Paolo Mighetto, Project Manager - Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Maurizio Bartolini, First Gardener for Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Alessandro Marradi, EngineeringConsulting

Alberto Giuntoli, PhD. International ASLA, Landscape and Planning

Lorenzo Pacini, Landscape and Planning

Silvia Bellesi, Landscape and Planning

Lorenzo Casulli, Designer

Fabio Villasanta, Landscape and Planning

Martina Simeone, Landscape and Planning

Milena Meniconi, Agronomist

Giovanni Minucci, Social Consulting

 

 

A green ring of 4 km, surrounding the walls of ancient Pompeii, is planned as a buffer park where necropolises and extra urban Roman villas coexist with agriculture and forests. The park will highlight the site’s historical character while enhancing the quality of the visit, creating inclusive pathways and resting places for the 4 M tourist who visit yearly and for the residents. The Ring, with its new functional areas, will become the main spine of the connection network between the archaeological site and the territory. New view points will connect the ancient city with the landscape of Vesuvius and of the Gulf of Naples while the ecological corridors of the surrounding ecosystems will be integrated in the new green infrastructure.

 

Excavation of Pompeii began in the mid 18th century, but just a century later, Giuseppe Fiorelli inspector of the excavations, clarified that the buried city was not just made up of streets and domus, but also of rich gardens. The extensive archaeo-botanical studies, as well as the botanical interpretation of the many plant-themed frescoes of the domus, done by various scientists in the past, have been inestimable documentation for our project. The American archaeologist Wilhelmina FeemsterJashemski, in 1979, contributed significantly to the historical knowledge of Pompeiis flora, with her volume "The Gardens of Pompeii". Another fundamental figure for the knowledge of the ancient landscape was the biologist and, in the 1980s, manager of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage AnnamariaCiarallo. She wrote the Flora Pompeiana, listing over 200 plant species existing in ancient Roman time and designed, at the end of the 1990s, a pedestrian circuit outside the walls of great landscape value, which was gradually forgotten.

The project for the Green Ring was promoted by the Ministry of Culture (MIC) and by the Pompeii Archaeological Park and was co-financed by MIC through the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience of the Next Generation EU program.

The new buffer park, which integrates the design of Ciarallo’s pathway, will stimulate the inhabitants of the municipality to actively experience the amazing beauty and quietness of this unique place, walking or relaxing in the new green park. The Ring will also redistribute the considerable flows of visitors mitigating the pressure on the site thus helping with the protection of the archaeological remains. There will therefore be two connected circuits, one inside and one outside the historic walls, the last freely open to residents. Iconic plants (e.g. Pinuspinea) and materials (e.g. tuff) will be reused to represent the remains of the overlapped layers of historical landscape, like a palimpsest, while other species (e.g. Cupressusssempervirens) from the ancient landscape will be reintroduced as landmarks.

The park will connect existing and new green areas, create new public spaces as playgrounds and rest areas, and it will pass through the necropolises outside the walls. It will offer remarkable views of the archaeological remains, the Vesuvius, the bay, the rural and the “wild” areas.