Municipal Villa

Born in close connection with the eclectic municipal theater, inaugurated in 1872, the Gardens of the Municipal Villa in Salerno represent for the post-unification city an expansion of the historic walls to create a public area for recreation and leisure, but also for representation for the emerging new class.

Thehistoric nucleus of the Villa consists of a tree-lined avenue that started from the famous Asculapius Fountain, also known as “Don Tullio’s”, named after the wealthy Salerno man who donated it to the city, built in 1790. Until the mid-19th century, the town’s suburb with the Murattian waterfront, fountain and the Church of Santa Maria di Porto Salvo (today Sant’Anna al Porto), still “bathed” by the sea, constituted the official image of the city that was consigned to history by the photo taken in 1852 by a French photographer, Paul Jeuffrain.

The Villa as it is now known in Salerno, which was built in 1790, was the official image of the city.

The Villa as we can now see it, though profoundly transformed, was born only after the unification of Italy, precisely in 1874, based on a project by architect Casalbore.

The intervention included curvilinear flowerbeds and paths, plantings, statues and fountains on a triangular-shaped fill cut by two avenues; a raised base for music was placed in the center, while the pre-existing fountain was used as a perspective backdrop toward the sea. The dimensions and spaces expressed a renewed and broader urban conception, laying the foundation for the creation of a link between the historic center and the sea front, a calling card for a city that strongly experiences its relationship with the water.

The Villa Comunale became the full hub of social life in nineteenth-century Salerno, concerts and events, including religious ones, were held there periodically.

After the destructions of the late postwar period many holm oaks arranged in rows, Canary Island palms (now unfortunately gone), Aleppo and domestic pines(Pinus pinea) were planted in the gardens, Himalayan cedars (Cedrus deodara), a tall group of Washingtonia filifera espoused to Bougainvillea glabra, as well as isolated examples of botanical curiosities.

By the 1960s, asphalt paving of driveways, modern materials replacing the original ones, careless maintenance, and widespread vandalism had deteriorated the villa to the point that, except for the tree specimens, very little was left of the original furnishings.

In the 1990s the Villa Comunale underwent a prestigious botanical and architectural restoration project that saw the’expansion of the green area, radically upgraded and designated as a botanical garden with the’grafting of new rare plants related to Mediterranean culture and the restoration of the central fountain and other monuments. The project recovered many original elements: stone and iron seats and remarkable specimens of pines, holm oaks, and palms. The use of “ancient” plants, which are placed side by side with modern varieties, has embellished the repurposed historic furnishings, the light and bright flooring, and the sound diffusers. At the request of the municipal administration, a very transparent recinct with numerous openings was included, making the villa a green hinge between the Theater, Via Roma, the Prefecture Building and the Lungomare.

Over the years the garden has been enriched with a number of monuments. In 1890 a statue – the work of Alfonso Balzico – was unveiled, dedicated to Giovanni Nicotera, Minister of the Interior in the De Pretis government of 1876 and a participant in the expedition of the “three hundred young and strong.” The original work, made in 1897 by sculptor Alfonso Balzico, was cast to make bullets during the World War, but, in the 1960s another one by artist Corrado Patroni was relocated. The new statue depicts John Nicotera caught in the act of snatching his own death sentence. To the leader of the expedition of the three hundred, Carlo Pisacane, is dedicated another monument in the Villa, the first intended for the hero of the Sapri landing. More recent are the two busts dedicated to the parliamentarian Clemente Mauro and the anti-fascist politician and minister of the Badoglio government Giovanni Cuomo, made by the Salerno sculptor Gaetano Chiaromonte

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The Villa Comunale has been the site of various events for years. In April there is the traditional “Minerva Exhibition”, a market-exhibition of rare plants and garden objects. In the winter time, however, the villa is transformed into the Enchanted Garden, with the light installations of the Artist Lights.

Thanks to Enrico Auletta, Aiapp architect and landscape architect and curator of the restoration project

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