This article was downloaded by: [UPM] On: 21 December 2014, At: 01:25 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tgah20 La battaglia del fiore. Gardens, Parks and the City in Fascist Italy Sonja Dümpelmann a a German Historical Institute , Washington, D. C. Published online: 29 May 2012. To cite this article: Sonja Dümpelmann (2005) La battaglia del fiore. Gardens, Parks and the City in Fascist Italy, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes: An International Quarterly, 25:1, 40-70, DOI: 10.1080/14601176.2005.10435333 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2005.10435333 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions (La battaglia deI fiore'l Gardens, Parks and the City in Fascist Italy SONJA DUMPELMANN In 1999 Dianne Harns pointed towards the political ideology oflandscape 'that and plant cultivation generally, causing early twentieth-century art critics to came to the fore at Dumbarton üaks under the direction of W olschke­ condemn the style of the landscape garden as contradictory to the Italian Bulmahn'.2 Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn have published spirit.4 Thus, whereas Italian literati at the beginning of the nineteenth century widely in this field in German, English and American journals. Harns also had discussed vehemently and had tried to prove the Italian origin of the mentioned the lacuna in the historiography of gardens in fascist Italy. These landscape garden,5 a hundred years later its adoption in Italy was considered a last years have seen an increasing interest in the subject, and some recent works 'faux pas' in the history of Italian garden design and unworthy of scientific have attempted to start to fill the gap. 3 research. The few Italian art critics such as Luigi Dami (1882-1926) and Maria Not only did fascist ideology influence garden design, horticulture, open Pasolini Ponti (1857-1938) and architects of the period who were concerned space planning and initiatives for landscape protection. But these different with garden art were therefore mostly interested in Italian renaissance gardens. facets of garden culture were also instrumentalized by the fascists in order to Paradoxically, while the development of garden styles in Italy came to a pursue their goal of creating a 'third Rome'. This article presents some of the standstill, countries such as England, Germany and the USA continued to use aspects that characterized garden culture under the fascist regime from 1922 Italian renaissance and baroque gardens as models into the twentieth century. until the early 1940s. It aims at showing how far the fascists' appropriation of The young British architects Geoffrey Alan Jellicoe (1900-96) and John cultural symbols also involved garden culture and presents examples of how Chiene Shepherd (b. 1896) as well as American architects and landscape fascism politicized and instrumentalized the gardening pursuits of the average architects, Fellows of the American Academy in Rome, came to Italy in order Italian citizen as well as professionallandscape architectural and horticultural to study its neglected gardens. Members of the American and British financial Downloaded by [UPM] at 01:25 21 December 2014 production. aristocracy were amongst the first to restore some of the renaissance villas such as the Villa Gamberaia and the Villa La Pietra near Florence.6 In Italy, the few publications dealing with garden art, the comparatively late foundation of the The Neglect of Garden Culture first horticultural societies, the lack of collaboration between nurserymen, When the fascists seized power with the march on Rome in üctober 1922, botanists, gardeners and architects, the absence of professional Italian landscape garden design and horticulture in Italy was largely neglected. In fact, urban designers, the scarce supply of plants, and unfavourable social, economic, development, speculation and little respect for garden art had led to the cultural and political factors all contributed to the neglect of garden culture in destruction of numerous villas and private gardens in the big Italian cities such the first years of the twentieth century. In 1928, the architect Tomaso Buzzi as Milan and Rome between 1860 and 1910. The introduction of the (1900-81) spoke ofa 'general lack ofinterest in garden art'.7 Rome's Director landscape garden c. 1800 had led to a decrease in the number of plant nurseries ofParks and Gardens, Bruno Braschi (d.1937), identified the problem in 1933 40 ISSN 1460-1176 © 2005 TAYLOR " FRANCIS GARDENS, PARKS AND THE CITY IN FASCIST ITALY when Fascist cultural politics had already started to take an active part in what they called renaissance design principles while at the same time adapting reviving Italy's garden culture: 'garden architecture [which] until yesterday the design to modem day needs!S They called for a (second) 'renaissance' of was neglected and - with some exceptions - was in the hands of gardeners garden art in Italy. [6 who know very little about art, or architects who know little about The increased attention towards gardens and their history also caused the . ,8 gard emng. Roman legislators to take into account the protection of historic parks and gardens when they were drawing up the new law no. 778 ofJune 24, 1922 for the 'protection of the natural beauties and immovable structures of particular The Renewed Interest in Gardens and Garden Design historic interest'. 17 As early as 1905 one of the pioneers of nature protection in The first attempts to revive the Italian garden tradition were undertaken in the Italy and the chief theorist of conservation legislation, Luigi Parpagliolo (1868- ls second decade of the twentieth century. Finally, after Americans, British and 1953), had demanded the protection of historic gardens. Mter the first Germans had published on the subject,9 in 1915, the duchess and member of provisional attempt to extend the jurisdiction (no. 688) for the protection of the Associazione artistica fra i Cultori di architettura in Roma (AACAR) Maria monuments and cultural heritage to 'villas, parks and gardens that are of Pasolini Ponti published her book on 'The Italian Garden'. However, even in historic and artistic interest' onJune 23, 1912, the new law finally provided an this first ltalian monograph published on the subject in the twentieth century, appropriate instrument for their protection. The law of June 1922 marked a the dorninance of foreign contemporaries in the field became apparent: high point in the liberal-progessive Italian nature protection movement that Pasolini Ponti quoted and translated passages from Edith Wharton's book had begun with the protection of woods and forests after the Italian unification Italian villas and their gardens (New York, 1904).10 Ponti's publication was and had come to a temporary standstill du ring WW 1.[9 The law of 1922 followed after WWI by two volumes written on the same subject by the art provided the basis for the establishment of the first national parks begimling critic Luigi Darni. [[ Highlighting and supporting the fornlal character traits of with the 'Gran Paradiso' in the year of the fascists' seizure of power, followed the Italian garden Pasolini Ponti and Darni not only rejected the landscape by the Abbruzzo National Park (1923), the Circeo southwest of Rome (1934) garden but also condemned eclecticism and the pluralism of styles which until and the Ste/vio National Park near the Swiss border in 1935. Although the then had chatacterized garden design throughout the Italian peninsular. [2 They 1930S have been characterized as aperiod of 'conservation's quiet retreat',20 supported the 'return to order' ('ritorno all'ordine'), a general tendency in the the law of 1922 was a starting point for further discussion, revision and arts of the time. This tendency which in the case of Pasolini Ponti and Darni development of cultural heritage and nature conservation issues undertaken can largely be attributed to the cultural nationalism COinmon at the time, also under the fascist regime and culrninating in the new laws no.l089 and became apparent in articles on garden art published in Italian architectural no. 1497 approved on June 1 and June 29, 1939. Downloaded by [UPM] at 01:25 21 December 2014 journals with greater frequency from the late 1920S onwards. Strong architectural features structuring the planted grounds and attributed to the The Fascist Politicization of Garden Culture Italian renaissance gardens were a favourite design principle authors referred to.