Fontana Rosa is a historic garden situated on the Avenue Blasco Ibáñez in

Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Me ...

, Alpes-Maritimes, on the French Riviera. The Spanish writer

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (, 29 January 1867 – 28 January 1928) was a journalist, politician and bestselling Spanish novelist in various genres whose most widespread and lasting fame in the English-speaking world is from Hollywood films that were ...

(1869–1928) began to build it from 1922 on, and he set up home here with his second wife, Elena, and died there in 1928. This garden with Spanish and Menton

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

is found in avenue Blasco Ibanez, near Garavan station, and was created a Historical Monument in 1990. It is also called "Le Jardin des Romanciers" (El Jardín de los Novelistas/The Garden of Novelists), and was frequented by celebrities such as

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...

. It was the place where Blasco Ibáñez wrote the novel ''

Mare Nostrum ''Mare Nostrum'' (; Latin: "Our Sea") was a Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. In Classical Latin, it would have been pronounced , and in Ecclesiastical Latin, it is pronounced . In the decades following the 1861 unification of Italy, Ital ...

'' (filmed in 1926 as ''Torrent''). The garden inspired by Andalusian and Arabian-Persian styles contains species such as ''

Ficus macrophylla ''Ficus macrophylla'', commonly known as the Moreton Bay fig or Australian banyan, is a large evergreen banyan tree of the family Moraceae native to eastern Australia, from the Wide Bay–Burnett region in the north to the Illawarra in New So ...

'', ''

Araucaria heterophylla ''Araucaria heterophylla'' (synonym ''A. excelsa'') is a species of conifer. As its vernacular name Norfolk Island pine (or Norfolk pine) implies, the tree is endemic to Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific ...

'', palm trees, banana trees or scented rosebushes. It is a tribute to Vicente's favourite writers :

Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

, whose busts can be found at the entrance and to whom he dedicated several fountains and rotundas. Its main buildings are a small elevated villa with polychromatic pottery which houses a library and a personal movie projector room, and a main house (Villa Emilia) in the lower part of the property that dates from the 19th century. The architectural complex also has an aquarium, a colonnade, a concrete pergola, pillars, flower vases, ceramic-panelled benches around the main house and a big round, steel pergola covering a long staircase in the middle of the property. After Blasco Ibáñez's death here, his son inherited the property. In 1939, it was sacked during the war and later abandoned for more than thirty years. Blasco Ibáñez's son gave it to the commune of Menton in 1970. Since 1985, the buildings have been restored and, as from 1991, the pottery too. Still undergoing restoration, the garden may be visited only by guided tour, on Monday and Friday at 10am.

References

External links

Official pages at Menton.com
French Riviera Gardens in Menton Houses in Alpes-Maritimes Modernist architecture in France Monuments historiques of Alpes-Maritimes Parks in France Urban public parks Villas in France {{AlpesMaritimes-geo-stub