Description
The Botanical Garden of Padua, founded in 1545, is the oldest botanical garden in the world still in its original location, in the historic centre, a short walk from Prato della Valle. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, it combines a Renaissance garden with a large modern glasshouse.
Its heart is the Old Garden, still as it was in the original design: a square inscribed in a circle, enclosed by a circular wall, divided into four sectors of flowerbeds with a pool for aquatic plants in the middle. Altogether more than 6,000 plants of 3,500 species grow in the Garden.
The wall has a very practical story: it was built in 1552 against night-time thefts. The plants were rare, the medicines made from them were expensive, and thieves were not put off even by harsh punishments.
Among the historic trees, the oldest is Goethe's Palm, planted in 1585 and kept in an octagonal glasshouse. The German poet saw it in 1786 and drew from it an insight for his essay on the metamorphosis of plants. Nearby grow an oriental plane from 1680, hollowed inside by lightning, and a ginkgo from 1750.
Outside the wall lies the Biodiversity Garden, opened in 2014: a glasshouse 100 metres long and 18 high, with more than 1,300 species from all over the world arranged by climate zone, from tropical rainforest to desert. Its warm water comes from a well 284 metres deep.
Since 1835 the Garden has also had a library and a herbarium, now a museum with about 500,000 specimens: dried plants, algae, fungi, mosses, seeds and fruits from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The Garden was born of medical necessity. In the 16th century the plants cited by ancient physicians were often confused, with errors and frauds that were dangerous for patients: the professor Francesco Bonafede asked for a garden where students could learn to recognise the «simples», the genuine medicinal plants.
Plants such as the ginkgo, the magnolia, the potato, jasmine and the sunflower reached Italy by way of Padua. The Garden's black locust, from 1662, was the first planted in Italy, and in 1750 the species was taken from its seeds to Germany at the wish of Maria Theresa of Austria.
Don't miss
• Old Garden.
• Goethe's Palm.
• Oriental plane.
• Biodiversity Garden.
Did you know?
Around the middle of the 19th century, a female branch was grafted onto the ginkgo, a male tree, to show it to students.
In one pool lives wolffia, the smallest flowering plant in Europe: a tiny leaf one millimetre across, with no roots.
Its heart is the Old Garden, still as it was in the original design: a square inscribed in a circle, enclosed by a circular wall, divided into four sectors of flowerbeds with a pool for aquatic plants in the middle. Altogether more than 6,000 plants of 3,500 species grow in the Garden.
The wall has a very practical story: it was built in 1552 against night-time thefts. The plants were rare, the medicines made from them were expensive, and thieves were not put off even by harsh punishments.
Among the historic trees, the oldest is Goethe's Palm, planted in 1585 and kept in an octagonal glasshouse. The German poet saw it in 1786 and drew from it an insight for his essay on the metamorphosis of plants. Nearby grow an oriental plane from 1680, hollowed inside by lightning, and a ginkgo from 1750.
Outside the wall lies the Biodiversity Garden, opened in 2014: a glasshouse 100 metres long and 18 high, with more than 1,300 species from all over the world arranged by climate zone, from tropical rainforest to desert. Its warm water comes from a well 284 metres deep.
Since 1835 the Garden has also had a library and a herbarium, now a museum with about 500,000 specimens: dried plants, algae, fungi, mosses, seeds and fruits from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
The Garden was born of medical necessity. In the 16th century the plants cited by ancient physicians were often confused, with errors and frauds that were dangerous for patients: the professor Francesco Bonafede asked for a garden where students could learn to recognise the «simples», the genuine medicinal plants.
Plants such as the ginkgo, the magnolia, the potato, jasmine and the sunflower reached Italy by way of Padua. The Garden's black locust, from 1662, was the first planted in Italy, and in 1750 the species was taken from its seeds to Germany at the wish of Maria Theresa of Austria.
Don't miss
• Old Garden.
• Goethe's Palm.
• Oriental plane.
• Biodiversity Garden.
Did you know?
Around the middle of the 19th century, a female branch was grafted onto the ginkgo, a male tree, to show it to students.
In one pool lives wolffia, the smallest flowering plant in Europe: a tiny leaf one millimetre across, with no roots.