Rapporto tra natura e archeologia. Restauri e valorizzazione di un giardino storico sui resti dell’anfiteatro di Catania

The 1981 Florence Charters define a historic garden as a vegetal and architectural organism to be protected as a monument, especially in archaeological remains. However, when there are hypogeal ruins below a garden, preserving the assets is difficult. The Charters do not provide explicit indications. About the conservation of historic gardens in an archaeological context, the paper analyses the restoration that tried to resolve the relationship between the garden of an 18th-century residence in Catania (UNESCO heritage site) and the hypogeal ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. Finally, possible design solutions are proposed to re-establish the link between garden and hypogeal remains.