Giardino degli Aranci, Rome

Giardino degli Aranci is a public park on the Aventine, also known as Parco Savello, covering about 7,800 square metres and offering a broad view of the city. Its name comes from the bitter citrus trees growing here. The park occupies the grounds of a Savelli fortress built between 1285 and 1287 over an earlier Crescenzi castle; surviving wall sections still mark that older history.

Raffaele De Vico created the present garden in 1932, opening the hillside as a public belvedere. At the entrance, a Roman bath basin supports a marble mask made by Giacomo della Porta for a fountain of 1593. As local legend has it, Saint Dominic brought an orange sapling from Spain, and Catherine of Siena later candied its fruit for Pope Urban VI.