The public gardens of Nocera Inferiore, dedicated to General Roberto de Sauget, are on via Solimena, opposite the former Tofano barracks. They began as the pleasure garden of the ducal palace of the Carafa family: it was laid out from 1530, when Duke Ferdinando I Carafa decided to build a palace on the plain and leave the residence at the Parco castle, in the Borgo quarter, at the foot of the southern slope of the Sant'Andrea hill. The garden was filled with statues and water features that exploited the slope of the hill.
What to see
Bishop Simone Lunadoro, guest of Duke Francesco Maria Carafa in the early seventeenth century, described it as a «most noble garden» of citrons, lemons and oranges, with an underground grotto full of statues and paintings. The present layout dates from around 1835, with neo-Gothic garden features on several levels; in the centre is the bronze bust of General de Sauget, commander of the garrison of Nocera, who had it made, with his back to the barracks: some say out of devotion to the Madonna he faces, others as a slight to the ducal palace.
Among the neo-Gothic features are the two large entrance stairways, the statue of a lion and the paths that climb the hill; there is also a large headless statue of a soldier in armour, and on the second level a neo-Gothic building used until a few years ago as the keeper's house. In 1969 the municipality commissioned the Neapolitan architect Vittorio De Feo to design a library.
Visiting
The gardens are on via Solimena, opposite the former Tofano barracks. Opening hours should be checked with the municipality.
Our editors' tip
Look at the trees: there is a magnolia almost three hundred years old, a cycad between two hundred and fifty and three hundred years old, holm oaks more than two centuries old and Judas trees over a hundred.
