The Orto Botanico di Padova is considered to be the original botanical garden. It continues to be managed by the University of Padova and the garden has been in existence for almost five hundred years. Because of its impact on the design of botanical gardens all around the world, the Orto Botanico di Padova was inscribed into the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. At that time, the Venetian republic was very prosperous and had trade links with a lot of far flung places. This enabled collectors to gather plants from various places and have them planted here. The main purpose of this garden was the help students recognize medicinal plants. Because there was widespread fraud at that time, it was important that there was a trustworthy source of this information and that source became this botanical garden.

While the general layout of the garden is circular. The grounds were eventually expanded to add other features. This being Italy, it should probably not come as a surprise to see that fountains were eventually added to the gardens as a way to spruce up the botanical garden. There are several of these fountains but most of them were built south of the garden complex. There were also statues put up here, presumably some of them dedicated to the people who came up with it in the first place. I think it is a little out of place to have these statues here in a place of academics but at least it was a further away from the main gardens.

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