Roseto di Roma Capitale

The ground has been given to flowers since the third century BC: Tacitus records in the Annales a temple of the goddess Flora, whose floralia were held in spring in the Circus Maximus. It lay under gardens and vineyards through the sixteenth century, and in 1645 became the Orto degli Ebrei, with a small cemetery for the Jewish community. From 1934, when that cemetery was moved to the Verano, the city plan designated the area a park; it lay uncultivated until 1950, when it became the new municipal rose garden. In thanks to the Jewish community for allowing the garden on a sacred site, a stele recording the earlier use was placed at the entrance, and the paths dividing the beds in the collection area were laid out in the shape of the menorah. The Premio Roma has run since its first edition, in 1933 on the Colle Oppio.