PALAZZO GIACOMINI ROMIATI

Ruins and fake ruins

The garden is the final touch of a fine art developed through the great jappellian’s works: from the Treves park (1807), to the nearly contemporary Villa Torlonia in Rome.

It can be considered as a work of art in itself, thought as recreational site, ideal frame for the owner’s leisure, but also, even more, provider of different messages expressed by a language of natural and man made elements. Here the creativity of the architect is freed by the boundaries imposed by the public projects and induces himself in taking to the top the taste for the fantastic, the eclectic, the magic.

The space is scenically set using the outer structure as back ground, having a dialog between the elements of the surrounding landscape with the structure of the garden. The artist beautifully enlarges the given limited flat area (2500 sq. m.) at his disposal with the creation of sloops along the walls and of green wings that disguise the real borders. Jappelli modifies the “”planimetry” of the ground raising a little hill along which there is a winding, deliberately harsh path lined with fakes relics, that leads to the entrance of the tower, the axis of the whole setting. The apse of the S. Francis church (late 1200) is a very surprising back ground along the trail to the tower.

Some arboreal species are real focal points of the contest, like the majestic and ancient hanging beech “Fagus sylvatica pendula”, next to a magnificent Judas tree “Cercis siliquastrum “, rightly considered the most remarkable in the Venetian region, also ultra centenary. Other beautiful trees are some “Osmanthus fragrans”, a magnolia “Magnoglia hypoleuca “, some imposing yews “Taxus baccata “, a big, very old chinese holly tree” Ilex cornuta”, one of the first introduced in Europe. The remaining of the vegetation includes bay trees “Laurus nobilis “, celtis “Celtis australis” and an under bush made out of ivies “Hedera helix “, “Aspidistra elatior”, “Saxifraga crassifolia”, and Japanese iris “Iris japonica”.