This BGHG Study Day lecture series will look at botanic gardens from the early private collections of the Medici, through colonial imperatives, to the dilemmas of the present-day.

Programme

19 March ‘The whole world in a cabinet’: collecting and the establishment of the first modern botanic gardens in Italy

Christine Lalumia, Garden and art historian, lecturer, and course leader at the V&A

26 March ‘Aiding the mother country’: The role of British colonial botanic gardens in the nineteenth century

Dr Caroline Cornish, Co-investigator, Plant Humanities, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London

9 April Botanic gardens of the Western Cape: responding to the world's richest flora

Professor John Parker, Former Director of Cambridge University Botanic Garden; Cape botanical tour guide

16 April Botanic gardens and the great challenges of our times

Professor Stephen Blackmore, Chair of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI)

Chair: Susan Jellis, Chair of the Birkbeck Garden History Group

This Lecture Series will be held online via Zoom as four lectures weekly on Fridays from 6.30 to 8 pm on the dates shown above. Tickets for the complete series cost £15 for members and £18 for non-members. Lectures will be available to ticket-holders for a week after the date given.

If you have any questions please email bghgbookings@gmail.com