Gino Cassinis Park

Town Hall 4
Arrival: via Fabio Massimo, via Cassinis
Opening hours: free access
How to get: M3 Sea Port | bus: 84 | 95

Area: 102.300 sqm
Year of creation: 1978
Designers: Milan Municipality Technical Office

What to do at the park

walk
stop and relax
running and cycling
picnic in the equipped rest areas
dog area

The park in brief

The park, cut by an asphalt road that runs through it in a south-east direction, looks like a large undulating garden, with trees such as willows, maples and cherry trees. The area where it stands was long owned by the monks of the Chiaravalle Abbey, who made it a rice field. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were plans to make it a port linking it with the Adriatic Sea. The enterprise was abandoned, but a trace remained in the toponymy of the nearby metro station: Porto di Mare.

The park has asphalt paving and is periodically monitored by the GEV, the Volunteer Ecological Guards.

History and Architecture

In ancient times the area belonged to the Chiaravalle Abbey; the land, reclaimed by the monks, was very fertile thanks to the presence of numerous fountains and was used as a rice field starting from the 15th century.

The park, named after the mayor of Milan Gino Cassinis, was known as "Parco delle Rose", from the name of a neighboring entertainment venue or as "ex Porto di Mare" because, according to an ambitious project from the early 1900s, in the area a real port was to be built which involved the creation of an artificial canal to connect Milan to the Po.

For this purpose, the Autonomous Port Company Authority was created in 1918, which was then dissolved in 1922 due to the huge cost that the undertaking would have entailed. The basin, which had in the meantime been dug to a depth of 10 metres, was used as a bathing establishment until the Second World War.

Due to the excavations carried out for the construction of the port, the park today presents itself as an alternation of slopes and rest areas in which seats and groups of trees have been placed.

In the center of the park there is a single asphalt road heading south-east, while the rest of the space can be reached by walking freely on foot.

Flora

Main tree species

American maple (Acer negundo)
sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus)
Norway maple (Acer platanoides)
hackberry (Celtis australis)
birch (Betula utilis)
flowering cherry (Prunus cerasifera 'Pissardii')
liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua)
black walnut (Juglans nigra)
white alder (Alnus incana)
black alder (Alnus glutinosa)
raven pear (Amelanchier canadensis)
poplars (Populus deltoides and P. nigra)
red oak (Quercus rubra)
black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
sophora (Sophora japonica)
common lime tree (Tilia platyphyllos)

Among the shrubby species

deuzia (Deutzia scabra)
forsythia (Forsythia x intermedia)
hibiscus (Hibiscus syriacus)
mahonia (Mahonia aquifolium)
veigelia (Weigelia florida)

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