Built for
Alexander VI Borgia (1492/1503), and later rebuilt for Pius IV Medici (1559/65)
who employed in it a guardian who was a guide as well
S. Pius V
Ghislieri (1566/72) enlarged the garden and entrusted it to the botanic expert
Michele Mercati
After a
period of neglect Alexander VII Chigi (1655/67) transformed it into one of the
major botanical gardens in Europe, using for it the Acqua
Paola aqueduct which Paul V Borghese (1605/21) had built from
Bracciano to the Janiculum Hill, restoring the ancient Aqueduct of Trajan
In 1820 the
Botanical Garden was moved in the garden of Palazzo Salviati in Via
della Lungara and in 1873 in the garden of the former convent of S.
Lorenzo in Via Panisperna to gather all the scientific institutes
in the area of the Interior Ministry on Viminal Hill
In 1883 had
its final home here in the garden of Palazzo Corsini when the
property was transferred to the Italian State
It is one
of the Museums of the Department of Environmental Biology of the University of
Rome La Sapienza
Extension of
12 hectares (about 30 acres)
It houses
over 3,500 plant species divided into sections:
Palm
trees, Bamboo
thickets, Valley of ferns, Orangery room, Roses, Japanese
Garden, Aquatic Plants, Garden of the simple for medicinal
plants and Garden of the aromas
THREE
GREENHOUSES:
Exhibition
Greenhouse for
temporary exhibitions
Tropical
Greenhouse with
constant humidity of 80%
Corsini
Greenhouse built at
the end of the nineteenth century for succulents plants with two pools of black
marble probably ancient in which it seems that Queen Christina of Sweden bathed
At the top
of the hill the original tree structure has been kept, left as the
Mediterranean evergreen forest known as Bosco Romano
From the
clearings among the secular examples of oaks and sycamores (about 350/400 years
old) one can enjoy fantastic views of the city
Below, in
the direction of the palace, collection of conifers and near the gate of
the palace reconstruction of a small California desert
In this lower
area there are an Australian araucaria, an American redwood some
Florida taxodium distichum and an oriental sycamore of the fifteenth
century
The staircase by Ferdinando Fuga (1699/1782), the FOUNTAIN OF THE MERMEN and the big niche up against the top of the hill are the only preserved eighteenth-century decorations of the garden
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