Garden of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale

A small green oasis in the city’s historic center, in the Rione Monti, close to the churches of Sant’Andrea and San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane, two masterpieces of the Roman Baroque. Shaded and well-preserved, it occupies the site of the vegetable garden, with furnishings and fountains, of the monastery complex of Sant’Andrea: the origin of the garden is owed precisely to the convent’s religious missionaries who, returning from distant countries, brought back unknown and exotic plants, such as cedars or camphor, which can still be admired in the park today.

The site was expropriated by the Ministry of the Royal Household soon after the Unification of Italy, as part of the arrangement of public areas that were located near the Quirinal Palace, elected as the residence of the royal family. Work on the garden was entrusted to royal gardener Giuseppe Roda, who designed a central ellipsoidal area, surrounded by curvilinear avenues and other minor flower beds, a pergola with roses (no longer extant) and a rustic fountain, all enclosed by walls later replaced by the current balustrade.

In 2014, as part of the celebration for the bicentenary of the founding of the Carabinieri Corps, the monument “Carabinieri nella Tempesta” by Florentine artist Antonio Berti (1904-1990), made in 1973, was unveiled inside the garden.