Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums (see Galleria Borghese) and attractions. It is the third-largest public park in Rome (80 hectares or 197.7 acres), after the ones of the Villa Doria Pamphili and Villa Ada. The gardens were developed for the Villa Borghese Pinciana ("Borghese villa on the Pincian Hill"), built by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, developing sketches by Scipione Borghese, who used it as a villa suburbana, or party villa, at the edge of Rome, and to house his art collection. The gardens as they are now were remade in the late 19th century.
In 1605 Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and patron of Bernini, began turning this former vineyard into the most extensive gardens built in Rome since Antiquity. The vineyard's site is identified with the gardens of Lucullus, the most famous in the late Roman republic. Domenico Savino da Montepulciano was responsible for the layout of the gardens.<ref name=turismo>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Borghese Balustrade was crafted by G di Gincome and P. Massoni in 1618 for the south forecourt of the Casino Nobile. At the center opening there were two stone statues on top and fountains with shell-shaped basins below. The statues were a later addition from 1715 by Claude-Augustin Cayot. In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur appointed William Waldorf Astor Minister to Italy, a post he held until 1885. While living in Rome, Astor developed a lifelong passion for art and sculpture. In 1896, he purchased the balustrade and had it installed at his English estate Cliveden. It is a Grade II Listed Building.<ref>"Villa Borghese Balustrade, Cliveden Estate", National Trust</ref> In 2004, a colony of small Mediterranean land snails of the species Papillifera bidens was discovered living on the Borghese Balustrade. Presumably, this species, new to the English fauna, was accidentally imported along with the balustrade in the late 19th century and managed to survive the intervening winters to the present day.<ref name="Sharpe">Template:Cite web</ref>
Marcantonio's sons, Camillo and Francesco Borghese expanded the park further.
The Villa Borghese gardens were long informally open, but was bought by the commune of Rome and given to the public in 1903.<ref name=turismo/> Since 1904 monuments depicting famous foreign personalities and writers such as Victor Hugo, have been placed along the avenues of the villa. The statue of Goethe was a gift to the city of Rome from Wilhelm II, German Emperor.<ref name=archeoroma/>
The large landscape park in the English taste contains several villas. The Spanish Steps lead up to this park, and there is another entrance at the Porte del Popolo by Piazza del Popolo. The Pincio (the Pincian Hill of ancient Rome), in the south part of the park, offers one of the greatest views over Rome.
Camillo Borghese threw grandiose shows and popular festivals, such as a ride in an air balloon from the Piazza di Siena.<ref name=archeoroma>"Villa Borghese", Archeoroma</ref> The first horse show was held at the Piazza di Siena in 1922. The Piazza di Siena hosted the equestriandressage, individual jumping, and the jumping part of the eventing competition for the 1960 Summer Olympics.
The Villa Giulia adjoining the Villa Borghese gardens was built in 1551 – 1555 as a summer residence for Pope Julius III; now it contains the Etruscan Museum (Museo Etrusco).
The Villa Medici houses the French Academy in Rome, and the Fortezzuola a Gothic garden structure that houses a collection memorializing the academic modern sculptor Pietro Canonica. In the 1650s, Diego Velázquez painted several depictions of this Villa's garden casino festively illuminated at night. Before electricity, such torchlit illuminations carried an excitement hard to conceive today.
Other villas scattered through the Villa Borghese gardens are remains of a world exposition in Rome in 1911.
The Template:Lang located in its grounds has a collection of 19th- and 20th-century paintings emphasizing Italian artists.
Architecturally the most notable of the 1911 exposition pavilions is the English pavilion designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens (who later designed New Delhi), now housing the British School at Rome.
