Botanical Garden (Jardin des Plantes)
Founded in 1626 by Louis XIII’s physicians Jean Héroard and Guy de La Brosse, the Botanical Garden occupies a large area on the left bank of the River Seine between the Rue Cuvier, the Rue Buffon, the Rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire and the Quai Saint Bernard. The garden was conceived as a room of botanical and zoological curiosities. It was first known as the Royal Medicinal Herb Garden and had a school for training students in pharmaceutics and medicine. The garden opened to the public in 1640.
Under Louis XIV, administrative control of the garden was given to his chief physician, Doctor Fagon, whose efforts transformed it into an important research and education center. The Botanical Garden was designed in a regular rectangular arrangement, with four parterres with a fountain in the middle and a maze alley on the hill. But the garden’s main treasure is the collection of exotic plants coming from different countries.
Peter I visited the Botanical Garden on his very first day in the capital of France (April 30/May 11): “He visited the Apothecary kitchen garden and other kitchen gardens, and also the Apothecary’s house where he viewed anatomical things”. Later, the Tsar revisited the garden several times (on May 1/12, May 4/15, May 8/19 and June 7/18).
During the first decades of the 18th century, the garden appreciably evolved to include an amphitheater designed for demonstration of plants and anatomical exhibitions. Perhaps the main attraction was a room of medicinal substances extracted from plants, animals and minerals. The preparations were kept in crystal vessels exhibited in beautiful showcases. Next to the room, there was a chemical laboratory. Two greenhouses were built in the garden in 1714 and 1717.
Numerous visits to the Botanical Garden satisfied the Russian Tsar’s interest in medicine, fascination with anatomy and craving for different kinds of rarities. Peter met leading naturalists who worked there. The room with medicinal substances was shown to the Tsar by Sebastien Vaillant, a famous botanist and the author of the Botanicon Parisiense (Leiden, 1727), as described by the famous Dutch physician and an acquaintance of Peter I Herman Boerhaave in the preface to the book. It may be that Vaillant and Jussieu guided their distinguished guest around the garden, showing him unusual plants. Physician Joseph Duverney organized anatomical exhibitions and one of his students performed an eye cataract surgery in the presence of the Tsar. Chemist Étienne Joseph Geoffroy demonstrated chemical experiments for Peter I in the local laboratory.
Learning about the practices used in the Botanical Garden was of immediate interest to Peter I as he could apply them in the Apothecary kitchen garden which was established in St. Petersburg around 1713.
The heyday of the Botanical Garden of Paris was the mid-18th century when it was managed by famous naturalist Buffon. The French National Museum of Natural History was founded here during the French Revolution, and the Jardin des Plantes still remains one of its departments.
There is reason to believe that Peter I visited the Garden of Apothecaries (Le Jardin des Apothicaires) which was not far away from the Botanical Garden, in the Rue de l’Arbalète. Founded in the 16th century, it was the first botanical garden in Paris and had a pharmaceutical school. Today, the National Agronomic Institute is located on this site.
