The “Servient Easements of Viale dei Colli” (Florence 1876): an
incunabulum
of Italian landscape
protection
With the design of viale dei Colli in Florence, Giuseppe Poggi not only created a great masterpiece of
landscape gardening, a very modern work capable of perfectly communicating and highlighting the
historical, artistic and environmental beauties scattered on the hills above Florence on the left bank of
the River Arno. He also prepared and get approved by the Municipality of Florence in 1876 the “Servient
Easements of Viale dei Colli”, an act of prescriptions for the conservation over time of this charming
park which increased the beauty of Florence. That volume of building and urban planning regulations
constitutes a provision for the protection of the landscape that anticipates some decades the legislative
measures for the protection of landscape beauties that the Italian State will only enact in the first decades
of the 20th century and therefore with the additional regulations following the laws of 1939/1942.
