Giardino botanico "Clelia Durazzo Grimaldi"
Goes back a year 1794 starting a garden of acclimatization in Pegli where Clelia Durazzo, an eminent botanist from a noble family, she started her botanical private collection. In a few years the collection includes a large number of plants, mainly ornamental species, as well as scientific texts and a rich herbarium of more than 5.000 samples. The academic world of the nineteenth century, both nationally and internationally, recognized her the great merit for her scientific activities. The two nineteenth-century greenhouses, which she had built and later renovated by her nephew Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini, constitute the most refined testimony of that Genoese botanical culture that characterized scientific circles of the city at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, even today, characterizes the garden and architectural style. In 1928, the botanical garden, together with the palace and the romantic park, was donated to the City of Genoa and for many years used improperly. In the late '70s it was revalued and botanical collections have grown considerably. In the 2002-2004, the garden is finally restored. Today exposes collections of various compositions, some arranged in scenes details, like the desert, tropical forests, bogs, marshes. In this magnificent monumental greenhouses are grown ferns, palms and tropical plants of economic interest, such as cocoa, cola, cinnamon, banana, cassava etc. Outside, the collections of educational value give the opportunity to know more details about some aspects of plant biology, such as playing, the colors of the leaves, the smells and poisons. Collections of roses, camellias, bamboo, Mediterranean plants, offer the possibility to know more closely these plant groups. In the new greenhouse, devoted to giant water lilies, it can admire the Victoria Cruziana.
