ON THE HUNT FOR HIDDEN RIDDLES: TREVES PARK AND PRATO DELLA VALLE

A ​​fascinating journey that begins in an “unknown” garden and leads to one of the city’s iconic sites, revealing legends, allegories, and metaphors, as well as the initiatory and Masonic intent of its creator, architect Giuseppe Jappelli.

Giuseppe Jappelli designed an urban garden, a botanical garden for the exclusive use of the family.

Its cornerstone was the cultivation and preservation of exotic plants, modeled after other acclimatization gardens that enjoyed great success during the 19th century.

The presence of the neoclassical temple, the Chinese pagoda—now lost but remembered in engravings and photographs of the time—and the gardener’s house evoked worlds past or distant, in a climate of artistic and cultural revival typical of the 19th century.

Jappelli, in agreement with the client and for them, inserted ornamental and vegetal elements that contained esoteric meanings, linked to Freemasonry and alchemy.