Description
The Giardino Inglese, today Parco Piersanti Mattarella, is the large 19th-century park on Via della Libertà, in modern Palermo: 60,000 square meters of winding paths, little hills and exotic trees, designed in 1851 by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile.
Basile gave up the geometry of the Italian garden to follow the natural lie of the land, and with the botanist Vincenzo Tineo he chose plants from all over the world. Among the giants are a sacred banyan and a phytolacca, both listed among Italy's monumental trees.
The avenue cuts the park in two. In the wooded part there are a small temple by Ernesto Basile inspired by Norman architecture, a greenhouse of glass and wrought iron and Benedetto Civiletti's group Kanaris at Chios. In the parterre stands the equestrian monument to Garibaldi by Vincenzo Ragusa, unveiled in 1891.
Basile gave up the geometry of the Italian garden to follow the natural lie of the land, and with the botanist Vincenzo Tineo he chose plants from all over the world. Among the giants are a sacred banyan and a phytolacca, both listed among Italy's monumental trees.
The avenue cuts the park in two. In the wooded part there are a small temple by Ernesto Basile inspired by Norman architecture, a greenhouse of glass and wrought iron and Benedetto Civiletti's group Kanaris at Chios. In the parterre stands the equestrian monument to Garibaldi by Vincenzo Ragusa, unveiled in 1891.