The Botanical Garden in Pisa, founded in 1543-1544 on the banks of the Arno by the naturalist Luca Ghini, is the first university botanical garden in the world. In 1591, it was moved to its current location in the heart of the historic center, between piazza dei Miracoli and piazza dei Cavalieri. The botanical garden extends across three hectares and is home to plants from all over the world, including medicinal plants like foxgloves, aquatic plants, and centuries-old trees, such as a majestic magnolia and a ginkgo planted at the end of the 1700s and an enormous camphor tree planted in 1872.
The Botanical Museum is also located here, which began as the Gallery of Natural History, founded in 1591 by Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando I de’ Medici as a place to collect “works of nature”: visitors can admire 17th-century portraits of famous botanists, a collection of objects used for teaching botany at the university, including didactic watercolours, and the splendid Herbarium, comprising over 300,000 samples and of particular importance for its size, historic interest and the modernity of its use.
Accessibility information: ortomuseopisa.it
