Orto Botanico di Padova

Plants, in the eyes of science
2024-04-25 10:00 - 2025-01-06 17:00 (Europe/Rome)
From the first photographic reproductions made for scientific purposes to modern illustrations: microscopy, infrared, ultraviolet, satellite, and time-lapse images tell the story of contemporary themes, from climate change to air quality, from agricultural sustainability to the management of urban greenery and forestry. The photographic section of the exhibition Impronte – Noi e le piante (‘Imprints – We and Plants’) organised by the Botanical Garden of the University of Parma (Parma, January/March 2024), comes to Padova.
Historically, the purpose of botanical illustrations was initially practical and didactic: illustrations were not used to discover the world of plants, but to educate the medical profession about medicinal plants. The first illustrations were often of a decorative nature, useless for identifying specific species, but useful for memorising and studying, while the focus on biodiversity came later.
If botanists once brought illustrators with them into the field, today researchers welcome visual artists into the laboratory to create scientifically impeccable, colour-enhanced images. These digital illustrations serve a research and dissemination function, often ending up on the covers of the most prestigious scientific journals and infusing the objectivity of science with a touch of human flair. Plants, in the Eyes of Science opens on Thursday 25 April as part of the Risvegli festival and can be visited in the Foyer during the opening hours of the Garden, included in the entrance fee, until 6 January 2025.
Image by Craig P. Burrows, Head of Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt.
Ultraviolet light-induced visible fluorescence (UVIVF) photograph, 2016. Courtesy of the author

Estate all'Orto 2024
2024-07-03 20:30 - 2024-09-07 19:00
Visite guidate tematiche, passeggiate all’alba e in notturna, danza, lettura: l’estate all’Orto botanico di Padova prevede un ricco calendario di eventi che celebrano la Natura e la sua profonda connessione con gli esseri umani. Per i partecipanti di tutte le età un’opportunità di riscoprire la meraviglia del Pianeta attraverso esperienze da vivere in un luogo che incarna passato, presente e futuro.
Programma

MERCOLEDÌ 3 LUGLIO – ore 20.30, 21, 21.30
Stasera al Museo botanico
Visita guidata

VENERDÌ 5 LUGLIO – ore 18.30
Sembrava un Paradiso
Presentazione del libro – rassegna Racconti della Natura
MARTEDÌ 9 LUGLIO – ore 6 e 7.30
Dancing Stride – HARVEST, flower edition
Camminata partecipativa

MERCOLEDÌ 17 LUGLIO – ore 19 e 20.30
TERRA
Spettacolo itinerante
LUNEDÌ 22 LUGLIO – ore 22
Dancing Stride – HARVEST, time edition
Camminata partecipativa
MERCOLEDÌ 31 LUGLIO – ore 20.30, 21 e 21.30
Un milione di spezie
Visita guidata tematica
MERCOLEDÌ 7 AGOSTO – ore 18, 19.30
Passeggiata aliena
Visita guidata tematica
MERCOLEDÌ 14 AGOSTO – ore 20.30, 21, 21.30
Il giardino segreto
Visita guidata notturna
LUNEDÌ 19 AGOSTO – ore 22
Dancing stride – HARVEST, time edition
Camminata partecipativa
MARTEDÌ 27 AGOSTO – ore 20.30 e 21.30
Impollinatori by night: viaggi segreti in Orto botanico
Esperienza guidata
MERCOLEDÌ 4 SETTEMBRE – ore 18.30
Botanica di spirito
Visita guidata con assaggio
SABATO 7 SETTEMBRE – ore 10-19
L’Orto in gioco: scienza, racconti e natura
Attività ludico didattiche e spettacolo-installazione in natura

