The Garden of Ninfa

The name Ninfa derives from a Roman temple built near the current garden and dedicated to the water deities.

Ninfa was part of a larger territory called Campagna and Marittima. In the 8th century it became part of the papal administration and had a strategic role due to its position on the foothill route or via pedemontana which connected Rome and Naples and was used by travellers during periods when the Via Appian was flooded.

From the 11th century the town of Ninfa was governed by various noble families such as the Conti di Tuscolo and the Frangipani, under whom the town’s architecture flourished and the economic and political importance of Ninfa grew: in 1159 Cardinal Rolando Bandinelli was crowned Alexander III in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, the ruins of which are visible today.

In 1298 Benedetto Caetani, Pope Bonifacio VIII, bought Ninfa and other neighbouring territories for his nephew Pietro II Caetani, marking the beginning of the presence of the Caetani family in the Pontine region. The small feudal proprietors of Ninfa were persuaded to sell their holdings to the Caetani for 200,000 gold florins.

In 1382 Ninfa was sacked and destroyed by the troops supporting the anti-Pope in the Great Schism.

The city was never again rebuilt, also because of the malaria that infested the nearby plain, the few remaining inhabitants left leaving behind the remains of a ghost town; the Caetani themselves moved to Rome and elsewhere.

The churches continued to be officiated by the inhabitants of the nearby hills throughout the 15th century and in part of the 16th century, and then abandoned. Today the ruins of five churches can be seen whose frescoes were detached in 1971 to be kept in the Caetani castle of Sermoneta: San Giovanni, San Biagio, San Pietro Fuori le Mura, San Salvatore and Santa Maria Maggiore.

In the 16th century, Cardinal Nicolò III Caetani, a lover of botany, created a ‘garden of delights’ at Ninfa that included a walled garden, hortus conclusus, situated next to the medieval castle.  Today, original features of the walled garden, for example fish ponds and ornamental fountains, can still be seen. 

In the late 17th century,  Duke Francesco Caetani IV, a Prince ‘no less good at governing flowers than men’, made efforts to restore the walled garden, cultivating fashionable tulips and rare citrus varieties, including the Citrus Cajetanus.

The Caetani began to revisit long-abandoned Ninfa towards the end of the 19th century.

In the early 1920s, Gelasio Caetani, with his English-born mother Ada Bootle Wilbraham, began to clear the site, laying out a garden in the Anglo-Saxon romantic style.
They planted the first cypresses, holm oaks, beeches, and roses in large numbers. With this work came restoration of the medieval buildings, including the municipal hall, later to become the family’s country house. The celebrated Pontine marshes were finally drained in 1933.

The creation of the garden was essentially a work of sensitivity and informality, without geometric preconceptions. Marguerite Chapin, Roffredo Caetani’s American-born wife, introduced new species of shrubs and roses, but above all, in the mid-1930s, she opened Ninfa to her circle of writers and artists, many of them associated with Rome-based Botteghe Oscure, the second of her literary reviews.

The last heir and Caetani gardener was Lelia, daughter of Roffredo and Marguerite. A sensitive woman, she took exquisite care of the garden. Being a painter, she visualised its development and colours in painterly terms. She liked things to be natural, so banned the use of chemical herbicides. Together with her mother, she introduced numerous magnolias, prunus, climbing roses. She also created the rock garden.

In 1972, five years before her death, Donna Lelia established the Roffredo Caetani Foundation to preserve the memory of the Caetani family and conserve the garden of Ninfa and the nearby Caetani castle in Sermoneta.

Public opening days

Booking and purchase of the visit fee are mandatory on the website www.giardinodininfa.eu

OPENING DAYS 2022

* Groups consisting of fewer than 25 participants (including minors) must guarantee a total entrance fee of € 300.00
** Accompanied by an adult

Payment can be madre on spot or by bank transfer. We inform you that the payment by bank transfer will not be refundable in case of missed visit. The contributions are per person and outside the days of opening to the public.

* Groups of elderly centers composed of fewer than 45 participants must guarantee a total entrance fee of € 360.00.

Payment can be made on spot or by bank transfer. We inform you that the payment by bank transfer will not be refundable in case of missed visit. The contributions are per person and outside the days of opening to the public.

Reservations are required by contacting the following office at the email address ingressoninfa@frcaetani.it with which it will be possible to agree on the day, the number of participants and please, for organizational purposes, provide the telephone number of a teacher who will accompany the class the day of the visit.
The booking office will communicate the bank details to make the payment.

We inform you that in case of no visit, the transfer will not be refundable.