Tivoli Culture

Tivoli’s cultural contribution is hydraulic. Villa d’Este’s garden was designed by Pirro Ligorio as a demonstration of what water could be made to do: a Fountain of the Owl in which bronze birds sang and fell silent, and an Organ Fountain that played actual music, both driven entirely by falling water. The organ was restored to working order and plays again.

The garden was enormously influential — Versailles, the Villa Lante and a good deal of European garden design descend from it — and Liszt, who stayed here, wrote about its fountains.

The other traditions are agricultural. Sabina olive oil holds a protected designation and the groves behind the town are among the oldest in cultivation anywhere. The pizzutello is a local table grape with an elongated, pointed berry, grown around Tivoli and almost nowhere else, and it has its own September festival.

Travertine remains a working trade, and the quarries below the town still supply stone for building and restoration across Italy.