History of Botanical Garden ‘Angelo Rambelli’
The Botanical Garden ‘Angelo Rambelli’ opened on 24th of March 1991 and it covers an area of ??approximately 6 ha west of Viterbo (about 300 m above sea level) on the right side of the ditch Urcionio, near the famous hydrothermal vents of Bulicame, well known since the Roman, and probably even the Etruscan era.
The area is characterized by strong annual temperature fluctuations (min -10 °C, max 40 °C) and a strongly calcareous soil. At depths ranging from 4 to 8 meters flow numerous hot flaps rich in minerals, especially carbonates, that were deposited over thousands of years to form whitish concretions. From the main spring of Bulicame, the water flowed through characteristic raised small channels in basins where hemp was once placed to macerate. Small channels and basins are now converted into streams and ponds that run through the entire structure and host aquatic ecosystems, sometimes enriched by a spontaneous herbaceous vegetation.
The idea of ??creating a botanical garden in Viterbo was of the first Rector of the University of Tuscia, Prof. Gian Tommaso Scarascia Mugnozza. Although this area was unsuitable for plants due to the physio-chemical characteristics of the soil, the most unsuitable for plants, the challenge was accepted by Prof. Angelo Rambelli, founder and first director of the Botanical Garden. Thanks to his efforts and tenacity and to the work of many employees and following directors, the Botanical Garden of Viterbo is now a beautiful reality and a source of cultural richness for the entire scientific community and for the city of Viterbo.
The Botanical Garden plays an important role in the collection and dissemination of scientific knowledge and research. It annually hosts thousands of visitors, many of them students of all levels and university,and it organizes and conducts exercises, stages, training courses, and events. Here are carried out activities in collaboration with the Museum Herbarium of Tuscia (UTV), founded by A. Scoppola in 1996, and the Germplasm Bank, established in 2005 by S. Onofri. These three structures are now included in the University Museum System (SMA).
Artworks
Walking through the garden, visitors have the opportunity to admire, immersed in nature, four artworks that different artists have donated over the years to the University to be kept here, born to be outdoors and which are now an integral part of the heritage of the Museum System of Ateneo.
Orto-I, by Francesco Narduzzi, is an inscription engraved on stone at the edge of a water mirror. Through a writing made of alphabet symbols, the artist helps us to decode his inner reality, always intimately connected with Mother Earth.
The Chiron, by Patrick Alò, is a large iron centaur, realized with an artistic operation aimed at the recovery of disused industrial raw material, in contrast with the subject of sculpture which instead refers to classical antiquity.
The ant 2070, by Stefano Di Maulo, is a large ant engraved on a stone. The ant, the leitmotif of his artistic production, becomes the vehicle through which the artist wants to communicate the restlessness of a frenetic and selfish world, in which man, perhaps in 2070, will find himself in a position of subordination with respect to the silent, but cohesive and hardworking ants.
The wave, a work realized in 1996 by the artist Attilio Pierelli from the Marche region, comes from his Museum of hyperspace sculptures in Bomarzo. It is here since 2012, upon the express wish of the artist, who died in 2013. The sculpture, born to be outdoors and made of finely polished stainless steel, is made up of mirrored sheets folded to form wavy surfaces from which a field of deforming reflections in continuous mutation is generated, depending on the points of view and environmental conditions, involving the spectator by returning it to a space of the image, unreal, aesthetic.
