Giardino di Ninfa

The Garden of Ninfa grows among the ruins of a medieval town beside the river Ninfa. The Caetani family developed the landscape into an informal garden, weaving roses, trees and watercourses through the remains of churches, walls and towers.

Why it matters

Ninfa is a historic garden within the ruins of the medieval city of the same name. The Caetani family gradually turned the abandoned settlement into a garden, allowing the ruins themselves to shape its design. In 2000, the Regione Lazio declared the area a Natural Monument. The Fondazione Roffredo Caetani manages the garden and records more than one thousand plant species.

What to notice

The remains of five churches survive within the garden, including Santa Maria Maggiore, where Rolando Bandinelli was crowned Pope Alexander III in 1159. Plantings of cypress, holm oak and roses frame ruined towers and arches, while springs feed streams through the grounds. A sixteenth-century enclosed garden, or hortus conclusus, was created under Cardinal Nicolò III Caetani. Later additions include a rock garden known as the colletto, developed by Lelia Caetani.

Context and history

Ninfa developed as a town during the Middle Ages and passed through several families before the Caetani acquired it in 1298. In 1382, troops of the antipope sacked the settlement; malaria and the surrounding marsh contributed to its abandonment. Cardinal Nicolò III Caetani created a garden beside the fortress in the sixteenth century. In the late nineteenth century, Ada Bootle Wilbraham and her sons began clearing ruins and planting trees and roses. Marguerite Chapin later introduced further species, and her daughter Lelia Caetani continued to shape the garden. In 1972, Lelia established the Fondazione Roffredo Caetani to protect the garden and family heritage.