Bella di Monza
The first encounter with roses can only be with the “Bella di Monza”, Rosa Modoetensis or Bella Villoresi, created by Luigi Villoresi, Superintendent of the Archducal Gardens from 1812 to 1825, the first Italian hybridizer of Bengal Roses or chinensis.
Chinensis is a species rose, introduced in Europe in 1792, which brought about a revolution in the world of roses, with a continuous re-flowering and a great richness of colors but not of scent.
“Bella di Monza” is a large shrub with very little scent and thin branches, with small double ruffled carnation-like flowers, of a dark purple color sometimes mottled with light.
Villoresi has created many roses over the course of his life, but unfortunately almost all of them have been lost. Since the beginning of its activity, the Italian Rose Association has always been interested in the story of the “Bella di Monza”, carrying out various searches, first of all to verify its existence and then, once found, to 'bring it back home '.
The epilogue came in 1994, under the presidency of Ester Fumagalli, when M. André Brunel, then Director of the Rose Garden of L'Hay-les-Roses, in France, made available cuttings of this rose.
The cuttings were grafted and subsequently planted in the Rose Garden of Monza, finally bringing home a creation of Villoresi from the early nineteenth century.