“Time Brings Roses” to the Roseto comunale

by Loredana Vullo (staff) | Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

And I will make thee beds of roses…
Christopher Marlowe

Prepare for olfactory experience this Spring as Rome’s Roseto Communale (Municipal Rose Garden) opens up its beds with some 1,200 varieties of roses to the fragrance-sniffing public.
Many experts consider it one of the most beautiful rose gardens in the world, looking down from the Aventine Hill onto the Circus Maximus and the Palatine Hill. Besides offering a priceless view to visitors each and every square foot of the Roseto has a fascinating story to tell.

The history
In the early 1930s an American woman, Mary Senni, after visiting the Jardins de Bagattelle rose gardens in Paris, proposed to the Regio Commissario (High Commissioner) Boncompagni-Ludovisi that Rome deserved an equally beautiful one. The first communal rose garden in Rome was on the Oppian Hill near the Colosseum. Created in 1931, years of neglect and the Second World War left it a garden in name only.
The present site of the rose garden, situated close to the Circus Maximus, was made into a small park by the local authorities in 1934 during the fascist period. The spot had been the cemetery of the Jewish Community of Rome (which was moved to Campo Verano in Rome’s Tiburtino neighbourhood) since 1645.

In 1950 the Comune (City Council) asked the Jewish Community for permission to found a new Roseto on the former Jewish graveyard. They consented but asked that it be marked in some way as consecrated ground. Two stele listing the Ten Commandments were placed by the entrance to remind visitors of its sacred past. Another poignant reminder of its link to the city’s Jewish Community is the landscaping of the paths around the rose beds which are laid out in the shape of a Menorah, the traditional Jewish candelabra, as visible from the top of the central stairway.

The garden and its roses
The Roseto is divided into two areas: the larger upper part is home to a collection of Species, Old and Modern Roses, that retraces the history and evolution of the rose from antiquity to modern times. The lower garden contains the roses entered in the “Premio Roma” international competition for new varieties of rose, which takes place every May.
The three main types of rose at the Roseto are: Species Roses - those that grow wild and reproduce true from seed; Old Roses or Antique Roses - these are the varieties of roses that existed before 1867, tend to bloom once and are quite disease-resistant; Modern Roses - these have large flowers with a high-pointed bud, often blooming almost continually, with one flower per long sturdy stem, which makes them excellent for cutting.

1. Species Roses
Also known as wild roses, Species Roses grow in the wild, in a variety of climates, but only in the Northern Hemisphere. They probably existed before humans, there are in the area of 150-200 known variants of Species or early natural hybrids. Though very few in comparison to the tens of thousands of other variants, the Species Rose is the progenitor of all other varieties of rose. They are divided into the following sub-families: Hulthemia (Simplicifolia), Hesperhodos, Platyrhodon and Rosa, the latter being subdivided into the subsequent subgenus: Banksianae (Banksian), Bracteatae, Caninae, Carolinae, Chinensis, Gallicanae, Gymnocarpae, Laevigatae, Pimpinellifoliae, Rosa (Cinnamomeae) and Synstylae.

2. Old Roses
Many Old Roses are classified according to their origins. Often they are the result of a natural cross-breeding of wild roses, which humans, in their travels across the globe, have brought into contact with one another. In some circumstances they are also the first attempts at hybridisation from the first few decades of the 1800s. Among the most representative groups are: Alba, Bourbon, Centifolia Mosses, Centifolia, China, Climber, Damask Perpetual, Damask, English, Floribunda, Gallica, Grandiflora, Hybrid Perpetual, Hybrids, Moss, Noisette, Old Hybrid Tea, Polyantha, Portland, Rambler, Rugosa, Sempervirens and Shrub.

3. Modern Roses
The vast and general category of “modern” includes most variants obtained by humans from 1867 onwards and are derived from the Tea variety. One theory has it that English ships, criss-crossing the high seas, brought roses from China and other parts of the Far East in the same ships used to transport tea. Another explanation has it that “Teas are so called because many discern in their blossoms the scent of “a newly-opened sample of the choicest tea”. Whatever the origin, the ancestry of Tea rose (R. x Odorata) is believed to be a cross of R. Chinensis and R. Gigantean. Breeding with the Bourbon and the Hybrid Perpetual led to the ubiquitous Hybrid Tea, the most common of Modern Roses.

Getting there
Address: Roseto Comunale di Roma, Via di Valle Murcia, Aventine Hill.
Open: May to June
Free entry, every day (including public holidays) 08.00 to 19.30.
Free guided tours by the Roseto’s own botanical experts can be booked in advance. Please call 0657135413.

Public transport
Bus: Nos. 81, 628, 715
Metro: M Circo Massimo “B” line