Savello Park, better known as Orange Garden, is a small terrace on the Aventine overlooking the Tiber. From this corner, one of the most loved and frequented of the city, you can enjoy a spectacular view of Rome.
The Savello Park extends into the area of the ancient fort, built by the Savelli family between 1285 and 1287 near the church of Saint Sabina on the Aventino hill, and built in the 10th century on a pre-existing castle belonging to the Crescenzi family.
The current garden was built in 1932 by Raffaele De Vico according to the new urban definition of the Aventine hill. It was planned to situate the public park in the area that the Dominican fathers of the nearby church kept as a vegetable garden, joining this garden with another one at the time occupied by the Municipal Lazzaretto, corresponding to part of the present Garden of S. Alessio. It was built to create a new lookout and offer free access to the view from that side of the hill, beyond and over the Pincio and Gianicolo views. The garden has been planted with orange trees, with reference to the orange tree where St. Dominic, founder of the order, preached. The St. Dominic orange is now preserved in the nearby cloister of S. Sabina and visible through an open hole in the wall of the church’s portico. De Vico gave the Orange Garden a rigidly symmetrical layout, with a median avenue in line with the belvedere, which ends in two openings on the sides. On the right one was originally the fountain built by Giacomo della Porta for Piazza Montanara, and moved in 1973 to Piazza S. Simeone ai Coronari. The main entrance in Piazza S. Pietro d’Illiria, was enriched in 1937 by the portal coming from Villa Balestra on the Via Flaminia.