Orto Botanico di Roma: A Green Haven Amidst the Frenzy of Rome

Hidden away from the crowds that flow through the historic centre of Rome, the Orto Botanico di Roma, the Botanical Garden of Rome, occupies a wonderfully secluded corner of Trastevere beneath the slopes of the Janiculum Hill.

It is one of those places that seems almost improbable in a city as intensely visited as Rome. Cross the River Tiber, wander into the quieter streets of Trastevere and, behind walls and gateways, twelve hectares of gardens gradually climb towards the wooded heights of the Janiculum.

Once inside, the sounds and movement of the city recede. Gravel paths weave beneath palms and venerable trees; bamboo rises densely around shaded pathways; fountains trickle among greenery, and changing patterns of sunlight fall across leaves gathered from widely different regions of the world.

For me, the Orto Botanico has become one of Rome’s most treasured retreats, and a place I am drawn back to whenever I return to the Eternal City.

From Papal Gardens to the Janiculum

Although the present Botanical Garden was established here in 1883, its ancestry reaches much further into Rome’s past.

The origins of botanical cultivation associated with the institution can be traced to the late 13th century, when Pope Nicholas III established an orchard, an agricultural meadow, and a garden of medicinal plants within the Vatican. Medicinal herbs were cultivated for their therapeutic properties, beginning a tradition that would eventually develop into more formal botanical study.

During the Renaissance, interest in medicinal plants and the natural sciences grew significantly. In 1514, Pope Leo X established a university chair devoted to the teaching of medicinal herbs, while those responsible for teaching also oversaw the Vatican Botanical Garden.

An independent botanical garden for Sapienza University was finally established in 1660, when Pope Alexander VII granted land on the Janiculum for its creation. The university collections subsequently occupied several different locations before finding their permanent home beside Palazzo Corsini in 1883.

The history of the present site is itself layered.

The land forms part of an archaeological area known as the Horti Getae, associated in antiquity with the baths of Emperor Septimius Severus, who ruled from 193 to 211 CE, and his son Geta. Ancient Rome therefore lies literally beneath parts of the garden.

A Garden Shaped by History

Before becoming the home of Rome’s Botanical Garden, the property had an extraordinary succession of owners and residents.

Cardinal Raffaele Riario acquired a vineyard on the lower slopes of the Janiculum in 1492. During the 17th century, the palace became associated with Queen Christina of Sweden, one of the most fascinating personalities of Baroque Rome, who lived there for many years following her abdication from the Swedish throne and conversion to Catholicism.

The Corsini family acquired the property in 1729, and several years later Cardinal Neri Corsini commissioned the distinguished architect Ferdinando Fuga to remodel the palace and garden.

When the Italian State purchased the estate in 1883, Palazzo Corsini became the home of the Accademia dei Lincei, while twelve hectares of its former grounds were assigned to Sapienza University’s Botanical Garden. Its first director at Villa Corsini, botanist Pietro Romualdo Pirotta, supervised the transfer and expansion of the university’s botanical collections.

The result is a garden where botany, architecture, archaeology, and Roman history seem continually to overlap.

A Living Museum

Today the Orto Botanico contains approximately 3,500 plant species, grown across landscapes that change considerably as the garden rises from the relatively formal lower grounds towards the Janiculum.

The grand central avenue is particularly memorable, lined with exotic palms that immediately create an atmosphere far removed from the surrounding streets of Rome. The palm collection is one of the garden’s most important, including numerous species sufficiently suited to Rome’s climate to grow outdoors throughout the year.

Elsewhere, the character changes completely.

One path enters an extraordinary bamboo collection, where dense stands form walls and canopies of green. Over sixty taxa of bamboo are represented, ranging from dwarf forms to towering species, some capable of extraordinary rates of growth during the Roman spring. Behind the bamboo are even remnants of the ancient Aurelian Walls, another unexpected meeting between nature and history.

The garden also preserves its traditional connection with medicinal plants. The herbal garden, modelled on the historic giardini dei semplici, brings together plants valued for the active substances they contain and recalls the medicinal purpose that lay behind Europe’s earliest botanical gardens.

From Rome to Japan

Among the most peaceful corners is the Japanese Garden, where paths move between carefully composed plantings, ponds, rocks, and flowing water.

Created between 1990 and 1994 to a design by the renowned Japanese landscape architect Takeshi Ken Nakajima, the garden combines Japanese traditions of landscape design with the natural contours of the Janiculum. Small waterfalls feed two ponds, while Japanese maples, camellias, magnolias, and other carefully selected plants surround the water.

It is a particularly contemplative space, where reflections, foliage, and moving water encourage visitors to slow their pace.

Nearby, historic and modern greenhouses shelter plants requiring very different climatic conditions. The Monumental Greenhouse, constructed in the 19th century, contains collections including euphorbias, while adjoining structures accommodate orchids and bromeliads. The Tropical Greenhouse recreates humid conditions for plants from tropical and subtropical environments, revealing another world behind glass.

Fountains, Trees and Changing Light

Yet some of the garden’s pleasures are less about individual collections and more about wandering.

Paths rise gradually through mature woodland and Mediterranean vegetation. Monumental trees stand alongside exotic specimens introduced from distant continents. Ferns flourish in shaded corners, aquatic plants gather around ponds, roses and irises bring seasonal colour, and fountains appear unexpectedly between the greenery.

One of the garden’s most beautiful architectural features is the Scalinata degli Undici Zampilli, the Staircase of the Eleven Fountains. Incorporated into the historic garden designed around Palazzo Corsini, the staircase and cascading water provide an elegant architectural counterpoint to the surrounding vegetation. Sapienza attributes the monumental staircase to Ferdinando Fuga, who reshaped the Corsini property during the 18th century.

As the paths climb higher, the garden becomes increasingly wooded and informal. Light filters through the canopy; vegetation partly conceals old walls and stonework, and glimpses towards Rome occasionally emerge through the trees.

The experience becomes less like visiting a conventional botanical collection and more like exploring a succession of small landscapes.

Another Rome

What makes the Orto Botanico di Roma so memorable is not merely the diversity of its plants, but the atmosphere created by its extraordinary setting.

Rome is never truly absent. Ancient remains lie beneath the soil; fragments of old walls emerge among bamboo and trees; the Janiculum rises above; Palazzo Corsini recalls centuries of aristocrats, cardinals and queens. Yet nature has softened almost everything.

For a city celebrated above all for monuments, churches, ruins and museums, the Botanical Garden reveals another side of Rome, quieter, greener and unexpectedly intimate.

I have returned to it on my visits to the city because it offers something increasingly precious in Rome: the opportunity simply to wander without urgency. There are no monumental masterpieces demanding attention at every turn, no vast crowds pressing towards the next famous sight. Instead, there are leaves moving in the breeze, the sound of water, shaded paths, and the changing Roman light.

Beyond its walls lies Trastevere, and one of the world’s most intensely visited cities. Within them is another Rome altogether: a secluded garden climbing the Janiculum, where centuries of history have become entwined with palms, bamboo, fountains and trees.

View a selection of images of Orto Botanico di Roma  

All images and text © Steven Sklifas