International interdisciplinary conference organised by the Historical Museum and Park of Miramare Castle
Conservation, knowledge and management of a historical garden in the age of sustainability
Organised by Andreina Contessa with the collaboration of Lionella Scazzosi
Trieste, Castello di Miramare, 15/16 settembre 2022
Conference Scientific Committee: Rita Auriemma, Nicola Bressi, Fernando Mazzocca, Lionella Scazzosi (Scientific Committee of the Historical Museum and Park of Miramare Castle).
Coordination Committee: Marta Nardin, Giorgia Ottaviani, Gianna Tinacci, Luca Gherghetta, Michela Riva, Isabella Franco.
Over the past four years, the complexity of the management, conservation, protection, and promotion of green museums has been at the centre of the discussion and has been addressed in a series of meetings organised by Italian autonomous national museums with parks in order to set out the guidelines for action, programmes and projects to be carried out through a coordinated and collaborative effort. This platform of meetings, called the Green Table (whose historical group is composed of the directors of the Uffizi Galleries, the Autonomous Institute of Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este in Tivoli, the Royal Museums of Turin, the Historical Museum and Park of Miramare Castle, the Royal Palace of Caserta, and the Museum and Real Bosco of Capodimonte), with the participation of the Association Parks and Gardens of Italy, APGI, has focused on the peculiar features, needs, challenges, and strengths to be leveraged of these institutions in a constructive discussion on common objectives and necessary operational measures.
This conference is conceived as a broader continuation of the sharing of knowledge already in progress and as a conceptual and operational development of the meetings and conclusions of the Green Table on conservation, periodic and scheduled maintenance, promotion and management of historical gardens.
A treasure chest of a fragile living legacy, historical gardens, considered as works of art and artifacts comprising architectural heritage and monumental plants, were at times born as large productive sites and at times as places of delight and leisure for the aristocracy, evolving into a social and productive space. In this process, they have ultimately become a hallmark of the surrounding area, characterised by a close relationship between architecture, environment and nature. They also constitute a scientific resource that can help find answers to the needs of environmental sustainability, as the wealth of scientific knowledge, techniques and practices developed and tested in the past and present for their construction and management is extremely rich and valuable, although still neglected.
Historical gardens are “green museums”, real open-air museums, which are continuously changing and constantly developing, an organic structure with a vegetal soul, in which a different operational approach from that used for the monumental and museum heritage is needed. Like all cultural and historical heritage, historical gardens are a common asset, a collective heritage that the public must be able to enjoy, and which often bears the weight of considerable anthropic influences.
Historical gardens are an essential environmental and ecological resource for the quality of life and the physical and mental well-being of people.
The conference in Miramare aims to solicit a commitment and to define a discussion on the actions necessary for the knowledge and promotion of the heritage of historical gardens and parks, opening a discussion on the knowledge, conservation, and management of plant heritage, on the role of designers and gardeners, on operational aspects related to the necessary use of sustainable practices, on the training of professionals, and on the practices of conservation, design, operation and management of plant heritage.
It will also be important to discuss the issue of the relationship between gardens and their context, both for the compositional relationships that these places have with the broader landscape, and for the agronomic and stewardship activities of landed properties generally connected, as landscape systems of historical residences.
The Park of Miramare is the most important historical garden in the northeastern part of Italy and a historical hallmark of Mitteleuropa for its history and position.
This conference aims to become a venue for regular meetings so as to create a scientific and operational reference for other historical green areas in the use of sustainable and environment-friendly practices.
The conference will be structured around the issues related to the function of historical gardens and their configuration, in relation to their maintenance and management, the identification of guidelines for a cognitive study of the arboreal heritage, and for the definition of a plan for conservation, scheduled and constant periodic maintenance, and the definition of long-term actions, marked by the informed and economic use of resources and the protection of biodiversity.
The proposed themes at the conference include:
- Compatibility between garden identity, public use, promotion, preservation, and sustainable management practices in the context of future perspectives.
- Management plans: knowledge and survey of the arboreal and plant heritage as a whole; ordinary maintenance programmes and extraordinary interventions; qualification, training and use of specialised professionals working in historical parks
- Sustainability and biodiversity in the current historical and landscape setting.
- Experimentation with forms of management that integrate sustainable and productive agricultural management (animal husbandry, dairy production, beekeeping, and floriculture) in line with and following on the historical management.
Please confirm your attendance at:
mu-mira @cultura.gov.it
Secretariat of the Historical Museum and Park of Miramare Castle
Contact Persons: Luca Gherghetta and Michela Riva
tel. +39 040 224143, extension 207 – 214
mu-mira.segreteria@cultura.gov.it
Click here for the program of the event
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