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The main attractions of this steeply sloping park are the waterfalls and grottoes created by the River Aniene (Berlioz calls it by its ancient name, the Anio). The park is named after Pope Gregory XVI, who in the 1830s – and therefore after Berlioz’s stay in 1831-2 – ordered the building of a tunnel to ward against flooding. When the tunnel was completed, it created a new waterfall, called the Grande Cascata (Great Waterfall), which plunges 160 metres (525 ft) into the valley behind the town of Tivoli. Throughout the 1800s, the Villa Gregoriana was popular with travellers, poets, artists, kings and emperors enchanted by the beauty of the park. Nowadays, with intensive industrial use of the water from the Aniene river the waterfall is smaller than it was in 1830s.
Berlioz visited this park on at least two occasions, in June and November 1831: such was its natural beauty that it was a regular part of any visit to Tivoli. In a letter to his family dated 24 June 1831, in which he tells of his discovery of Tivoli, he writes (CG no. 232):
[…] I have never seen anything so ravishingly beautiful. These waterfalls, these clouds of vaporised water, these smoking chasms, this fresh river, these caves, these innumerable rainbows, the olive groves, the mountains, the country houses, the village, all this is ravishing and original. […]
The November visit is mentioned in the account in the Memoirs of the visit to Tivoli on his return from Naples.
The Villa Gregoriana
in picturesAll the photographs reproduced on this page were taken by Michel Austin in May 2007; the 19th century engraving is from our own collection. © Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin. All rights of reproduction reserved.
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