Official Web Site: Orto Botanico di Torino

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The Botanical Garden of Turin was established in 1729 by Vittorio Amedeo II, who was committed to the social, economic, and cultural revival of the kingdom. With a decree on November 8, 1729, Victor Amadeus II established the Ordinary Chair of Botany at the University, appointing the physician Giovanni Bartolomeo Caccia as its director.

The first nucleus of botanical garden

It was his idea to have a botanical garden near the Valentino Park, with hundreds of plant species. Caccia also invited the Milanese painter Giovanni Battista Morandi to draw the plants housed in the Garden. From a drawing by Morandi in 1732, we can see the original layout of the Garden, which at the time had no buildings within it. Upon Caccia’s death in 1749, the Garden had 317 species.

Vitalino Donati, Caccia’s successor, described the plants in the garden through about 150 watercolors and the publication of two volumes. Donati died in 1762 following a shipwreck off the Indian coast. All the botanical elements he collected during the scientific mission were lost in the incident. Only some Egyptian artifacts were saved, forming the first nucleus of the Egyptian Museum. At his death, the Garden had about 1200 species.

Donati’s successor was Carlo Allioni, who completed the documentation of the plants with pictorial illustrations collected in 64 volumes. Under Allioni’s direction, the Garden reached 4500 species.

In 1796, Vittorio Amedeo III expanded the Garden by granting new unused lands and providing for the construction of a two-story building used as an orangery, Museum, and Herbarium. At the turn of the 19th century, professors Carlo Allioni and Giovanni Pietro Dana proposed opening the garden to the public and not reserving it only for botany scholars. To make it more accessible to citizens, they suggested moving it within the city. However, the proposal was not accepted, and the Garden remains in its original location where it still stands today.

The garden between 19th and 20th centuries

During the Napoleonic rule, the Garden was directed by Giovanni Battista Balbis, a fervent supporter of the new ideas spread by the French Revolution. In 1814, with the return of the Savoy to Turin and the consequent Restoration, Balbis was expelled from the University and lost the direction of the Garden due to his Jacobin ideas.

Throughout the first half of the 19th century, various modernization works were carried out in the garden, with about a hundred new species being arranged, avenues, hills, and canals being designed. Another intervention took place in 1885, with the expansion of the existing building for the setup of research laboratories.

The 20th century began with the direction of Oreste Mattirolo, who could do little to preserve the Garden from the damage of the two world wars. The worst year was certainly 1942, during which bombings, lack of fuel, and a particularly harsh winter destroyed the greenhouse and led to the loss of numerous plants. During that period, an air-raid shelter was also built under the main building.

The botanical garden today

Starting from the celebrations for the centenary of Italy’s unification in 1961, the Garden began to be accessible by appointment to small groups of scholars. In 1962, a hill was created for the cultivation of mountain species from various parts of the world.

The Garden was finally opened to the public in 1997, by the will of the then-director Rosanna Caramiello. Currently, the Garden’s collections are divided into three distinct areas:

• In the Botanical Garden, over 1,500 species of herbs, trees, and shrubs are cultivated.
• In the Tropical Greenhouse, there are 300 species. In the Succulent Plant Greenhouse, there are 350 entities. The collection has recently been enriched with over 350 species from the South African region, included in the New Greenhouse set up in 2007.
• In the Arboretum area, there are over 500 trees and shrubs.