Description of the attraction
The Botanical Garden of Pisa, spread over an area of 3 hectares, is a structural unit of the University of Pisa, open to the public every day. This is probably the oldest botanical garden in the world.
The garden was founded in 1544 at the initiative of the famous botanist Luca Gini of Imola and with the financial support of the Grand Duke Cosimo I Medici - then it was the first university botanical garden in Europe. In 1563, it was moved from the garden of the San Vito monastery on the river bank (today the Medici Arsenal is located on this site) closer to the Santa Marta monastery in the northeastern part of the city, and in 1591, at the initiative of the then leader Lorenzo Mazzanga, to its current location on the street Via Luca Gini near the famous Piazza del Duomo.
From the earliest days, a collection of natural objects began to be collected in the botanical garden (now it is the Natural History Museum of Pisa) and a library was opened, today it is part of the university library. In addition, there is an excellent collection of portraits of directors of the botanical garden, collected over the long history of its history, and one of the very first greenhouses built in Italy from steel frames.
The modern botanical garden of Pisa is divided into several sections, in which you can see flower beds, reservoirs, greenhouses, various buildings. Local and exotic plant species are grown here, both in greenhouses and outdoors. An arboretum also works here. The attraction of the garden is the building of the ancient botanical institute, built in 1591-1595, whose rear facade is decorated with seashells and ceramic mosaics in the grotesque style.
