Botanical Garden of Rome, Sapienza University of Rome (BGR)
Country: Italy | Region: Lazio
The Botanical Garden of Rome (BGR) is one of the three Museums hosted by the Department of Environmental Biology of the Sapienza University of Rome. It covers an area of about 30 acres in the very heart of the city being located since 1883 in the renaissance garden of the nearby “Palazzo Riario-Corsini” between Lungara Street and Gianicolo Hill and overlying an ancient roman archaeological area – Ager Vaticanus – which, in ancient times, was a suburban territory, crossed by streets with their succession of tombs and villas. BGR is an educational and research structure and hosts several collections of plants from all over the world. The most important ones are the palm, coniferous and bamboo stands, the Fern Valley, the medicinal and Japanese gardens, the three greenhouses with succulents from Africa and central-south America, and a tropical greenhouse with epiphytes from the Amazon and Congo basins. The latest collection is focused on agro-biodiversity with a vineyard hosting 160 varieties of Italian grapes. Its Germplasm Bank currently manages 1943 accessions of about 1000 species, among which 245 are spontaneous, belonging to 545 genera and 130 families from endangered plants from Italy and elsewhere in the Mediterranean and tropical regions. The Germplasm Bank publishes an Index seminum for the seed exchange with other Botanical Gardens or research institutes, and it is one of the founding members of the Germplasm Bank Italian Network for the ex situ preservation of the Italian flora germplasm (RIBES). There is also a herbarium of about 1,115,000 specimens.
BGR hosts contemporary art exhibitions. The last one is the “Living Chapel”, the reconstruction of the Chapel where Saint Francis used to pray in Assisi “La Porziuncola”. The structure has been built using recycled material, covered by plants and a water-based musical system, and is run by solar panels. This project was conceived by an Australian-Canadian music composer Julian Darius Revie and inspired by Pope Francis’s “Encyclical Laudato Si” and by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, aiming to encourage worldwide acts of ecological restoration.
BGR is committed to several projects focused on the conservation of endangered plant species and habitats in Italy, Greece, South Africa, Mozambique, Yemen, Cuba, Papua New Guinea, and has concluded collaboration agreements with FAO, the Italia Development Cooperation, and the Botanical Gardens of Tirana (Albania), Maputo (Mozambique), Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK) and Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). It also offers training courses and summer school on horticulture for people of all ages and summer and winter scientific schools on agro-biodiversity and in-situ and ex-situ conservation of plant species.
Contact
Fabio Attorre, fabio.attorre@uniroma1.it
Vito Emanuele Cambria, vitoemanuele.cambria@uniroma1.it
Largo Cristina di Svezia, 24, 00165 Rome, Italy
Tel. +39 06 49917107
Website: web.uniroma1.it/ortobotanico/en