There is no question that the Hanbury botanical gardens at Mortola deserve their international fame. What excels here is the acclimatization of exotic plants; the successful outcome of study, cultivation and continuous experimentation. The noble villa and its annex and the layout of the land are an excellent example of Mediterranean landscape architecture. The ‘alien’ fascination of the succulents, the palms, the agaves, is wedded to the renaissance paintbrushes of the cypresses and the biblical paganism of the olive tree. On this harsh slope coexists Giovanni Bellini’s spirit of the rocks, the radiant spell of Botticelli, the painting of Antonino Leto, the light of Monet, the languor of Frederick Leighton.
In 1867, Thomas Hanbury is 35 years old. Having reached a substantial economic condition, he decides to make his dream come true: find an ideal place to acclimatize a number of exotic plants outdoors, following the tradition of the wealthy English who sought, in the splendour of far western Liguria, a place where they could vacation and retire.
The strip of coast between Cape Mortola and the border present the young Thomas with a fascinating series of land formations of rare beauty; a true treasure chest of culture and history.
Thomas remains fascinated by this steep promontory full of light, where there are disorderly terraces of neglected orange and olive groves. And then there is Via Iulia Augusta, the road taken by the Romans since the First Punic War to penetrate, cross and control the Ligurian coast.
In 1868, Thomas managed to assure himself the collaboration of the twenty-two year old Ludwig Winter, who had acquired a great deal of experience at the Tuelp nurseries in Erfurt, had studied in Posdnam, worked in Heidelberg and in Bonn, and then as a gardener at the Tuileries in Paris. At the end of his assignment in 1875, he left behind an avant-garde botanical garden for the acclimatization of exotic plants.
The garden currently records about 60,000 visitors a year.
A cohabitation of plants, flowers, fruit. Not a museum, but a living reality in continuous evolution which, in the various seasons, provides an alternation of scents, colours and forms, all shimmering against the splendid backdrop of the Ligurian Sea.