as “botanic gardens” though. A botanic garden is not an easy thing to classify (see the definition page for a detailed definition) though an underlying scientific basis is a necessity. Therefore the world’s first botanic gardens were the physic gardens of Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first of these physic gardens was the garden of the University of Pisa which was created by Luca Ghini in 1543. Following this other Italian universities followed suit and gardens were created in Padova (1545), Firenze (1545) and Bologna (1547). These gardens were purely for the academic study of medicinal plants. By the 16th Century these medicinal gardens had spread to universities and apothecaries throughout central Europe such as Cologne and Prague. The University
of Oxford botanic garden was the first garden established in the United Kingdom in