The Administrative Court of Campania rejected yesterday the appeal filed by a group of citizens against the decision to ban dogs from the historic gardens of the Royal Palace of Naples. The ban has been in place for two years in the site's regulations, but was made enforceable last October.
The romantic garden is a small jewel of one and a half hectares, in the center of Naples, which constitutes a green lung, open to the public free of charge seven days a week. Renovated in the mid-1800s, it contained seven thousand plants of four hundred different species: a wealth that has been depleted over the years and that, with a restoration project, intends to partially rebuild in the coming months.
«The ordinance of the Administrative Court underlines the importance of the romantic garden as a place of culture that must be preserved and respected more than a normal public garden. It is an open-air museum accessible to everyone just as each of the rooms of the royal palace is, in which we could never imagine the presence of dogs - declared Mario Epifani, director of the Royal Palace of Naples - With all due respect to animals, we are required to have greater attention towards such a precious asset.
We are working to ensure that the garden regains the image it had when the palace was still a royal residence, with the care of trees that are over 200 years old and through the reconfiguration of the nineteenth-century shrubbery.
A project on which 2 million euros will be invested, which includes the redoing of the crushed tufa paths, removing the asphalt, to restore a jewel to be returned to the city, to visitors and tourists, safely and with due decorum».
In the Administrative Court ordinance, it is specified that the appeal cannot be accepted «being justified both by the need to prevent risks to the safety of visitors, damage to the gardens and to the piperno pillars dating back to the XVII century, damage to the greenery and stone materials, and with the character of the historic garden of the property soon to be subject to restoration».
It also emphasizes the technical discretion enjoyed by the administration responsible for the protection of architectural and cultural assets in identifying the best arrangement to ensure the correct use of monumental assets through a reasonable balance that preserves the integrity of the asset and allows its use and enhancement, being able to exclude a certain use.
The size of the gardens of the royal palace makes, unfortunately, difficult the coexistence between the users of the garden, dog owners, children and tourists. Despite the flexibility shown in these years since the regulation was issued and the proximity of a public garden like that of the molosiglio, many have continued to frequent the space letting their animals run and «stretch their legs», dig holes in the flower beds and even failing to pick up the droppings. At the same time, it should be noted that the security staff is not authorized to impose sanctions on those who commit such transgressions.