The Garden of The Muses

                                    Ernst (Ernestos) Moritz Theador Ziller. His architecture work is                                  

                                    marked by its creativity  and its sense of artistic freedom.

                                    He was a Saxon architect who later became a Greek national

                                    and in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a major designer of

                                    royal and municipal buildings in Athens, Patras, and other major

                                    Greek cities.   

 

                                   Iliou Melathon, a work of Ernst Ziller was one of the most                                        

                                   beautiful residences of Athens in the 19th century.

                                   Situated on the "Boulevard", (E.Venizelou street today), it was

                                   an impressive and glorious building of imposing architecture,

                                   also expressing the eccentric personality of its owner Heinrich

                                   Schliemann.

                                   The statue of an Amazon of the Mattei type (above), a fabulous

                                   statue,  is still found today in the garden which is formed after

                                   the Main Entrance.                                         

                                   All the statues of the garden are clay copies of ancient Greek

                                   sculptures.
                                   The nick name of the gardener was "Priam". However Schliemann

                                    himself enjoyed taking care of his vine arbor, peanuts,  

                                    pomegranates, apricot trees and peach trees, when he was not

                                    away in some trip of excavation.  

                                                                              

                                

                                    In the garden, apart from the multifarious trees, there were also

                                    palm trees, cypresses, accacias and some other trees common

                                    in Athens at that time.

                                    Even though Schliemann was aware of the Virtues of eucalyptus

                                    and personally took upon himself its promotion among the

                                    the Athenians, it's not known whether these trees were planted

                                    in the Iliou Melathron Garden. 

                                     Cats, poultry, and pigeons freely circulated  in the

                                     garden finding an ideal refuge in a paradise, in the heart of the city.

                                                                                                                              

                                     Wine arbour or Vitis vinifera, Johann and Josef Knaqp,

                                      Detail of the Main Entrance.