The Kolymbetra Garden

Next to the Valley's dry arboricultural landscape of almond and olive trees, where most water sources are usually in the vicinity of rural buildings, there are irrigated citrus groves and orchards which, however, give life to an irrigated arboricultural landscape. Of all the Valley's citrus gardens, that of Kolymbethra has extraordinary additional historical and archaeological value. The 'garden', as traditional orchards are known in Sicily to highlight their beauty and usefulness, grows in a small valley at the western end of the Hill of the Temples, between the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Temple of Vulcan, at the site identified with that of the Greek pool (κολυμβήθρα = pool, bath, tank, fish pond) about which Diodorus Siculus wrote in the first century AD, referring to the work undertaken by the Carthaginian slaves after the Battle of Himera (480 BC). They 'adorned the city and the land... they cut the stones with which not only the greatest temples of the gods were built but also the aqueducts for the outlet of the city's water... Overseeing these works was the man nicknamed Feace who ensured that, because of his reputation for construction, the aqueducts came to be called Feaci. The Agrigentines also built a sumptuous pool, with the circumference of seven stadia and twenty cubits deep: the waters of rivers and springs were channelled into it, making it into a fish hatchery. This provided many fish for sustenance and pleasure; and because many swans flew down towards it, its view was delightful. But later it was neglected, obstructed and finally destroyed by the passage of time, and the inhabitants transformed the entire region, which was fertile, into land planted with vines and covered thick with all kinds of trees, so as to obtain a large revenues”.

When citrus was added to the fruit plants in the vegetable garden, it took the name of 'garden', to emphasise, as is done in Sicily, the coincidence of usefulness and beauty in a cultivated field. This is at least what happened in the years – in the “pleasure times” of Arab and later Norman kings – when the most important species of citrus were introduced, and also when, from the mid-nineteenth century, monoculture targeted at northern markets took hold. This testifies to how the cultural functions – not detached from the productive functions – were recognised, based on the aesthetic and sensory pleasure driving from the shape of the trees, from the colour and taste of the fruits, from the striking and fragrant flowering of the blossom, and from the shade and coolness ensured by the evergreen foliage.

Uncultivated for twenty years, the Garden of Kolymbethra was at risk of disappearing, and with it a material culture and a landscape which was increasingly endangered every day. Until 1998, when FAI (Italian National Trust) signed an agreement with the Sicily Region, under which the latter handed over the area for 25 years in exchange for environmental and landscape restoration of the 'garden'. On completion of the project, the Garden of Kolymbethra was opened to the public on 9 November 2001 with the goal of giving back an invaluable agricultural and cultural landscape to visitors. Abandonment had hidden a long and productive history based on the fertility of the alluvial soil, the abundance of water and a microclimate that the limestone walls kept mild all year round year. In the steeper areas, garrigue and Mediterranean shrub, there are examples myrtles and oaks of exceptional dimensions, while degradation hid – up the point of smothering – what was left of a cultural landscape of great historical, agronomic and landscape value. On the valley floor, beyond the small perennial river bordered with reeds, there is a Mediterranean garden in the sense of a garden-orchard and, in particular a citrus grove, and, in the non-irrigated areas, the dry arboretum of almond and olive (Barbera et al., 2005). The restoration was aimed at preserving use of the soil, species, varieties, agronomic techniques and the traditional agricultural landscape, making minor modifications (walkways, seating, crossings) to encourage visits to and learning about a 'garden' which retains the character of a historic agricultural system and landscape: namely, a Sicilian citrus grove garden. Today, Kolymbethra encapsulates in six hectares the agricultural and natural landscape of the Valley of the Temples. In the steepest areas, plants of the Mediterranean shrub: myrtle, mastic, terebinth, broom, phillyrea, euphorbia, buckthorn, dwarf palm. On the valley floor, beyond the small river fed by the still perfectly functioning drainage tunnels and bordered by reeds, poplars, willows and tamarisks, there is a citrus grove with ancient varieties of lemons, mandarins and oranges, irrigated using traditional Arabic techniques. Where the water does not reach, mulberry, carob, prickly pear, almond and gigantic 'Saracen' olive trees grow.

The Kolymbethra is a garden filled with a vast and ancient variety of fragrant and flavourful fruits that are resistant to disease, based on agronomic technologies and genetic resources which are not adequate for the dominant needs of a global market and production efficiency. Although the most widespread of the species grown here are citrus fruits, there are also many other fruit species, revealing a high level of specific biodiversity: azarole, banana, carob, quince, fig, prickly pear, white mulberry, black mulberry, persimmon, pomegranate, loquat, medlar, pistachio and mountain ash. In general, each species is represented by ancient varieties which are largely no longer cultivated in modern fruit growing systems. The varieties of citrus in the garden have been studied at both morphological and molecular level. These ancient citrus varieties were once a necessary and functional part of the agricultural system, in which variability made it possible to have genotypes suitable for the growing environment, resistant to adversity, with nutritional and qualitative characteristics suited to the needs of both farmers and markets. Varieties of orange including Sanguigno and Sanguigno Doppio, Sanguinello Moscato, Ovale, Moro, Brazilian, Vaniglia Apireno and Vaniglia Sanguigno, as well as the common Femminello lemon and the Avana mandarin, identified in the Kolymbethra and represented by centuries-old trees, testify to the ancient genetic wealth that was in danger of disappearing following decades of neglect and abandonment which engulfed the garden before the recovery of its environment and landscape. In the citrus growing systems of Isola, these varieties, like many others, are unfortunately now being made obsolete by increasingly dynamic variety upgrades, and are found only as scattered plants in the old citrus groves, or in amateur gardens or collections held at public institutions. The genetic erosion to which they are subjected is the prelude to their definitive disappearance, and concerns precisely genetic entities which, although not all of them have ever been cultivated in real systems, have a high historical as well as genetic value. Some of these varieties are represented within the garden by large trees that still bear the wounds of agricultural abandonment on their trunks. They represent a valuable genetic, as well as historical and cultural, heritage that must be preserved, maintained and enhanced. Knowledge of this heritage is the starting point for enhancement of the germplasm that these varieties represent, and a point of reference in terms of the choices of strategies and direct actions for preservation of the garden. The almost 63,000 visitors that Kolymbethra welcomes each year, including the many students for whom several new educational paths have been created, are shown the importance of preserving and protecting the biodiversity of the garden. This puts the garden at odds with intensive modern monocultural fruit facilities, which may be more productive and efficient, but which are devoid of all the smells, flavours, colours and shapes that only traditional agricultural landscapes can preserve because they are repositories of biodiversity, ancient knowledge, production values, environmental and cultural concerns and a way of life that are disappearing. Kolymbethra is an example of how to promote active protection of a traditional agricultural landscape, recognising its multifunctionality, including not only productive, but also environmental, cultural, ethical and aesthetic functions. Its restoration shows how, in fact, the economy of traditional agricultural landscapes can also be supported by activities not directly related to production, but rather to services.

” ...The famous Akragantine Colimbetra of antiquity was actually much farther down, at the lowest point of the plain, where three valleys meet and the rocks divide and the line of the rugged brow, upon which the Temples stand, is broken by a wide gap. At this spot, now known as the Abbadia Bassa, the Akragantines, a century after the foundation of their city, had formed their fishpond, a great basin of water extending to the Hypsas, its bank combining with the river to form part of the fortifications of the city” ...

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