The garden was on my list of runner-up places to visit during a whirlwind trip to Padova. As an art history fad, my initial focus during travels is generally to visit places of interest where art features strongly. The Basilica of Saint Anthony (1200s) was topmost on the primary list and hot on its heels was the Scrovegni Chapel (1300s) with its frescoes by Giotto. However a modestly effective green thumb prodded me to wonder about this garden and keep it in mind.
On a rainy second and last day in Padova, my second attempt to stop at the Scrovegni as the Paduans call it, floundered, due to fully booked tours and hundreds of school children trooping in and out of museums and sites. I trudged along in the drizzle, wondering whether I should risk visiting the garden in that weather. I took the risk and the weather was kind enough to halt the rain for me.
At a reasonably convenient price of €10, I got a single ticket to enter the Botanical Garden of Padova through a modern greenhouse-like reception and shop area. And then I was in the midst of lush greenery and flowers, taking in the neat arrangement of trees and beds, shrubs and bushes. A garden is just a garden, right? Wrong. This garden is a work of dedication, nature's art helped along by discreet and careful gardening, backed by studious planning, so that the result brings out the flavours of botany in the most marvellous manner.
Affiliated with the University of Padova, the garden is an open museum of botany, a grand total of 22,000 square metres of green. The reason behind its creation was a practical one. Way back in the 1500s when medicine strongly depended on the use of medicinal plants and herbs, it was imperative that herbalists and medical practitioners be fully conscious of what they were using for their concoctions. Most definitely, mistaking one green leaf for another could have serious, if not tragic consequences. And so the garden started off in 1545, showcasing "simple" plants used for natural remedies, a place where the University could teach about medicinal plants, their origin, their proper name, their appearance and their uses.
The Botanical Garden presently enjoys exemplars from all over the world so that the collection totals some 7,000 plants and 3,500 species, with the oldest tree being a palm planted in 1585. As I roamed around the traditional garden which is an enclosed one, (a wall had to be erected around it at some point in history to avoid theft), I could appreciate that there is only one, at most two specimens of each species, so that the diversity on show is short of staggering. I came upon the purposely created habitats, open-air niches to home specific plants namely Mediterranean, Alpine, Freshwater, Succulent or Tropical varieties. Some of these are outdoors, others in greenhouses.
Once I had walked along all the geometric passageways and visited the greenhouses in the open garden, I thought my tour was done. As I wandered with my nose up in the air, relishing the fragrance of wet foliage and marvelling at the age-old trees towering above me, I came across a sign indicating the way to The Biodiversity Garden. So the tour was not done yet, after all. I followed the sign which led me to walk through a narrow passage, tightly-knit foliage on either side, a sort of corridor to elsewhere. It made me feel pretty much like Alice in Wonderland, wondering what would come up next. When I emerged I was flabbergasted - a vast piazza, the sound of waterfalls and beyond the high wall and trees, the rear side of The Basilica. To my left, an immense greenhouse with flower ponds leading up to it and water pouring out of the roof extending above each entryway. To my right a little wood of high trees beyond which peeked private residences.
The greenhouse is home to a biodiversity exhibition of plants and trees with around 1,300 species on live display. The building is divided in segments which are climatically controlled to host plants from different regions of the world - tropical, sub-humid, temperate and arid zones. As I walked from one section to another, the temperature changed accordingly so that I become aware of how each zonal collection manages to thrive within its natural habitat. Never ever had I seen such an intense miscellany of extraordinary vegetation, all in one place. The feat of bringing all successfully under one common roof is a huge accomplishment, especially when one considers that this is a solar active building strategically designed to reduce environmental impact to the barest minimum.
All of this encapsulated beauty easily explains why this garden was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1997. A temple of botany, it is a place wherein research, education and preservation of biodiversity come together and provide the visitor with the experience of a lifetime. Personally, I am grateful that I could marvel at the artistic prowess and creative flair of Mother Nature. Giotto can wait.
If you are visiting Venice, Bologna, Verona, Treviso or the surrounding locations within the Veneto region - Padova is only a short train or bus ride away.
For more information visit www.ortobotanicopd.it/en