L'Orto de'Pecci and other gardens in Siena | Casa Santa Pia, Holiday house in the south of Tuscany.

Gardens in Siena

Orto de' Pecci Siena
L’Orto de’Pecci is in the former psychiatric hospital area in Siena and is a green oasis just underneath Piazza del Campo, with a fabulous view of the Torre del Mangia. A dirt path crosses the garden where a co-operative society has maintained it as it always was. To reach this cooperative garden, walk to Piazza del Mercato, then take the stairs leading down to the field of green below. Take the small street which bears to the right of Via Del Sole. A short walk down this road and past the gate, is pleasant and filled with the aroma of lavendar, rosemary and plants of the Tuscan countryside. The view of the Torre del Mangia and of Piazza del Mercato is fabulous from this peaceful spot. The Pecci Garden was built between 1326 and 1420, and is one of the most well preserved green spaces of medieval Siena. Today, the walls enclose green areas between Porta Romana and Porta Pipsini.
History \| The valley of Porta Giustizia, under Piazza del Mercato, is one of the best preserved green areas inside the old Walls of Siena. It has always been an ideal territory tor cultivation: it is watery and plan, beyond the uphill road called Via di Porta Giustizia. The name of the area, "Orto de' Pecci", refers to this function ('orto' means garden) and to the name of the family (the 'Pecci') which had owned the land tor a long time in the past. The story of the valley is antique and complex, though it has been mostly forgotten. In the Middle Ages there was a village called Borgo di S. Maria, which had been built at the beginning of the fourteenth-century for new immigrants who wanted to become citizens of Siena. The vilIage was abandoned and taken apart during the fourteenth-century Black Death. Since then, that small part of the southern territory of Siena has always been used for cultivation, even after it had became part of the Psychiatric Hospital. Since 1983, the social cooperative La Proposta has been running the valley of Porta Giustizia, implementing gardening, agriculture and tourist facilities. La Proposta aims to promote the reconstruction of damaged identities. It is qualified as a biological farm and obtained the ethics certification SA 8000. Inside the valley of Porta Giustizia it is possible to visit the 'medieval garden': a composite area where visitors can walk around biological fields and see vegetables used before the introduction of potato, tomato and corn. Uncommon herbs used for dyes in textiles; antique aromatic and officinal herbs. Visitors can also walk through the green valley and see the old Walls and the ruins of the antique Porta Giustizia, or watch the falconers' shows. It is also a way to look at Siena and at the Torre del Mangia from a different and unique point of view. The Orto de’ Pecci is run by a community that helps people with psychological difficulties, former drug addicts and prisoners. Besides what is materially produced, tending a collective vegetable garden offers a concrete opportunity to work in a community, encouraging responsibility and demanding attention and respect for the rhythms of nature. La Proposta runs a restaurant which employs recovering drug addicts, ex-convicts, and individuals with special needs. Students are able to assist in cooking food for restaurant employees, preparing the dining area for customers, and cleaning the kitchen. Students also have the opportunity to work in the gardens, both in restoration and in the cultivation of vegetables. Cildo Meireles’ large-scale installation in the vegetable gardens of the Orto de’ Pecci in Siena constitutes a new sign on the skyline of such a well-known city. A 30-metre-high ladder extends upwards, a connecting element between the inner suburbs and the historic city centre. In relation to the characteristics of the site, the presence of the ladder impinges on the usual routes taken by visitors coming to Siena to see the historic monuments and who rarely enter into contact with any areas of the daily life of its inhabitants beyond those relating to tourism and consumption. Meireles’ ladder dialogues with the site and suggests a reversed perspective, where what is low down is projected upwards. Arte Continua - associazione culturale \| Cildo Meireles in Siena www.ortodepecci.it
Orto botanico di Siena \| Botanical Garden
The Botanical Garden, Orto Botanico, was founded in 1784 by Biagio Bartalini. The entrance is located by Piazza Sant Agostino. The garden of two and a half hectars lies in a small valley just inside walls located by Porta Tufi of Siena. Various plants are displayed in three different sections of the garden. The first section contains local varieties of plants from Tuscany, including and some examples of herbs used for medicinal, aromatic and culinary purposes. A second section contains aquatic plants, along with more exotic trees and shrubs, unable to withstand the local climate, such as quince, pomegranate and jujube. A third section is dedicated to fruit bearing plants, and plants of the cactus and agavi families. The tepidarium is used to protect plants found in semi-desert regions, such as American cacti and African euphorbia. The origins of the garden date back to the beginning of the 17th century, when the Orto dei Semplici of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala was used for the cultivation of plants with medicinal properties. In 1856, the garden was moved to its current location.
The Orto Botanico dell'Università di Siena is located at Via P. A. Mattioli, 4, Siena, and open daily without charge. The garden's history reaches back to 1588 when the university began to raise medicinal herbs. In 1756 the field of herbal studies was supplanted by natural history, and starting in 1759, under the direction of Giuseppe Baldassarri, the garden began to collect uncommon plants. In 1784 the Grand Duke of Tuscany Peter Leopold began university reform, and in a short time the garden's collection grew to contain more than a thousand new plants, many from abroad. Its first published record (the Seminum Index Siena) listed some 900 species, including several hundred from outside Italy. In 1856 the garden moved to its present location, the botany institute constructed 1910-1912, and in the 1960s the garden's area was doubled. Today the garden is located inside Siena's city walls, covering one hillside of the valley S. Agostino. Its central collection is arranged in systematic order within brick-bordered, rectangular flower beds, along with old specimens of exotic and local plants. A farm area grows fruit, olive trees and vines of the main Chianti grapes. The garden also contains three greenhouses enclosing a total of about 500 m², namely, a tropical greenhouse, tepidarium that houses exotic species in winter as well as a succulent collection (120 m²) organized by country of origin, and an orangerie containing carnivorous plants and the principal citrus varieties grown in Europe. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Orto Botanico dell'Università di Siena