Roseto Comunale: The Rose Garden Shaped Like a Menorah
Why is it significant?
Look through the railings at the terraces climbing the slope of the hill. In spring they explode with colour, more than a thousand varieties of roses from all over the world. But before you look at the flowers, look at the paths between them.
Key Facts
| Place | Roseto Comunale: The Rose Garden Shaped Like a Menorah |
|---|---|
| Address | Via di Valle Murcia 6, 00153 Roma RM, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.88460, 12.48290 |
| Part of Walk | The Keyhole and the Amphora Hill: Aventine Secrets & Testaccio's Roman Soul |
| Generated | Generated |
Look through the railings at the terraces climbing the slope of the hill. In spring they explode with colour, more than a thousand varieties of roses from all over the world. But before you look at the flowers, look at the paths between them. Seen from above, they draw a shape: a seven-branched candelabrum, a menorah.
That is not decoration for its own sake. At the entrance stand two stone tablets in the shape of the Tables of the Law. From 1645 until the twentieth century, this slope was the cemetery of the Jews of Rome. The community, locked inside the ghetto by papal decree for three centuries, was allowed to bury its dead here, outside the walls of the ghetto but under strict rules. For long periods, tombstones bearing names were forbidden.
In 1934, the regime decided to cut a grand new road along the Circus Maximus. The cemetery was in the way. The graves were moved to the large municipal cemetery of Verano, and the hillside was left bare. A few years later came the racial laws, the deportations, and the darkest chapter in the history of Roman Jews.
When the city decided to place its new rose garden here after the war, the Jewish community agreed on one condition: that the memory of what this ground had been should never be erased. And so the paths were drawn as a menorah. Every year, a competition crowns the most beautiful new rose in the world, and visitors walk among the petals along the arms of a sacred lamp, often without knowing it.
Long before any of this, ancient writers placed a temple to Flora, goddess of flowers, on the slopes near the Circus. Whether by accident or by design, the flowers have come back. The garden opens only in its seasons, mostly in spring, but the shape is there all year round. Now take the steep little lane called Clivo dei Publicii up the hill. At the top, the city falls quiet.