TUSCANY

BOTANIC GARDEN OF SIENA

The first Botanical Garden of Siena was set up at the Santa Maria della Scala Hospital in 1588 in connection with the chair of "Lectura Simplicium" and "Ostensio Simplicium". In 1784 Biagio Bartalini, at the request of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, established the Botanical Garden of the University of Siena, which was transferred to its present location in 1856. Under the direction of B. Longo established the Royal Institute and Botanical Garden and built (1910-1912) the two-floor villa that host it. This denotes the character of a centre for scientific research and didactics in the botanical field, which the structure will assume in the following years. In 1935 the management of the Garden passed from the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery to the Faculty of Pharmacy, then in 1964 to the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences. In the same year the valley was purchased as far as the walls, reaching its present size. In 1977 the Tepidarium was built on the new land and extended in the following years. From 1995 to 2002 some natural environments were reconstructed, such as the Rock Garden, the Wet Climb, the Lake.

The Botanical Garden has different environments that obviously host certain botanical species:

the School: artificial terraces created at the beginning of the twentieth century to host medicinal plants;
the park, subdivided into various flowerbeds of characteristic nineteenth-century style, which house multiple species;
the aquatic environments, reproduced in the Garden in various ways: masonry pools, ponds, ponds, streams, etc., so that you can see the enormous variety of aquatic species;
the rock garden, which hosts spontaneous species from central-southern Tuscany, present in steeply sloping areas, in intensely grazed areas and in degraded wooded areas, subject to irrational cuttings and/or fires;
the humid, rocky escarpment with dripping water, was set up in the 2000's to display native plants from humid and cool environments;
the farm: an example of an agricultural valley in the Tuscan territory within the Sienese walls.
Index Seminum 2020