Botanical Garden of Padua (Orto Botanico)

The Orto Botanico of Padua, created in 1545, is the world's oldest academic botanical garden still growing on its original site. Founded by the University of Padua to cultivate medicinal plants for the study of medicine, it preserves its original Renaissance layout — a circular central plot symbolising the world, encircled by a ring of water and enclosed within a walled precinct. Over the centuries ornamental gateways, balustrades, fountains, pumping systems and greenhouses were added, and a soaring modern glasshouse now traces the plant life of the world's climate zones. Some of its trees are centuries old, among them a palm planted in the 16th century. The garden stands at the origin of botanical science and of the exchange of plants and knowledge across the world, and it continues to serve its founding purpose as a centre for research and teaching. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997.