Gardens
In the gardens were displayed artworks from the Mattei collection. In 1552 Filippo Neri instituted the ceremony of Visiting the Seven Churches (San Pietro, San Giovanni in Laterano, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Paolo fuori le mura, San Lorenzo fuori le mura, San Sebastiano all'Appia Antica and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme) and the Mattei family opened their villa's grounds for pilgrims to rest in and provided them with bread, wine, cheese, eggs, apples and salami. The gardens were later redefined by Giovanni Fontana and Domenico Fontana, in a scheme including the obelisk. The gardens were also famous for their fountains, realised by Bernini for Girolamo Mattei - they included the fontana dell'Aquila (after the Mattei's heraldic emblem of the eagle) and fontana del Tritone, and have now all been relocated to the piazza dei SS.Giovanni e Paolo. (Girolamo is also mentioned in the inscription before Santi Giovanni e Paolo relating to its 1651 restoration.)
In 1926 the villa gardens were granted by the state to the Commune of Rome as a public park. The park's current entrance-gate - in bugnata work, dating to the early 17th century and designed by Carlo Lambardi - was formerly the main entrance to Villa Giustiniani before being moved to the present site in 1931. To its left is the obelisk, at the end of the central route.
Read more about this topic: Villa Mattei
Famous quotes containing the word gardens:
“Our fathers wrung their bread from stocks and stones
And fenced their gardens with the Redman’s bones;”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Have We not made the earth as a cradle and the mountains as pegs? And We created you in pairs, and We appointed your sleep for a rest; and We appointed night for a garment, and We appointed day for a livelihood. And We have built above you seven strong ones, and We appointed a blazing lamp and have sent down out of the rain-clouds water cascading that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants, and gardens luxuriant.”
—Qur’An. “The Tiding,” 78:6-16, trans. by Arthur J. Arberry (1955)
“These are the Gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
And fresh as the young earth, ere man had sinned—”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)