Who, coming or living in Padua, has never heard of the Botanical Garden?
It should be known that the oldest vegetable garden in the world was the invention of a wise, meek man: Francesco Bonafede, the reader of the Semplici. Naturally, this place was conceived as a site owned by the University of Padua, founded on the land of the Benedictine Monks of Santa Giustina, just before the mid-16th century.
It was by the will of the Senate of the Republic of Venice that it was established, more specifically for the cultivation of medicinal plants, which then constituted the great majority of the "simple", that is, those medicines that came directly from nature. Precisely for this reason the first botanical gardens were called "Giardini dei Semplici", in Latin "Horti simplicium".
In spite of everything, there was considerable uncertainty regarding the identification of the plants used in therapy by the famous doctors of antiquity and errors and even frauds were frequent, with serious damage to public health. The establishment of a medicinal Horto, urged by Bonafede, who held the Chair of "Reading of the Simple", would have allowed students an easier recognition of true medicinal plants with sophistication.
A vegetable garden of such thickness owes everything to Padua, which of its Prato della Valle recalls, moreover, the geometric shapes, the mathematical perfection, in a majestic city reflection that we want to re-propose.
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