Gardens of Vatican City

Gardens of the Vatican City
240px The Vatican Gardens
Type	Botanical
Location	Vatican City
Coordinates
Area	23 hectares (57 acres)
Owned by	The Pope as Bishop of Rome
Status	Active

The Gardens of Vatican City also informally known as the Vatican Gardens (Italian: Giardini Vaticanicode: it is deprecated ) in Vatican City are private urban gardens and parks which cover more than half of the country, located in the west of the territory and is owned by the Pope. There are some buildings, such as Radio Vatican, within the gardens.

The gardens cover approximately 23 hectares (57 acres) which is most of the Vatican Hill. The highest point is 60 metres (200 ft) above mean sea level. Stone walls bound the area in the North, South and West. The gardens and parks were established during the Renaissance and Baroque era and are decorated with fountains and sculptures.

There is no general public access, but guided tours are available to limited numbers. The gardens also enshrine 14 Marian images venerated worldwide at the designation of the Roman Pontiff, who is the owner of the gardens.

History

Empress Saint Helena carrying the One True Cross laying the grounds for the gardens using the sacred soil from Mount Calvary.

Pious tradition claim that the foundation site of the Vatican Gardens was spread with sacred soil brought from Mount Calvary by Empress Saint Helena to symbolically unite the blood of Jesus Christ with that shed by thousands of early Christians, who died in the persecutions of Emperor Nero Caesar Augustus.

The gardens date back to medieval times when orchards and vineyards extended to the north of the Papal Apostolic Palace. In 1279, Pope Nicholas III (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, 1277–1280) moved his residence back to the Vatican from the Lateran Palace and enclosed this area with walls. He planted an orchard (pomerium), a lawn (pratellum) and a garden (viridarium).

The Little Flower, Saint Therese of Lisieux is the official Patroness of the gardens.

The site received a major re-landscaping at the beginning of the 16th century, during the pontificate of Pope Julius II. Donato Bramante's original design was then split into three new courtyards, the Cortili del Belvedere, the "della Biblioteca" and the "della Pigna" (or Pine Cone) in the Renaissance landscape design style. Also in Renaissance style, a great rectangular Labyrinth, formal in design, set in boxwood and framed with Italian stone pines, (Pinus pinea) and cedars of Lebanon, (Cedrus libani). In place of Nicholas III's enclosure, Bramante built a great rectilinear defensive wall.

Today's Vatican Gardens are spread over nearly 23 hectares (57 acres), they contain a variety of medieval fortifications, buildings and monuments from the 9th century to the present day, set among vibrant flower beds and topiary, green lawns and a 3 hectares (7.4 acres) patch of forest. There are a variety of fountains cooling the gardens, sculptures, an artificial grotto devoted to Our Lady of Lourdes, and an olive tree donated by the government of Israel.

Patroness of the Gardens

Pope Pius XI designated Saint Therese of Lisieux The Little Flower as the official Patroness of the gardens on 17 May 1927, according her the title as "Sacred Keeper of the Gardens" and within the same year a small temple dedicated to her was built within the gardens near the Leonine walls.

List of Marian images enshrined

The following are the official list of venerated images of the Blessed Virgin Mary enshrined at the Vatican Gardens:

14 Marian images permanently enshrined in the Gardens of Vatican City

Image within the Gardens	Place of Devotion	Nation	Year of Devotion	Date of Installation	Feast Day
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception	Lourdes		1858	1 June 1902	February 11
Our Lady of the Watch	Monte Figogna		1490	2 May 1917	August 29
File:Giardino americano Vatican Gardens Guadalupe 20110705.jpg Our Lady of Guadalupe	Tepeyac		1531	14 October 1939	December 12
Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima	Pontevedra		1917	29 May 1983	May 13
The Madonna of Schoenstatt	Vallendar		1914	1992	October 18
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa	Jasna Gora		1382	1994	August 26
The Virgin of Mercy	Savona		1536	10 May 1995	March 18
Our Lady of Divine Love	Via Ardeatina		1740	10 May 1999	Monday of Pentecost
Our Lady of Sacred Heart of Taggia	Rome		1855	21 March 2006	March 11
Our Lady of Good Counsel	Genazzano		1467	11 July 2009	April 26
The Virgin of Suyapa	Honduras		1747	20 September 2013	February 3
Santa Maria de la Antigua	Panama		1513	26 October 2013	September 9
Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre	Cuba		1612	28 August 2014	September 8
Our Lady of Penafrancia	Philippines		1434	3 December 2015	3rd Saturday in September

Gallery

• 

  Part of the Vatican Gardens

• Fountain of the Eagle, Vatican gardens, Rome.JPG

  The Fountain of the Eagle "Fontana dell'Aquilone" in the Vatican Gardens

• Khatchkar Vatican Gardens 2011-07-05.jpg

  Armenian cross monument (Khatchkar) inside the Vatican Gardens

• Vatican Gardens 2.jpg

  Vatican Gardens

• 

  Palace of the Governorate of Vatican City State

• Vatican Gardens 6.jpg

  Vatican Gardens

See also

• Vatican Climate Forest
• Index of Vatican City-related articles
• www.vaticangardens.org

References

Bibliography

• Ricci, Corrado. "Vatican: Its History Its Treasures" Contributor Ernesto Begni. © 2003 Published by Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 0-7661-3941-7, ISBN 978-0-7661-3941-1
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 

Sources

^{The initial version is based upon the article it:Giardini Vaticani of the Italian language edition of Wikipedia. Data concerning the measures of lengths were taken from the article de:Vatikanische Gärten of the German language edition of Wikipedia.}

External links

• [1], current and historical layouts
• Official website
• The Vatican: spirit and art of Christian Rome, a book from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on the gardens (pp. 155–164)