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BEST HIDDEN GARDENS IN ITALY · INCLUSIVE TRAVEL IN EUROPE
One of Northern Italy’s Great Romantic Gardens Through Sight, Sound and Touch
One of northern Italy’s major landscape gardens, reworked for sight, sound and touch through the European GATE project.
Looking for the best hidden gardens in Italy or unusual historic parks in Europe? In Santorso, Vicenza, Parco Rossi combines one of northern Italy’s major nineteenth century landscape gardens with an unusually ambitious approach to inclusive travel. Designed by Antonio Caregaro Negrin between 1865 and 1884, the garden stages lakes, grottoes, exotic trees, artificial ruins and manipulated views. Through the European GATE project, that Romantic landscape was later equipped with a tactile, talking and visual map, multilingual interpretation, Braille and 19 audio and video stories designed to let visitors read the park through sight, sound and touch.
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Elena S · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Know before you go
Do not confuse Parco Rossi with nearby Oasi Rossi. Parco Rossi is the nineteenth century historic landscape garden on Via Santa Maria. Oasi Rossi is the separate family park and tropical butterfly destination. DIRECTIONS From Vicenza, drive about 29 km north towards Schio and Santorso. Santorso is the foothill town directly below Monte Summano. Navigate specifically to: Parco Rossi Via Santa Maria 36014 Santorso, Vicenza
About
Parco Rossi in Santorso, Vicenza, was selected as one of the pilot sites of GATE, an Interreg Italy Austria project dedicated to accessible tourism across the Alpine region. At the entrance, a tactile, talking and visual map provides information in Italian, English and Braille. Across the garden, 19 audio and video stories describe plants, architecture and episodes from its history through smartphones and a network of beacons. The project followed Design for All principles and included visitors with visual, hearing and mobility disabilities, as well as children, international visitors and older people. GATE also created Parco Rossi INgame, a digital visit using augmented reality, voice interaction and an onscreen guide to reconstruct episodes from the garden’s history and the world of Alessandro Rossi. For travellers searching for accessible historic gardens in Italy, hidden gardens in Vicenza or unusual Romantic parks in Europe, Parco Rossi has a distinctive proposition: a major nineteenth century landscape garden in the province of Vicenza that can be explored through sight, sound and touch.
THE STORY
About 29 km north of Vicenza, below Monte Summano, Parco Rossi occupies the sloping ground between the historic Villa Rossi and the former experimental farm created by textile industrialist Alessandro Rossi. Architect Antonio Caregaro Negrin designed it between 1865 and 1884 as one of northern Italy’s major Romantic landscape gardens.
The first scene is a lake surrounded by mature exotic trees: paths then wander between water, artificial ruins, grottoes, fountains, a historic aquarium and deliberately irregular planting. Among the nineteenth century specimens are Himalayan pine, Portuguese cypress and monumental bald cypresses with strange aerial roots rising from the ground around them.
Caregaro Negrin even manipulated the landscape beyond the garden walls. When the nearby Sant’Orso church bell tower was restored, he proposed making it taller so that its reflection would appear in a circular fountain in Parco Rossi and could be seen from Alessandro Rossi’s bedroom. The church tower became part of the garden composition from a distance.
Rossi went further still. A public road originally separated his villa from the lower garden. He bought the road, shifted its route and created a pedestrian underpass, allowing the family to pass directly from the villa into the park without crossing the public street.
DON’T MISS
The lake and monumental bald cypresses The historic aquarium hidden in a ruin like structure Grottoes and water features The tactile talking map The 19 digital stories around the park The viewpoint where the Sant’Orso bell tower enters the garden through its reflection