion of the 1911 International Exposition, which was intended to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Unification of Italy, a number of pavilions were set up and the first small villas and apartment buildings were built here.

The landscaping of the inner part of the square as a public garden was carried out between 1927 and 1930 by Raffaele De Vico. The architect and landscape architect helped define, with his precise and always recognizable style, the current appearance of many of Rome’s green areas, including Villa Glori, Orange Garden, the Parco del Colle Oppio and the Parco degli Scipioni.

The center of the garden, an octagonal space divided into quarters by access avenues and perfectly integrated into the urban context, is occupied by a large and scenic pool, a “fountain-garden” as De Vico defined it, which was the result of collaboration with sculptor Ermenegildo Luppi. Inspired by an ancient nymphaeum, it offers an unusual example of spatial articulation realized through green essences.

At the corners of the wide basin are four monumental columns, set on high plinths: they are decorated with the insignia of the fascist regime and surmounted by eagles. The avenues, paved with allegorical mosaics, are accompanied by box hedges and cypresses. The outdoor space is bordered by shaped holm oaks, which are also the trees on Viale Mazzini, the main thoroughfare of the district.

An interesting fact: Colonel William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, performed with his American Company in Rome in Piazza d’Armi, today’s Piazza Mazzini, in February 1890 and again in 1906.