Il Prato delle Colonne (The Columns Lawn) in the Boboli Gardens has reopened after being cordoned off last summer for security reasons following the extreme weather conditions in March 2015 that caused remarkable damage to the entire area.
Visitors can retrace once more the seventeenth-century path that unites Porta Romana to the wall of Cosimo, the oldest piece of the property after Palazzo Pitti, which lines the high part of the gardens.
During the months in which the lawn was closed, an evaluation conducted on the stability of the arrangement of potted plants resulted in the felling of one tree and trimming of all other specimens, performed with particular concern given to the control and prevention of “ceratocystis fimbriata” (a type of tree fungus).
During the same period the two red granite columns were restored, both topped in white marble capitals and urns, originally erected in the second half of the eighteenth century to mark the fires in the semi-circular area, which was subsequently used as stables.
More limited and brief closures will be necessary in the coming months to fine tune the foliage and to restore the numerous sculptures around the perimeter and in the middle of the lawn, which is temporarily hosting five shows from English artist Lynn Chadwick.
