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The public garden of Piazza Umberto I is located in Bari in the Murattiano district, and its’ basically an unfenced public park owned by the local Municipality. The current layout of this park comes from two previously merged gardens, redesigned to surround the bronze equestrian statue of Umberto I in 1905: a tribute to the King by the city of Bari.
The first garden was created in 1866 by the Neapolitan architect Giovanni Castelli: he actually designed it as an addition to Palazzo Ateneo; the second green area was born much later, eventually framing the above-mentioned statue of Umberto I.

Palazzo Castello and surrounding gardens were built during a pivotal moment at the time of the Unification of Italy. The special consortium managed by the Province and the Municipality decided to build an imposing building to house the existing schools and a university facility.
The green areas were actually developed all around the building. On one side of the latter, there were some simple gardens, while on the other, the designers placed symmetrical green areas featuring circular, triangular and rectangular flower beds.

Today, visitors can still see the bronze equestrian statue of Umberto I, created by Francesco Cifariello from Molfetta. In these gardens, tropical and neotropical flora happily coexist as a true testament to the past cultural and commercial exchanges.

In particular, there are palm trees such as Washingtonia robusta, Washingtonia filifera, Phoenix canariensis, Phoenix dactylifera, Chamaerops humilis, Trachycarpus fortunei.
Among the trees, there are Mediterranean evergreen species such as Quercus ilex, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinea, Cedrus libani, and Cupressus sempervirens fastigiato.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)