Greenhouses of the Orto botanico comunale of Lucca (serre antiche of 1826 and modern greenhouses)

The Orto botanico of Lucca was founded in 1820 under Maria Luisa of Bourbon, who ruled the Duchy of Lucca, as a teaching garden for the Liceo Reale. The land, the Piaggia Romana, was granted to the institution in May 1820; work began in 1822 and the heaviest part was finished in 1823. For lack of funds, the northern part of the garden was soon given over to a nursery where plants were grown and sold to the public. Its income paid in 1826 for the first heated greenhouse, which still faces that northern sector, against the boundary of the San Micheletto complex: the garden and the municipality both retain this date, one technical file writing "around 1826".

Cesare Bicchi, director from 1860 to 1906, turned several rooms next to the greenhouses into a library, herbarium, teaching room and director's office; these rooms now house the Museo botanico "Cesare Bicchi". In the 1930s a metal-and-glass greenhouse was installed for production purposes, then replaced by more efficient buildings. The volume of the 1990s greenhouses can be recognised on aerial photographs of 1954-1965 and took its present form at that time; the larger modern greenhouses were completed in the early 21st century under the Opera delle Mura, which managed the garden from 1999 before handing it back to the municipality in 2019. The Orto botanico was recognised as a cultural heritage asset by a decree of 14 March 2022. A feasibility project dated 21 April 2026 provides for the extraordinary maintenance of the 1990s greenhouses, to turn a simple winter shelter into a permanent museum route.

The old greenhouses form a masonry building on a rectangular plan elongated from east to west, set against the north wall that borders the former San Micheletto monastery. The municipality's historical file gives it about 350 m² and an average height of 5 m, with large glazed facades facing the garden to the south. The front is paced by brick pilasters at regular intervals, with very simple stone bases and capitals, beneath an entablature; to the west, the former library rooms open through four large arched French windows framed in local stone. For the greenhouses proper, the technical file describes a glazed single-pitch roof carried by metal members.

The linear building of the 1990s, about 205 m² and 4.60 to 6.30 m high, is a steel frame with tubular uprights and a single-pitch roof in polycarbonate or Plexiglas, set against what remains of an extension of the 14th-century walls. The modern greenhouses, trapezoidal in plan, are entirely of iron and glass: roof and walls are in glass called "Visarm" in the file, and a masonry envelope covers the secondary facades, whose pillars echo the vocabulary of the old greenhouses. They are surrounded on three sides by an open loggia carrying a metal walkway, reached by a staircase, from which the historical text promises an unusual view of the garden and the city walls. The municipal file gives them about 395 m², the historical text about 300 m²: the two figures differ.

The two pavilions of the old greenhouses hold succulents and xerophytes grown in the ground, arranged by continent: one is devoted to the Americas, the other to Africa. The African pavilion shows large euphorbias (Euphorbia candelabrum, E. tirucalli, E. pseudocactus) and aloes (Aloe arborescens, A. vera, A. ferox); the American pavilion shows cacti such as Cereus, Pachycereus, Cleistocactus and Echinocactus, as well as several agaves. According to Wikipedia, the succulent collection has been built up since 1980 and numbers about 430 plants.

The modern greenhouses mainly shelter, in winter, potted tropical and subtropical plants: cycads, epiphytic ferns, aroids, Ficus, coffee, sugar cane, cocoa, and a collection of frangipanis (Plumeria) donated by a private individual. Six interior beds carry fruit trees planted in the ground: banana, carambola, papaya, mango, tamarind and avocado. Wikipedia states that the winter temperature is kept above 10 °C for the tropical plants, while the succulents are kept warm and dry and never allowed to freeze. From May to September the potted plants spend the summer in the garden.

The greenhouses stand in the north of the garden, in the Scuola botanica sector: the old greenhouses face the garden, and the modern ones mark its eastern limit. The garden can be visited in every season; summer is the most favourable period, since the tropical plants are then outdoors and the frangipanis flower. The municipal file speaks of "ostensione", that is display, for the succulents and for the tropical plants alike, but neither the garden's website nor its visiting page details access to the greenhouses, and that page reports works under way since 5 December 2025 without saying which.

Close by are the Museo botanico "Cesare Bicchi", housed in the former herbarium rooms, the Hortus sanitatis of more than 300 medicinal plants, the arboretum and its Lebanon cedar, and the walk along the city walls, which connects with the garden through the Casermetta San Regolo, home of the ticket office.