When I was writing Lucia in 2005, the caretaker of the old family estate outside Venice, in Alvisopoli, showed me this lovely pink rose that grew wild in the woods there. Nobody knew what it was. So at the end of my book on Lucia, I wrote "nothing remains of the world of Lucia except this wonderful silvery, pink rose that grows wild in the woods of Alvisopoli". After my book came out, a woman named Eleonora Garlant got in touch and said, "I think I might know what the rose is." I didn't know who she was then, but her garden of nearly 1,500 varieties of old roses in Friuli is one of the most significant in Europe, and she is famed for her ability to identify old roses. It turned out it wasn't the rose she thought it might be, but that led me to visit her garden, and that opened up this whole world of old roses, about which I really knew nothing.
From the start it was clear to rose experts that the rose at Alvisopoli was a Chinese rose. Chinese roses only arrived in Europe in the second half of the 18th century and they had a huge impact on European roses. They brought remontancy, for one: the ability to flower several times a year. In fact the silvery pink rose at Alvisopoli flowers all year round. Chinese roses also brought new colours to Europe: red and yellow, most importantly. Four roses in particular revolutionised the staid world of European roses from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries. They are the so-called stud roses: Slater's Crimson China, Parson's Pink China, Parks' Yellow Tea-Scented China and Hume's Blush Tea-Scented China. It was thought the four stud roses were species: they were in fact horticultural varieties, which had been bred by Chinese gardeners many centuries earlier. Chinese roses were all shipped to England via the East India Company, and the only roses they had access to were in the nurseries of Canton.