Description
The Botanical Garden of Pisa is the University's garden, part of its Museum System, a stone's throw from Piazza dei Miracoli: about three hectares of flower beds, centuries-old trees, greenhouses and a museum, for a green pause among the monuments. It was founded in 1543, and is the oldest university botanical garden in the world by date of foundation.
Or almost: Padua disputes the record, because the Pisan garden has moved twice. It was founded by the physician and botanist Luca Ghini, with Cosimo I's money, near the Arsenal. Then the Arsenal expanded, and the garden moved.
In 1591 it finally arrived here, on land bought by Grand Duke Ferdinando I, near Piazza del Duomo. And here, in 1839, under a cedar of Lebanon that is no longer there, the first Meeting of Italian Scientists was held.
The garden has different sections. In the Orto del Cedro grow the enormous ginkgo planted in 1787, the largest in the garden, four meters in circumference, and a magnolia of the same year. The Orto del Mirto has the medicinal plants, some poisonous like hemlock and belladonna.
The Botanical School is the historic core, with about 400 species in systematic order and a collection of 150 sages. There are four greenhouses: tropical, succulents, Victoria and banana. In the Orto Nuovo, a camphor tree from 1872 is over 25 meters tall.
The shell house, its facade decorated in 1752 entirely with shells, houses the Botanical Museum, opened in 2017. There are models of mushrooms in plaster and wax, and the catalog of the garden's plants, printed in 1723. The Herbarium holds more than 300,000 specimens.
A curiosity: in the 16th century the plants were arranged with an allusion to the four elements, the square for earth, the circle for sky, the triangle for fire and the pools for water.
Or almost: Padua disputes the record, because the Pisan garden has moved twice. It was founded by the physician and botanist Luca Ghini, with Cosimo I's money, near the Arsenal. Then the Arsenal expanded, and the garden moved.
In 1591 it finally arrived here, on land bought by Grand Duke Ferdinando I, near Piazza del Duomo. And here, in 1839, under a cedar of Lebanon that is no longer there, the first Meeting of Italian Scientists was held.
The garden has different sections. In the Orto del Cedro grow the enormous ginkgo planted in 1787, the largest in the garden, four meters in circumference, and a magnolia of the same year. The Orto del Mirto has the medicinal plants, some poisonous like hemlock and belladonna.
The Botanical School is the historic core, with about 400 species in systematic order and a collection of 150 sages. There are four greenhouses: tropical, succulents, Victoria and banana. In the Orto Nuovo, a camphor tree from 1872 is over 25 meters tall.
The shell house, its facade decorated in 1752 entirely with shells, houses the Botanical Museum, opened in 2017. There are models of mushrooms in plaster and wax, and the catalog of the garden's plants, printed in 1723. The Herbarium holds more than 300,000 specimens.
A curiosity: in the 16th century the plants were arranged with an allusion to the four elements, the square for earth, the circle for sky, the triangle for fire and the pools for water.