Villa Gregoriana Park

Woods, paths, ancient ruins, natural caves, the Aniene engulfed in the rock and a spectacular waterfall: all this a short distance from Rome in a park commissioned by Pope Gregory XVI in the first half of the nineteenth century. Entrusted in concession to the FAI since 2002 by the State Property Agency.

Just over half an hour from Rome, in Tivoli, Parco Villa Gregoriana contains a huge heritage that exemplifies the aesthetics of the sublime so dear to romantic culture. Nature, history, archeology and artifice blend here in such a seductive way that it became an obligatory destination on the Grand Tour in the 19th century and the main subject of Tivoli's pictorial representations.

In 1832 Pope Gregory XVI promoted a grandiose work of hydraulic engineering to contain the continuous flooding of the Aniene, channeling its waters into a double tunnel dug into Mount Catillo and then artificially swelling them, thus giving rise to the 120 meter drop of the new Great Waterfall, second in Italy after the Marmore. Once the work was completed, the Pope created the Park that bears his name and which for over a century was a destination for artists, writers and men of culture who told the world about its beauty.

After the Second World War, the site became the property of the Italian State and in 2002 the State Property Agency gave it under concession to the FAI, for its valorization and for the restoration of the Park which was the subject of a very serious hydrogeological instability. Thanks to the efforts made, in 2005 it was finally reopened to the public who today can once again walk along the ancient paths freed from brambles, smell essences previously suffocated by decades of neglect and abandonment, enjoy with all their senses the seventy-four tree species present and discover interesting finds of different genres and eras, immersed in the most luxuriant nature. Among these, the remains of the Villa of the Roman consul Manlius Vopisco, a sumptuous residence also celebrated by Statius, and, on the acropolis, the Roman temples including the highly celebrated one of Vesta.