The Palm Avenue of Villa Giulia

Villa Giulia opened in 1778, which makes it, by most accounts, Italy's first public garden, decades before Rome, Florence or Milan opened anything comparable to ordinary citizens rather than nobility. Goethe visited in 1787 and called it the most stupendous place in the world, high praise from a man who had just finished touring the rest of the country. The garden's original 18th century layout, designed by Nicolo Palma with sculptures by Ignazio Marabitti, predates the entrance avenue most visitors actually remember. That is a colonnade of Washingtonia robusta, Mexican fan palms, planted along Via Lincoln when the garden expanded in the 19th century, tall enough now that walking the avenue means walking in dappled shade for its entire length regardless of the hour. The species is native to the Sonoran Desert, about as far from Sicily's climate zone as Mexico's coast, and it has thrived here since being introduced across southern Europe as an ornamental import. At the garden's centre, a marble sundial built to a 1784 design by the mathematician Lorenzo Federici still stands beside a fountain sculpted by Marabitti, both older than the palms that now frame the walk toward them. Free, open daily, still doing the job it was built for in 1778.