The Botanical Gardens of Turin University
Well-nigh unchanged in time, the Botanical Gardens open on the geometry of the flower-beds that converge into its three basins, on the banks of the river Po and against the background of the Turinese hills.
Their birth...
The botanical gardens were founded in 1792 as the outcome
of a Decree by Vittorio Emanuele II, which transformed the teaching of botanical
matters already present at Turin since 1560 into a regular professorship
for teaching Botany at the University. Ever since their inception, the Botanical
Gardens were where medicinal plants were grown and whose use was finalised
to presenting vegetal for the course on Medical Matters. Later on, the gardens
also contained spontaneous plants collected in Piedmont and cultivated species
obtained through exchanges with similar institutions throughout Europe.
The initial 1,200 botanical species cultivated in the gardens around the
second half of the 18th Century increased to some 12,000 by the end of last
century.
The present building with its laboratories and classrooms was erected after 1870,
as a consequence of several enlargements. The Arboretum was created in 1894 and
the gardens grew to a total area of 30 thousand square metres.
The greenhouses...
Greenhouses were already greatly developed at the inception of the gardens and allowed exotic species to get acclimatised and plants from the world over to be cultivated. Today there are 4 greenhouses, one of which is reserved for South American and African cactus plants and another one (run by the Italian National Research Council) for plants with controlled fungus and root symbiosis mycorhizas.
The collections: herbariums, reproductions...
Ever since the 18th Century Turin has been one of the main seats of
Italian Botany. The scientific documents of its prestigious collections
is of vital interest. The Library contains the Herbariums prepared by Carlo
Allioni (1728-1804), Ludovico Bellardi (1741-1826) and Giovan
Battista Balbis (1765-1831), originally with 40,000 specimens and now
totalling over 700,000, presently kept in the Turinese Herbarium (Italy's
second largest after Florence).
The story of the plants studied in the Gardens is to be found not only in the
works published by these Turinese botanists but also in the 65 volumes of the
Iconographia Taurinensis (totalling 7640 water-colour plates by 4 painters who
worked from 1752 to 1868).
From the Gardens to the scientific laboratories...
Experimental research on plant biology developed at Turin during the
latter part of the 19th Century and originated from a tradition of microscopy
closely connected with the German biology schools. The Botanical Gardens
became Institute and Botanical Gardens and was transformed into Department
of Vegetal Biology in 1983.
Separate institutions were generated from the original trunk, and now work
in close co-operation, such as the Study Centre on Terrain Mycology of the
Italian National Research Council founded in 1951 and the Centre of Electronic
Microscopy of Turin University, founded in 1961.
More recently, some laboratories of the Special Botany, Physiology and Biochemistry
Section of the Department of Veterinary Morphology and Physiology set up
their headquarters here. Today, experimental research involves fields ranging
from in vivo production of agricultural and forestry plants to cell cultures,
from the cell biology of fungi and mycorhizas to the physiology of officinal
plants (Including the famous Piedmontese mints).
Systematic mycology, ecology and medical research has also developed, together
with systematic ecology and phytogeography of the plants of Piedmont and the Aosta
Valley and the ecology of lichens and pollens. As a note of interest, we can add
that these laboratories have produced pollen calendars (lists of the species
of pollens present in the atmosphere of Turin as a reference for the prevention
of allergies and often published in the daily La Stampa) and data on the mycological
damage to works of art.
The indispensable support to all these activities is the Library, which
contains over 50,000 volumes and 700 different periodicals, including an
important historical collection and the largest Italian collection of magazines
and modern texts on Fungus Biology and Biotechnology available in
Italy.
It might well be said that all the competences of vegetal biology, from the history
of botany to biotechnologies are represented in the laboratories of today's Botanical
Gardens of Turin, which continue their old tradition of international renown.
The Gardens are open to visits by parties, schools especially, on previous booking at Turin University Department of Vegetal Biology.