Villa Glori

In the shade of pines and cypresses

Wide meadows and groves crossed by avenues and dirt paths where you can stroll in the shade of pines, oaks, cypresses, olive trees, horse chestnuts and cedars. Situated on a hill overlooking the bend of the Tiber, the Acqua Acetosa fountain and Ponte Milvio areas, Villa Glori covers a vast area between the two adjacent neighborhoods of Parioli and Flaminio, behind the Auditorium Parco della Musica. The earliest record of it is from the late 17th century but, unlike Rome’s historic villas, it did not originate as a suburban villa. Rather, it was a space used for vineyards and hunting, and its name comes from Vincenzo Glori, a hydraulic engineer working for the Papal States, who owned it in the mid-19th century.

Parco della Remembranza - Memorial Park

The idea of turning the hill into a public green area began to take shape as early as the end of the 19th century, with the expropriation of the land. However, the park only opened to the public in 1924. It was designed by Raffaele De Vico (the architect and landscape architect responsible for the landscaping of many of the city’s green areas, including the Orange Garden, the Parco del Colle Oppio and the Parco degli Scipioni), as a Memorial Park (Parco della Rimembranza) dedicated to the fallen of the First World War and then re-consecrated to all the Roman soldiers who fell for their country. A large iron cross was erected in their honor on Piazzale di Villa Glori. Many trees in the park were planted on that occasion by Roman students: each one bore a plaque with the name of one of the soldiers who had lost their lives in the First World War.

The historical memory of the Italian Risorgimento

The villa is among the places in the city most associated with the history of the Risorgimento, and the avenues that cross it are named after the protagonists of an ill-fated insurrectional attempt to remove Rome from papal rule. At the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the city was in fact still in the hands of the papacy. On 20 October 1867, a squad of about seventy Garibaldi volunteers led by Enrico and Giovanni Cairoli set out from Terni to supply arms to the patriots who were preparing the revolt. Arriving at Ponte Milvio on 23 October, they realized that they would not find the reinforcements they hoped for and took refuge on the hill of Villa Glori. Here they were intercepted and defeated by the papal army: Enrico was killed, Giovanni seriously wounded. A column with a plaque at its base commemorates their sacrifice, not far from the almond tree in whose shade Enrico died.

Contemporary art and archaeology

In 1997, at the initiative of the City of Rome, a number of installations by contemporary artists, including Dompè, Caruso, Castagna, Staccioli, and Kounellis, were placed in the park among the pines and open spaces of the villa, providing a happy example of the insertion of works of art into nature. The original nucleus was further expanded in 2000 with two new interventions, Giuseppe Uncini’s Porta del Sole (Gate of the Sun) and Paolo Canevari’s Uomo-erba (Grass-Man).

For archaeology enthusiasts: on the north side of the hill, entirely excavated in the tuff, there is a hypogeum, discovered by chance in 1794 by the Danish naturalist Abilgaard, whose original layout is dated to the Antonine period with prolonged use during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

Photo turismoroma