PROJECT

Discover through observing and inquiring the history and role of the first academic botanic garden of the occidental world : the botanic garden of Padova (Italy).

OBJECTIVES

 to link history, sciences and visual arts
 to explore and account for a place sharpening one’s observation capacities, by developing one’s relation to time and space

SKILLS

 to bring to the fore a botanic garden features
 to observe, write down, take down sketches
 to classify the type of plants observed
 to link the botanic collections observed with the different features of an environment

MATERIALS

 cameras
 notebooks, pencils
 a garden map (cf. document attached to this track)

REFERENCES

 The Botanic Garden of Padova
 The map and texts in relation to the garden (cf. document attached to this track)
 Representations of medieval gardens
 http://www.ortobotanico.unipd.it/or…

PROCEDURES

Beforehand :

 read the documents referring to the history of the Botanic Garden of Padova
 read documents referring to the history of intellectual life during the European Renaissance : the role of the first botanic gardens or simple gardens ; the first universities

Visit the Botanic Garden :

The map, garden architecture

Use a notebook, camera, to take down through sketches and annotations some formal features of the garden map : the enclosed garden, the circular plan, the dividing up the garden into four parts oriented according to the four cardinal points, themselves divided into many geometric shapes, the presence of many statues and buildings (greenhouses, museum…)

The comparison with the medieval garden map shows the Renaissance botanic garden retains some Middle-Age features : walls, the “mystical circular shape symbolic of the cosmos, the field geometric division, and the “simple medicinal gardens.

The collections

List, draw, and write down the plant family names composing the garden.

 insectivore plants
 medicinal and poisonous plants : the medicinal plants remind that the first purpose of the Botanic Garden created in 1545 is to collect “simples, labelled plants indicating their pharmaceutical properties as well as their names.

Plants from the Euganean hills and rare plants from the Three Venities answer the fundamental objectives of the botanic gardens : study, make known to the public the most characteristic plants existing in the country where the garden is and keep the plants in danger of extinction. Precise this botanic garden belongs to the Padova University created in 1222 and the most avant-gardist University of Italy during the Renaissance. It greeted Copernic as a student and Galileo as a teacher in the 16th century. In the University you can find :

 the first steady anatomy amphitheatre of whole Europe, that is to say of the whole world
 the first European academic botanic garden, that is to say of the whole world

The environment features :

Observe the different natural environments reconstituted in the garden by listing the plants growing in it : the Mediterranean bush, the alpine garden, fresh water environment, desert environment of the succulent plants, tropical environment of the orchid greenhouse.

Realise from these observations the features determining an environment : the type of ground, the temperature, the water quantity, and the sun radiance.

FOLLOW-ON-ACTIVITIES

 Work biology (see tracks called “Life in the garden)
 Work history : link the Botanic Garden role to other elements relating the Renaissance humanism, at the beginning of Modern Europe : great discoveries, medicine, astronomy, expansion of trade and banks, artistic and cultural life (many works at Padova painted by Giotto, Titien…)
 Create artistic works linked with this visit : travel book, model, “pocket-garden

ASSESSMENT

Capacity for the pupil to use the knowledge acquired during the visit :

 the botanic garden role from the Renaissance period
 the features of a natural environment
 the botanic collection diversity
 humanism, intellectual life at the Renaissance age

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Aline Rutily Conseillère pédagogique en Arts Visuels Saint Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines) France