Orto Botanico dell'Università di Ferrara

The University of Ferrara's Botanical Garden is a teaching and research collection established in the eighteenth century and now located in the courtyard of Palazzo Turchi di Bagno.

Why it matters

The garden was formally created in 1771, following a long tradition of botanical teaching at the University of Ferrara. The institution's naturalists, including Niccolò Leoniceno and Antonio Musa Brasavola, connected the city with the development of early modern botany. The garden continues as a scientific collection as well as an urban green space.

What to notice

Outdoor beds are arranged around systematic botany, useful plants, themed gardens and protected local flora, with about seven hundred species. Greenhouses contain a further thousand or so tropical and subtropical plants. The collections are organized to support botanical teaching and research, and the university participates in international seed exchange through its Index Seminum.

Context and history

The first university garden was planted beside Palazzo Paradiso. In 1772 prefect Francesco Maria Giacomini catalogued 2,800 native and exotic taxa. After several nineteenth-century moves, the garden returned to the university quarter in 1925 and settled in the courtyard of Palazzo Turchi di Bagno in 1963. A 2021 publication marked its 250-year history and documented its herbarium and scientific role.