Orto Botanico dell'Università di Torino

Within Parco del Valentino, the University of Turin's botanical garden is a working scientific collection and green space.

Why it matters

The Orto Botanico is a historic university garden, founded in the early eighteenth century as a teaching and research collection for the University of Turin's medical and natural science faculty. Its purpose has barely changed in three centuries: students still use it to study living plants, and the indexed seed exchange continues an academic tradition that connects Turin to botanical institutions worldwide. The garden contains a labeled collection of trees, shrubs and greenhouse plants distinct from the surrounding park.

What to notice

The arboretum contains mature specimen trees, including a sculptural wild poppy by Turin artist Romano Gazzera. The alpine section (alpineto) gathers mountain flora from the Alps and Apennines. Greenhouses contain tropical, succulent and South African species. A shaded boschetto and a beekeeping section reflect other aspects of the garden's botanical and pollinator work. Labels present the collection as a scientific catalogue.

Context and history

The garden was established in 1729, when the University of Turin created a dedicated hortus medicus to supply the teaching of botany and medicine. It moved to its present riverside site within the Valentino estate, where the university's botanical institute was built alongside the planting beds. Over the following centuries the collection expanded from medicinal herbs to a broad systematic collection, adding the arboretum, the alpine section and a sequence of glasshouses as botanical science itself evolved. Wartime damage and post-war rebuilding marked the twentieth century, but the garden remained in continuous academic use, and it is now managed by the university's Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology. That institutional continuity — the same university, mission and ground for nearly three hundred years — is the garden's historical distinction.