View allAll Photos Tagged grottaferrata
May 27, 2013
ROME'S FIRST ROSE GARDEN
Rome would have probably never had a rose garden, had it not been for an enterprising lady from Pennsylvania who lived here, countess Mary Gayley Senni. She was very fond of roses, and grew a collection of them in her estate in Grottaferrata (just south of the city). Wishing to found a rose garden, such as the ones that already existed in other countries, in 1924 she gave her own plants to Rome's municipality; but then, not satisfied with the arrangement they had been given, in a simple flower bed on the Pincio Hill, she shortly took her roses back.
She had better luck eight years later, when a new governor (the equivalent of a mayor, during the years of the Fascist regime) embraced her project. Rome's first rose garden was opened in 1932 on Colle Oppio, one of the three peaks of the Esquiline Hill, next to the Colosseum. The following year, the first edition of the Premio Roma was held. The countess eventually became herself a member of the judging committee.