Orto Botanico di Brera

The Brera Botanical Garden occupies an enclosed green space within Palazzo Brera's cultural complex. Established as a scientific institution in 1774–1775, it preserves the relationship between plant cultivation, education and the Enlightenment reforms of Maria Theresa's government.

Why it matters

The garden developed as a centre for teaching medicine and pharmacy, with medicinal species at the heart of its collections. Its history also includes ornamental planting and the introduction of exotic trees. This combination makes it both a historic garden and a living botanical collection.

What to notice

Two elliptical ponds divide the garden's three principal sectors. Dense beds of medicinal and useful plants occupy the formal areas, while the arboretum contains two venerable Ginkgo biloba trees, a male and a female, associated with the garden's founding period. A large Caucasian wingnut is another significant tree. Differences in shade and moisture support varied plant groupings within the enclosed site.

Context and history

The ground had earlier been cultivated by religious communities. Fulgenzio Vitman shaped its eighteenth-century botanical layout. University of Milan management dates from 1935. Conservation work at the end of the 1990s recovered the historic formal sectors, followed by the arboretum's redevelopment in 2018.