Rose Garden

When Florence was named the capital of Italy in the nineteenth century, the city underwent a dramatic urban renewal designed to project modernity and grandeur. Architect Giuseppe Poggi led this ambitious transformation, creating wide avenues and scenic viewpoints like the iconic Piazzale Michelangelo. Part of this vision included the creation of the Rose Garden in 1865, designed to provide a lush, green counterpoint to the monumental stone of the city architecture. It reclaimed land previously known as the Podere di San Francesco, a humble hillside plot once belonging to the Filippini fathers, and reshaped it into a series of refined terraces that follow the natural lie of the land. Over the decades, the garden evolved from a simple cultivated space into a curated botanical collection. It adopted a French-style layout that harmonised rustic charm with rational, structured irrigation, a testament to the engineering prowess of the era. The garden began to serve the public interest in the late 1890s, opening its gates for the Festival of Arts and Flowers. This solidified its place in the Florentine social calendar, inviting locals to appreciate the delicate intersection of horticulture and civic beauty. Today, the garden serves as a bridge between Florence and the wider world. Its character deepened in 1998 with the addition of a serene Japanese oasis, a generous gift from the city of Kyoto and the Kōdai-ji temple, which introduces Zen aesthetics to the Tuscan landscape. This international spirit was further strengthened in 2011 when the garden became a permanent open-air gallery for the works of Belgian sculptor Jean-Michel Folon. These bronzes sit amidst the rosebeds, creating a dialogue between human creativity and the living, blooming earth. The result is a space that feels both deeply local and beautifully universal.