Windows on Elsewhere. 60 views for 60 refugees
2025-05-01 - 2025-08-03
Refugees have been uprooted, had their existences ripped away, turned upside down, and brutally transplanted to another soil, a different environment, a different climate, ecosystem…Putting down roots can be about the condition of the refugee, but - in the end - about the universal condition of all those who find themselves experiencing the drama of uprooting and must attempt, in some way, to start again. A painful, exhausting process, but one that leaves open a glimpse of hope. (Martina Bastianello)THURSDAY 1 MAY – SUNDAY 3 AUGUST 2025
Exhibition
in collaboration with Amnesty International Italia
Included in the admission ticket
Sixty views. Sixty stories. Sixty refugee people who, together with the architect and illustrator Matteo Pericoli, have transformed a window into a visual and personal storytelling. Windows on Elsewhere is a project conceived by Bill Shipsey, founder of Art for Human Rights, and Matteo Pericoli, created between 2018 and 2021 in support of Amnesty International.
The exhibition brings together sixty original drawings made by Pericoli, each accompanied by the intimate story of someone who faced uprooting, loss, but also with rebirth in a new land. The idea of bringing this experience to the Botanical Garden of Padua was the brainchild of Martina Bastianello, who caught a profound dialogue between the project and the Botanical Garden’s plant heritage. Just like the trees evoked with poignant affection in the refugees’ stories, the windows of the exhibition overlook memories, identities and hopes. Many write about the trees of their childhood and the new trees they observe today – a green, living thread connecting past and present.
Linneo’s inverted linden tree – capable of turning branches into roots – becomes symbolic of refugee conditions: upside-down lives trying to put down new roots in other soil. It’s a powerful metaphor that also speaks to anyone experiencing profound change, relocation, and reconstruction.
As Gianni Rufini – former director of Amnesty International Italia – wrote:
“Not only that eyes see, but that they see through other eyes: eyes that are neither ‘ours’ nor ‘theirs’, but common eyes, shared glances…”. Windows on Elsewhere invites exactly this: to look at the world through different eyes, allowing ourselves to be touched by stories that affect us all.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an independent global movement of more than 10 million people committed to defending human rights. It exposes violations, pressures governments and companies to comply with international law, and mobilizes activists around the world to promote justice, freedom and dignity. Through campaigns, concrete actions and human rights education, it has been working for a more equitable world for more than 50 years, fighting discriminations, torture, repression of dissent and defending the rights of refugees and migrants.
Matteo Pericoli
Matteo Pericoli is an architect, author, illustrator and teacher. His work has been published in numerous national and international newspapers and magazines. In 2007 he completed Skyline of the World, a 120-meter mural for the American Airlines terminal at JFK International Airport. His books have been published in Italy, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. The latest is Il grande museo vivente dell’immaginazione. Guida all’esplorazione dell’architettura letteraria (The Great Living Museum of Imagination. A Guide to Exploring Literary Architecture) (Il Saggiatore). In Turin in 2010 he founded the Laboratorio di architettura letteraria (Literary Architecture Lab).
Art for Human Rights
Art for Human Rights brings together artists from all disciplines to raise awareness of human rights violations. We use art to inspire action so that freedom, equality and dignity become a reality for all.

Risvegli. La festa dei fiori
2025-05-01 09:00 - 2025-05-04 20:00
Risvegli. La festa dei fiori – the spring festival of the world’s oldest Botanical Garden – returns from May 1 to 4, offering a wide range of meetings and lectures, performances and workshops for all ages, between scientific research and daily care, entertainment and information.
Inexhaustible source of knowledge, inspiration for art and literature, natural resource, flowers and plants are the protagonists of an authentic garden of wonders suspended between scents and colors. A multisensory journey with activities suitable for everyone, under the banner of Nature and culture.
During the festival’s days, the Botanical Garden remains exceptionally open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry 6.15 p.m.).
Risvegli 2025 is organised by Padua Botanical Garden with the generous support of Fondazione Cariparo.

Sites of Botanical Knowledge Production
2025-05-22 - 2025-05-23
From May 22 to 23, 2025, the Botanical Theatre will host the international convention “Sites of Early Modern Botanical Knowledge Production”, dedicated to exploring the sites of studies and dissemination of botanical knowledge in the modern age.
The meeting aims to investigate not only institutional spaces and actors, such as academic botanical gardens, but also the lesser-known stories of private botanical gardens, their promoters and their role in plant knowledge and circulation.
Attendance is free, by registration.
The convention is an initiative of the DiSSGeA – Department of Historical, Geographical and Ancient Sciences – in collaboration with the Botanical Garden, the MoHu Center, the University of Padua Center for Museums and Dumbarton Oaks. It is organized by Elena Canadelli, scientific director of the Botanical Museum; Florike Egmond, historian of science and expert in botanical iconography; and Anatole Tchikine, curator of historic gardens and architectural historian, with a specialization on Italy in the Modern Age.
REGISTRATION
CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Petit Frère
2025-07-31 19:00 - 20:30
On Wednesday, July 30, at 7 p.m., the Botanical Garden of Padua will feature Petit frère, an acrobatic circus show involving, thanks to the company T’es rien sans la Terre, five acrobats from different companies (Circus Baobab & Cirque Mandingue from Guinea, Cirque du Soleil and Circo Fantazztico from Costa Rica). They explore obstacles, encounters and solidarity in an endless journey toward a better life, in search of an insurmountable Eldorado.
Authentic stories of acrobats, with different origins and life paths, reveal unbreakable bonds and confront the daily life of Western man, which is increasingly steeped in superficiality. In a world where excess and the conquest of new goals have taken over, there emerges the loneliness of the individual who simultaneously discovers the importance of living together with others. In this performance, the parallel universes of the antagonists intertwine through a moving structure that comes alive on stage, allegorically revealing the physical, virtual and psychological boundaries we raise between us.
Participation at the event is included in the entrance fee to the Botanical Garden, which can be visited from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased online or at the Botanical Garden’s ticket office, which is open Tuesday through Sunday and holidays from 10 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., and on Wednesday, July 30 – on the occasion of the show – until 7 p.m.
Online reservations are required to attend the event by filling out the registration form.
In case of bad weather, the event is made up on Thursday, July 31.
T'es rien sans la Terre
T’es rien sans la Terre is a contemporary circus performance company that brings together artists committed to the environment and uses art, poetic imagery and humor to talk about the Earth. Since 2020, the group has been inviting audiences to question the future of the planet and take a small step toward change.
Online ticketSign up