The accesses to the garden are in via Madama Letizia and in viale Pietro Canonica. This is an English garden, transformed by Piano dei licini by Marcantonio IV Borghese at the end of the 18th century into a fashionable garden. Together with the Aspruccis as directors of the works, people like Jacob More alternated between gardeners and artists. Characteristic is the lake in which the Temple of Aesculapius is reflected.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The first historical sources attesting to the works on the Piano dei Licini date back to 1784, works which ended in 1790 with Mario Asprucci as director. In addition to the aforementioned temple of Aesculapius, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina and the temple of Diana were inserted, all in neoclassical style, works immersed in an English garden style garden, although the presence of straight paths and the use of classical furnishings were quite far from the fashionable gardens of the time in France and England. Very little remains of these furnishings: in addition to the three temples, the sarcophagus of Phaethon, a column, some ollas and a statue. But contemporary citations suggest the area was dotted with statues. The most recent statuary group is the bronze one with satyrs playing with their little one, from 1929.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>
Piazzale Scipione Borghese Garden or Rear Garden of Casino Nobile
Originally there was the Narcissus fountain surrounded by ancient statues, furnishings and four herms perhaps by Pietro Bernini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The garden, as we see it today, is a twentieth-century development with the replacement of the previous fountain with that of Venus surrounded by a classical garden.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Giardini Segreti (Secret Gardens)
They are located in Viale dell'Uccelliera,<ref name = "secret gardens 1">Template:Cite web</ref> on the border between the first and second enclosures.<ref name = "secret gardens 2">Template:Citation.</ref>
Originally they were located on both sides of the Casino Nobile.<ref name = "secret gardens 1"/> The first was called melangoli, while the second was called flowers. They date back to the period of Cardinal Scipione.<ref name = "secret gardens 1"/><ref name = "secret gardens 2"/> There are two others dating back to around 1680 located between the Uccelliera and Meridiana pavilions. They were used for plantations of rare and exotic flowers, mainly bulb.<ref name = "secret gardens 1"/><ref name = "secret gardens 2"/> One of these gardens had rows of citrus trees near the long surrounding walls and flowers in the central avenues. In the ledgers of 1610 there are payment orders for bulbous plants.<ref name = "secret gardens 2"/> The fourth garden, or propagation garden, is used as a nursery for plants to be used for the other three secret gardens.<ref name = "secret gardens 1"/>
These gardens are derived from the 'hortus conclusus of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque era. In these periods the secret gardens are always surrounded by walls.<ref name = "secret gardens 2"/>
After the oldest gardens, marble fountains were placed with the function of pilo.<ref name = "secret gardens 2"/>
In the 19th century the secret gardens were devastated by French bombings.<ref name = "secret gardens 2"/>
At the beginning of the 20th century with the opening to the public, a new rearrangement rearranged the plants by removing all the plants considered inappropriate at the time and the rearrangement was simpler and more linear and divided into four flowerbeds located around the central fountains. Towards the beginning of the First World War, a new intervention was already planned for the first three secret gardens with the arrangement of two gazebos for guests, but already after the war these gazebos no longer existed, as did the Narcissus fountain, leaving the square bare and empty. New flowerbeds were then inserted which were destroyed during the Second World War, however, after various transformations over the centuries, little remains of the original layout of the secret gardens.<ref name = "secret gardens 2"/>
You can get guided tours of the Giardini Segreti.<ref name = "secret gardens 1"/>
Giardini di Valle Giulia
They are located in Piazzale Ferdowsi. They were created for the Italian National Exhibition: Turin, Rome, Florence of 1911 to decorate the staircase created by Cesare Bazzani as a connection from Valle Giulia to Villa itself. The gardens balustrade consist of two nymphaeumsneoclassical.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Parco dei Daini
It is located in via P. Raimondi. The garden was a reserve of the prince and was surrounded by some herms by Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Attached to the border wall there was the "Perspective of the Theatre", from 1615, with relief decorations. The name derives from the fact that in the park, until the end of the Nineteenth century, there were fallow deer and gazelles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On the edge of the Parco dei Daini, on the corner between via Pinciana and via Pietro Raimondi, is located the "Villa Umberto Barracks", headquarters of the mounted squad of the Polizia di Stato.
It is located in Largo P. Picasso. It has remained more or less unchanged since the 17th century and is also known by the name of "Valle dei cani" ("Valley of the dogs"), because it is used as a play area for dogs. It consists, among other things, of platani planted by Cardinal Scipione.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The garden contains a replica of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre built in 2003.
Beside the 1911 Exposition's villas, there is the Exposition's Zoo, recently redesigned, with minimal caging, as the Bioparco, and the Zoological Museum (Museo di Zoologia). Nearby is the Casina di Raffaello playroom, which has crafts and reading rooms, and a space where children can dress up in royal outfits.<ref>"Villa Borghese", Condé Nast Traveler</ref>
In 1873 a hydrochronometer on the 1867 design of Gian Battista Embriaco, O.P.<ref>Template:Cite web Accessed 20 March 2013: "È infatti del 1867 l'invenzione dell'idrocronometro, dovuta al padre domenicano Giovanni Battista Embriaco, che attese ai suoi studi di meccanica applicata all'orologeria nella solitudine del convento della Minerva."</ref> inventor and professor of the Roman College of St. Thomas was built in the gardens in emulation of the one at the College of St. Thomas. Another version stands in the gardens of the Pincian Hill. Embriaco had presented two prototypes of his invention at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867 where it won prizes and great acclaim.<ref>https://www.comune.roma.it/PCR/resources/cms/documents/storia-idrocronometro.pdf Accessed 20 March 2013; "Storia del Progetto"</ref>
Flora
Below is the list of the main trees of Villa Borghese:
Plant common name<ref name = "Lista1">Table data from: Template:Citation</ref>
Finally, among the xylophagous insects, it is worth mentioning the great capricorn beetle (Cerambyx cerdo) visible in late spring towards sunset on the tree trunks.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>
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