It is the largest and certainly the most popular city park. It was designed by the Piedmontese Sambuy to provide Bologna with an ample green and public place as in other Italian and European cities. It was opened in 1879 with the name of “Passeggio Regina Margherita” ( as a tribute to the wife of King Umberto I).
The garden largely maintains the original design: it is vaguely inspired by the English romantic parks: big tree-lined avenues, a little lake surrounded by artificial gypsum cliffs, wide lawns, oaks groves and other more natural edges, a series of considerable samples trees, mainly exotics (cedars, pines, horse chestnuts, sycamores,bald cypresses,some English oaks, a sequoia).
During the works were found in the area some Etruscan sepulchres; now it is possible to admire a fine Travertine grave at the edge of the central lawn.
On the south side of the lake it is possible to see a short open-air section of the ancient Savena canal (1176), one of the waterway which once characterised the city.
