The municipal botanical garden of Lucca is a scientific institution founded in 1820 by Maria Luisa of Bourbon. It is located in via del Giardino Botanico, in the historic center of Lucca. It covers about two hectares of surface and is home to hundreds of plant species. Already in the second half of the sixteenth century, the city of Lucca, although without a real botanical garden, was aware of the importance of the cultivation of plants that can be used for medicinal purposes, for which it had found a compromise with private individuals for carrying out this activity; This is how the "Orti dei simple" or gardens where plants were grown for the purpose of study and use in pharmacies and hospitals. Among the people of Lucca they had a "garden of the simple" Giovan Battista Fulcheri (1540-1605) and Vincenzo Malpighi Montecatini (1530-1600), the latter mentioned among the founders of the Botanical Gardens. A "contract" to Gregorio and Tomaso Fulcheri dates back to 1629 with the use of a house with a garden provided that they engaged in the cultivation of vegetables useful to the city.
In the eighteenth century, with the spread among the Lucca patricians of the Enlightenment thought, the need emerged for a university that could keep the technical quality of those who professed the liberal arts high. The new university was based in the Real Collegio and from 1802 saw the development of a medical faculty which immediately showed interest in the study and cultivation of plants. In 1813, the proposal for the establishment of a botanical garden, deemed useful for the purpose of a local production of medicinal herbs, started from the Faculty of Medicine. The defeat of Napoleon in Leipzig however led to the abandonment of the city of Lucca by Princess Elisa, who had expressed a favorable opinion on the foundation of the garden. For this reason, the project was shelved until 1815 when, with the Congress of Vienna, the state of Lucca was transformed into a Duchy and Maria Luisa of Bourbon ascended the throne who reorganized the University equipping it with the most refined didactic tools: the Observatory was created astronomical, the Anatomical Theater, the Natural History Museum, and finally, in 1820, the Botanical Garden. The garden was built in the south-eastern part of the city, in an area free of construction as it had been used up to then partly as a football field and partly as a burial place for heretics and the dead in times of disqualification.
Botanical Garden of Lucca
Address: Via del Giardino Botanico, 14, 55100
Phone: 0583 442161
Site:
http://comune.lucca.itLocation inserted by
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