Brera Botanical Garden

A high iron gate separates the Brera Botanical Garden from the bustling streets of Milan. Inside, the space centers on two oval flowerbeds surrounded by century-old ginkgo biloba trees. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria ordered the garden created in seventeen seventy-four for medical students to study medicinal plants. During a renovation in the nineteen eighties, planners discovered the original stone layout buried under years of neglect. They reconstructed the plots according to the Empress's precise, academic instructions from two centuries ago.