(crickets chirp throughout)
(birds sing)
(soft piano solo)
The neoclassical central building,
the Gymnasium, towers overhead
when you enter the grounds
of the L’Orto Botanico.
Statuary remind visitors
of the original directors,
and chief botanist,
Bernadino da Ucria.
French architect Leon Dufourny
designed the buildings
as well as the original garden
of four quadrangles
where Da Ucria ordered plants
according to the Linnean system
of classification.
Strolling down the Central Avenue,
you arrive at the small plaza
where the Avenue of the Palms intersects.
(soft piano solo)
The Palermo Botanical Garden
was born out of the culture
of European Enlightenment
during the last decades
of the 18th century, when the
kingdoms of Naples and Sicily formed.
(water gurgling from fountain)
The magnificent round fountain,
located at the end,
a gift from the Archbishop of Palermo,
was named the Aquarium
and consists of three rings,
each of which are divided
into eight wedges
with their own group
of aquatic flora.
(soft piano solo)
Nearby,... is a lagoon,
where plants are informally situated.
(piano ends)
(Latin guitar solo, mid-tempo)
(water splashes into pond)
The founding of the
Royal Academy of Palermo
led to the planting of a
small botanical garden in 1779
for the purpose of cultivating
medicinal plants useful to teaching.
The original garden
soon outgrew its space,
and planting of the new botanical garden,
at a new location,
commenced in 1789.
It was inaugurated six years later.
Behind the Aquarium
are great stands of bamboo.
A bamboo hut,
which visitors are welcome to explore,
overlooks the lagoon.
(soft, slow Latin guitar)
A favorite attraction is the
monumental Ficus Macrophylla,
or Moreton Bay Fig,
with its aerial roots.
It came from Norfolk Island,
a territory of Australia,
in 1845,
is the second largest
banyon tree in Palermo,
and it's ground protection
is around 1200 square meters.
(Latin guitar ends)
(violin concerto uptempo)
L’Orto Botanico’s first director,
Guiseppe Tineo,
oversaw the building of the
monument at the front entrance,
three buildings in perfect symmetry,
including the central building,
the Gymnasium,
and the Calidarium and the
Tepidarium on either side.
The garden was expanded
over the next twenty years.
However, political events in Sicily
in the first half of the 19th century
prevented further expansions
attempted by its director of
forty-four years, Vincenzo Tineo,
who took over from his father.
Revolution reduced Sicily
to a distant province,
and the era when kings and nobility
vied to promote the sciences
was finished.
The last decades of the century
were focused on safeguarding
the integrity of what they had.
Home to a colony of
rose-ringed parakeets
who escaped a nearby aviary,
lizards, and lots of crickets
which chirp all day,
L’Orto Botanico today
covers thirty acres
in the heart of old Palermo,
and is a wonderful place
for contemplation
and botanical study.
(Latin guitar tango)
A system of trenches
provides water to the quadrangles.
Our visit took place
on the last day of September
and Susan and I were hard pressed
to find flowers blooming
but I spotted this stunner.
The early Linnaean plantings
consisted of 1,580 different species,
of which 658 still exist!
The Winter Garden is home
to a number of species
native to warmer climates.
(bees buzzing)
(guitar solo)
The Botanical Garden
of the University of Palermo
is a botanic garden
and a research and educational institution
of the Department of Botany.
It’s one of the most important
Italian academic institutions,
and has allowed for the dissemination
of countless plant species,
many native to tropical and
subtropical regions.
A visit to the garden is essential
for anyone visiting Palermo.
(water gurgling from pond)
(guitar solo ends)
(crickets chirp)