Villa Carlo Alberto al Quirinale

This small park is located at the very beginning of Via Quirinale, to the left of the building of the Constitutional Court (Palazzo della Consulta). It was built in 1888 specifically for the visit of German Kaiser Wilhelm II and initially received the name Quirinal Garden (Giardino del Quirinale). For this purpose, the buildings of the sixteenth century were built, including the churches of Mary Magdalene and San Chiara. This absurd decision was explained solely by the desire to please the influential German emperor. The guest rooms of the palace, where the German monarch was to be housed, faced this side and the view from them should not be obscured by the old buildings.

The project called for the garden to be up to Via Nazionale, but it was wise to limit it to Via Piacenza, which is reached by a wide staircase with a balustrade. Residents of Rome reacted extremely negatively to the demolition of the historic quarter and gave this place the unofficial name Kaiser's Garden.

In 1900, an equestrian statue of King Albert of Cala (Carlo Alberto di Savoia-Carignano) was installed in the center of the garden and since then the garden has also borne his name (Villa Carlo Alberto al Quirinale). I will tell you more about the king and the monument in the next article.

Now there are restored walking paths paved with gravel, a romantic lake, a tuff rock with a water cascade and vegetation typical of late nineteenth-century gardens. The garden is accessed by a cast-iron gate made according to nineteenth-century drawings. They were provided for in the original project, but were never built.