Orto Botanico dell'Università di Siena

The Botanical Garden of the University of Siena brings together more than two thousand plant species in the Valle di Sant'Agostino. Its living collections and herbarium continue a university tradition of botanical study that reaches back to the sixteenth century.

Why it matters

The university traces the garden's origins to a garden of medicinal plants established in 1588 at Santa Maria della Scala for teaching Lectura simplicium. The present botanical garden was founded in 1784 by Biagio Bartalini at the Grand Duke's request. Its herbarium contains more than 100,000 sheets and is registered in the Index Herbariorum.

What to notice

The garden combines nineteenth-century-style beds with sections representing Tuscan habitats, from Mediterranean vegetation and rock-garden plants to wetland species around a lake. A Tuscan agricultural plot preserves fruit trees and vegetable varieties. The principal glasshouse, the tepidarium, dates from 1977 and was extended in the 1980s.

Context and history

The garden moved to its present site within Siena's walls in 1856. A royal institute building followed in 1910–12; teaching shifted from medicine to pharmacy in 1935 and to natural sciences in 1964, when the garden expanded to 25,000 square metres. The university museum system announced renovation works and closure of the garden in August 2025, with no reopening date specified in the cited notice.