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The Love Life of Plants, from Linnaeus to the Present Day
2026-05-01 10:00 - 11:15
FRIDAY, 1 MAY – 10 AM
Scientific popularisation meeting
With Isabelle Charmantier, Barbara Baldan and Elena Canadelli
Free | Subject to booking
In the mid-18th century, Swedish physician and botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), known as the father of modern taxonomy, put forward the theory of the sexual reproduction of plants. This idea, often illustrated through explicit analogies with human sexuality, drew considerable criticism and accusations, to the point of placing Linnaeus’s career at risk. The conference presents Linnaeus’ ideas on plant reproduction, how they were received by his contemporaries, and what has survived of his theories to this day.
The conference will be held in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
It will take place at the Botanical Theatre.
Registration

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In the Pursuit of Nature, Amidst Gardens and Urban Living
2026-05-01 11:30 - 12:45
FRIDAY, 1 MAY – 11:30 AM
Scientific popularisation meeting
With Terry Hartig, Rogier van Vugt, Laura Gatti, Luigi Latini. Introduction by Francesco Dal Grande
Free / Subject to booking
The conference weaves together botanical research, horticultural practice and landscape culture to explore the role of public green spaces in the contemporary city. Drawing on experiences developed across a range of urban contexts—from the evolution of botanical gardens as complex ecosystems capable of positively influencing those who experience them, to the design of green spaces shaped around quality of life—the event offers a reflection of how trees, gardens and flowering landscapes contribute to urban biodiversity and to the creation of more liveable and distinctive city environments.
The conference will be held in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
It will take place at the Auditorium. Entrance: Prato della Valle 57/C.
Registration

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Voices from the Garden: Darwin and Other Stories
2026-05-02 10:00 - 11:15
SATURDAY, 2 MAY – 10 AM
Scientific popularisation meeting
With Chiara Ceci, Claire Masset, Antony O’Rourke. Moderator: Elena Canadelli
Free | Subject to booking
What stories can a historic garden tell us—such as the one at Down House, near London, once owned by the Darwin family? In the mid-19th century, naturalist Charles Darwin spent much of his time, with his wife Emma Wedgwood and their children, in this country home surrounded by a variety of gardens. These green spaces bear witness to them and their lives, and to their relationship with the botanical world. Taking Down House as its point of departure, the conference traces the stories of other gardens and their “gardeners”, including William Morris and Claude Monet.
The conference will be held in English and Italian with simultaneous translation.
It will take place at the Botanical Theatre.
Registration

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The Unknown World of Lichens
2026-05-03 10:00 - 11:15
SUNDAY, 3 MAY – 10 AM
Scientific popularisation meeting
With Christoph Scheidegger and Garima Singh
Free | Subject to booking
Lichens differ radically from flowering plants: their structure is formed by a fungal partner that cultivates algae or cyanobacteria within the body of the lichen; through photosynthesis, these organisms provide it with nourishment. This close coexistence between the fungal and algal partners is known as symbiosis. Yet it is thanks to another remarkable trait that lichens are able to endure life in deserts and on the rocks of the highest Alpine peaks: they can survive extreme drought, heat and cold in an apparently dormant—or anabiotic—state, only to awaken and return to active life when the climatic conditions become favourable. The conference will explore the ecological advantages of this strategy and the implications it holds for symbiotic organisms in terms of species conservation.
The conference will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Italian.
It will take place at the Botanical Theatre.
At the end of the talk, participants may join the speakers for a guided viewing of living lichen specimens in Prato della Valle.
Registration

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The Scent of Memory
2026-05-03 11:30 - 12:45
SUNDAY, 3 MAY – 11:30 AM
Scientific popularisation meeting
With Hirac Gurden, Anne-Cécile Pouant, Anna D’Errico. Moderator: Monica Baggio
Free | Subject to booking
Scents and aromas bring with them memories and sensations that weave through the fabric of our minds, linking past experiences with our present-day life. At the crossroads of science, art and history, the conference explores the bond between smell and memory, revealing how our brain—even without our awareness—gathers and preserves countless amounts of information. For fragrance is far more than a fleeting recollection; it is a bridge of connection, a subtle language through which we share something of ourselves with others.
The conference will be held in Italian and French with simultaneous translation.
It will take place at the Auditorium. Entrance: Prato della Valle 57/C.
Registration

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