PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 9 



Campania, was the seat of the revival of the art of 

 healing founded by Hippocrates and Galen. The Civitas 

 Hippocratica as it was called, was a non-religious establish- 

 ment, where law and philosophy, but especially medicine, 

 were taught, and to which came students from all parts 

 of the then known world. In connection with this 

 Institution we find records of a Physic Garden founded in 

 1309 by a certain Matthaeus Sylvaticus and in 1333 we 

 read of another Medicinal Garden established by the 

 famous Venetian Doctor Gualterus on an area given 

 him by the Eepublic " pro faciendo hortum pro herbis 

 necessariis artis suae." 



Data are more abundant for dealing with the history of 

 the University Gardens of the 16th century and to these 

 we may now turn. 



Whilst Fuchs and Brunfels were endeavouring to weed 

 out the rank growths that had been assiduously cherished 

 by the earlier herbalists, Francesco Buonafede, the first 

 professor of Botany in the first university in Europe, that 

 that of Padua, obtained from the Senate of Venice in 

 1545 a grant of land for the establishment of a medicinal 

 garden. That garden exists to the present day, and 

 occupies the same (though now greatly extended) site 

 granted in the 16th century by the enlightened Signiory. 



The foundation of the physic garden of Padua was the 

 signal for the establishment of gardens in several other 

 Italian cities, and in quick succession we read of gardens 

 laid out at Pisa in 1547, at Florence in 1550, at Eonie in 

 1566, and at Bologna in 1567. It is impossible for me in 

 the time at my disposal to describe to you even briefly 

 the history of these and of many other Italian gardens 

 founded at a later date. It must suffice merely to note 

 that the example of the Italian States was soon followed 

 in Northern and Western Europe, and before the end of 



