CCR is
happy to invite you on a tour of the Vatican Gardens!
We will be taken by mini bus
through the Vatican Gardens by Roma Cristiana Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi with an audio Guide in English.
The tour takes one hour and guests remain on the bus throughout the tour.
WHERE: Vatican
Gardens
WHEN: Saturday,
November 5, 2011
TIME: 12.00 p.m.
COST: €15
for CCR Members and € 18 for guests
RSVP: canadarome@gmail.com
attention Cindi Emond (cell. 339 159 7897)
Notes: Exact
change please; you are responsible for your booking. When you RSVP you will get an
email detailing our meeting point.
History of the Vatican Gardens
The circle of walls built by Leo IV in the mid-ninth century formed the eastern bulwark of the popular suburb that grew up between the Tiber and St.Peter's and spread out behind the basilica, along the top of the Mons Vaticanus, which formed the western and southwestern boundary.
The circle of walls built by Leo IV in the mid-ninth century formed the eastern bulwark of the popular suburb that grew up between the Tiber and St.Peter's and spread out behind the basilica, along the top of the Mons Vaticanus, which formed the western and southwestern boundary.
How the hilly area between the apse and the walls, today
a garden, was organized in the Middle Ages is unknown. It certainly was not
built upon, and it probably was largely uncultivated. It may have been just
this possibility of having a large garden (or more precisely, a protected
cultivated area) which made the Pope build his residence in
the Vatican.
For this purpose he acquired the hill, today occupied by
the Cortile di San Damaso and the palace of the Sixtus V, and the
entire valley (which was later done over to form the Cortile del
Belvedere and Cortile della Pigna), up to the outer slope of Mons
Sancti Egidi (the hill atop which Innocent VIII would build
the Palazzetto del Belvedere at the end of the fifteenth century),
extending the area of the Vatican to its natural boundaries on the north and
northwest.
To protect his new acquisitions Nicholas built
a sturdy circle of walls that joined up with the fortified enceinte of Leo
IV. He brought water to the area, along with planted vines and fruit trees on the
site of the current Belvedere and pigna courtyards. The
slopes to the west remained wooded.
Architecture of the Gardens
Nicholas V (1447 - 55) was the first to conceive a series of gardens that would have a practical application in the ceremonies of the papal court and that would also be used for the pope's personal enjoyment. He probably extended their area to the north of the tower that he had built to protect Porta San Pietro (which for this reason was also called Porta Viridaria or Garden Gate), along the Via Franchigena , the medieval road connecting Rome with the North.
Architecture of the Gardens
Nicholas V (1447 - 55) was the first to conceive a series of gardens that would have a practical application in the ceremonies of the papal court and that would also be used for the pope's personal enjoyment. He probably extended their area to the north of the tower that he had built to protect Porta San Pietro (which for this reason was also called Porta Viridaria or Garden Gate), along the Via Franchigena , the medieval road connecting Rome with the North.
A contemporary writer describes a system of large and
small gardens, fountains, a fish pool, and an enclosure for rabbits. Between
the tower and the palace, in the area now occupied by the Cortile di
San Damaso and the Palace of Sixtus V, lay the hortus
segretus or private garden, the area closest to the palace, which
was used for entertaining guests. At the end of a fifteenth century, a loggia was
built to plans by Antonio del Peìlaiolo atop the boundary walls
at the north end of the gardens. The loggia, which overlooked the open country
outside the walls, was called the Belvedere and was originally
conceived as a place where Innocent VIII could stop and rest during
his walks. Later two small rooms were added on the east side to allow longer
stays.
In the first decade of the sixteenth century,
during the papacy of Julius II, Donato Bramante created a bold,
theatrical plan for transforming the valley between the palace and
the Belvedere. He redesigned the valley to form three stepped
terraces connected by staircases. (His design would later be broken up—first by
the Library of Sixtus V, and then by the Braccio Nuovo or
new wing of the Museums - to form the Cortili del
Belvedere, della Biblioteca and della Pigna).
In place of Nicholas
III's enclosure, Bramante built a great rectilinear
defensive wall whose inner façade was elegantly adorned by superimposed blind
arcades in conjunction wtih the covered galleries that linked the wall with
the palace, bridging the various levels of the garden. The uppermost gallery
(the only one which corresponds to the present Cortile della Pigna) led
directly from the papal residence to the Belvedere. 
