Villa Carlo Alberto at the Quirinale

The garden, located in front of the Quirinale Palace, was originally also called the Quirinale Garden; only later did it take its name from the equestrian monument of Carlo Alberto of Savoy, placed here in 1900.

The ground where the garden was placed was expropriated in 1871 by the Ministry of the Royal Household, as part of the arrangements planned after 1870, which included the construction of the Ministries and Parliament, the most important public structures of the new kingdom, near the Royal Palace of the Quirinale. Work on the creation of a garden began in 1887 and was entrusted to Giuseppe Roda, royal gardener. Roda designed a large central elliptical flowerbed, surrounded by curvilinear avenues and other smaller flowerbeds, tall trees, a pergola with roses (no longer visible today) and a rustic fountain, all enclosed by walls later replaced by the current balustrade. The garden was completed in 1888. In 1969, on the initiative of the President of the Republic, the area was opened to the public, but the official handover to the Municipality only took place in 1998. In 2014, vegetation restoration works were carried out.

Today the Villa can be accessed from via del Quirinale and from the double staircase of via Piacenza. The restoration of the garden, designed together with the Garden of Piazza Cairoli by Edouardo André at the end of the nineteenth century, has recreated its atmosphere, restoring the walking paths paved with gravel, the romantic lake with tuff cliffs, from which a waterfall descends and the plant of vegetation typical of the gardens of the time. Two iron gates, taken from a never-realized nineteenth-century drawing, protect the area. As for the flora, the garden is adorned with a gigantic Sterculia platanifolia, some horse chestnuts and a specimen of Phillyrea augustifolia.

The garden is currently managed by the Environmental Department.

Photo credits: Capitoline Superintendence