Serra Carolina (Giardino d'Inverno)

At the heart of the Orto Botanico di Palermo, one of Europe's oldest botanical gardens, the Serra Carolina — or Giardino d'Inverno — takes its name from Queen Maria Carolina of Austria, wife of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, who donated it to the institution in 1823. Originally built of wood and heated by stoves, the greenhouse was entirely rebuilt in cast iron in the second half of the 19th century, following the rise of metal-framing techniques imported from England and France. It complements the neoclassical ensemble designed by French architect Léon Dufourny for the garden's reception buildings, completed as early as 1789. Beneath its glass roof, coffee trees, papayas, bougainvillea, cinnamon trees, and mimosas from Africa, the Americas, and Asia enjoy the Sicilian mildness, alongside neighboring smaller greenhouses devoted to orchids and carnivorous plants. All the garden's greenhouses together now cover about 1,300 square meters, making this royal winter garden a discreet but precious milestone in the history of botanical acclimatization in the Mediterranean.