Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Fontana Rosa is a Belle Époque style garden located in Menton (Alpes-Maritimes), created from 1922 by the Spanish writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. This garden, inspired by the Andalusian and Arabo-persane atmospheres, is decorated with polychrome ceramics, fountains, and Mediterranean vegetation such as palm trees, banana trees and rose trees. He pays tribute to writers such as Cervantes, Dickens, Shakespeare and Balzac, whose effigies adorn the portal. The sculptures are signed by Leopold Bernstamm, and the ceramic decorations are the work of the Donadoni, from the Saissi company in Menton.

The garden, also known as "Journal des Romanciers", houses several emblematic buildings: a main villa (Villa Emilia), a private cinema room for 130 people, a gazebo tower, and a rotunda dedicated to Cervantes, adorned with 100 illustrations by Don Quixote. After the death of Blasco Ibáñez in 1928, the garden was abandoned, ransacked during the war in 1939, then ceded to the city of Menton in 1970. Since 1985, restoration campaigns have rehabilitated ceramics, fountains and buildings, including the cinema.

Ranked a historic monument in 1990, Fontana Rosa also received the 20th century Heritage label in 2001. The restoration work, initiated in 1993, involved ceramic craftsmen such as Jean-Pierre Gaffarelli and Stéphane Montalto, who recreated tiles and decorative elements inspired by the originals. Today, the garden is only visited with the Menton Heritage Service, offering a unique testimony of the literary and artistic heritage of its creator.

The site, located avenue Blasco-Ibanez in the Garavan district, is marked by lush vegetation (ficus, araucarias, glycines) and water rooms evoking Andalusian patios. Ceramics, partially imported from Seville and locally manufactured, suffered from the weather, requiring complex restoration techniques to regain their original colours. The property, initially larger, was reduced after subdivisions in the 1970s.

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the central figure of the garden, wrote Mare Nostrum and attended other artists such as Jean Cocteau. The garden reflects his passion for literature and art, mixing Spanish influences and chinese. The protected elements include buildings (library, cinema, gazebo tower), factories (pergolas, fountains, ceramic benches), and the statuary, such as the monument dedicated to Blasco Ibáñez by Bernstamm.

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