With spring in full swing, our attention naturally turns to the Academy’s gardens. The pastoral landscape of the Bass Garden provides a backdrop for study and introspection, while the more formal Victorian gardens of Villa Aurelia host a succession of celebrations. Combining form and function, the vegetable garden supplies herbs and produce for the Academy’s tables.
Although they may appear timeless, the gardens have not always flourished like they do today. The global economic strain of the 1970s, coupled with regional outbreaks of insects and disease in the 1980s, left the gardens in a state of neglect.
A turning point came in 1990, with the Historic Landscape Report and Landscape Master Plan, prepared for the Academy by Laurie Olin (1974 Fellow, 1990 and 2008 Resident) and Hanna/Olin, Ltd. The report was commissioned by the Academy’s Plant and Planning Committee, on the occasion of the Year of the Landscape celebration.
“For an institution that aspires to train and set standards for those who engage in the design of the environment, and that purports to pass the torch of ancient arts and learning … this is a sorry situation,” reads the Landscape Report. “The Academy has not practiced what it preaches. One goal of this master plan is to reverse the situation, to consider the legacy presented by the existing landscape, to propose a way forward that conserves and restores that which has merit, to remove that which does not, and to add to that which will improve the Academy and its life.”
Starting in 1992, following guidance from the Landscape Report, the Academy undertook ten years of landscape restoration. This major project relied on the creative and financial support of the Board of Trustees, particularly Mercedes Bass and Millicent Johnson. With their support, Alessandra Vinciguerra was hired as Bass Superintendent of Gardens to oversee the project. She continues in this role today.
Thanks to the work of the trustees, Vinciguerra, and a team of dedicated groundskeepers—known as the Greens or Verdi for the color of their uniforms—the Academy’s gardens are now considered among the most beautiful in Rome, providing a fitting backdrop for Academy life, year after year.
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