POTENTIAL INFLUENCES OF PORTUGUESE BOTANICAL GARDENS IN THE LANDSCAPE DESIGN OF THE FIRST BOTANICAL GARDEN IN SÃO PAULO (1799-1838), BRAZIL

Until 1822 the Portuguese influence was evident because Brazil was a Portuguese colony.
In the last years of the Eighteenth century, there have been some initiatives to create botanical gardens in Brazil as in the cities of Belém (1796), and Salvador (1798). Unfortunately both botanical gardens do not exist anymore.
The city of São Paulo had a royal order to create its first botanical garden in 1799 before the Portuguese royal family arrived to Rio de Janeiro, where a botanical garden was created in 1808. This study makes a comparison in terms of design and architecture elements among the first Botanical Garden of São Paulo and two Portuguese botanical gardens also established in the Eighteenth century: the Ajuda Botanical Garden, in Lisbon (1768) and the Botanical Garden of Coimbra (1772). Theses botanical gardens were created when Portugal included the natural sciences into a policy of exploiting of the natural resources of their domains of the Eighteenth century.
The Portuguese botanical gardens had Italian influence because were designed under the orientation of the Italian naturalist scientist Domenico Agostino Vandelli.
The Botanical Garden of São Paulo has incontestable similarities with both botanical gardens: geometric design and a central fountain with ponds.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Advances in Ornamentals, Landscape and Urban Horticulture

Y.T. Rocha

cultural landscape, Brazilian botanical garden, Ajuda, Coimbra, Portugal

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.937.158