Thanks to the collaboration with the Botanical Garden and Museum, the exhibition ‘Casabona, Dyckman and the Flora of Crete’ is on display in the Bastione del Parlascio.

The exhibition tells the story of the Flemish Giuseppe Casabona (Joseph Goedenhuyze), prefect of the Botanical Garden at the end of the 16th century, who between 1590 and 1591 explored the island of Crete on behalf of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand I. During his stay he got to know a German soldier with artistic skills, Georg Dyckman, and hired him to paint live portraits of the most significant plants collected during his excursions.

These were years of great changes for the city, including urban planning, linked to the political power of the Medici and the desire to incorporate Pisa culturally into the Grand Duchy. While on the one hand the Botanical Garden was being moved and relaunched in its current location, a few decades earlier the Bastione del Parlascio was taking shape, designed by architect Nanni Unghero.

The exhibition can be viewed until 21 March during the opening hours of the Walls and is included in the ticket for access to the elevated walkway. On display are reproductions of all the 34 tempera plates (plus 2 in pencil and pen) that have survived to the present day, taken from manuscript number 462 ‘Icones variarum plantarum’, today preserved in the Hortus Pisanus fund of the Pisan University Library. The plants portrayed, a perfect synthesis of art and science, have all been re-identified and grouped according to growth environments and peculiar adaptations.

On Friday 24 January at 11.00 a.m., the inauguration will be held in the presence of Lorenzo Peruzzi, director of the Botanical Garden and Museum and president of the University Museum System, and the Councillor for Tourism of the Municipality of Pisa, Paolo Pesciatini.

Thanks to the agreement between the Walls of Pisa and the Botanical Garden, it is always possible to visit the two monuments with cross-discounts. Those who present themselves at the ticket office of the city walls by presenting the Botanical Garden's entrance ticket are entitled to reduced entry, and vice versa.