Alessandro Galilei's project for a greenhouse

Abstract

A greenhouse project is one of a number of elaborate proposals developed by the Florentine architect Alessandro Galilei during his stay in England. It appeared in the work New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, Both Philosophical and Practical, by Richard Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, published in London in 1717. This scientific work, of which seven editions and a French translation (1756) are known to have been published, greatly promoted an interest in the theory of plant-growing, sap-flow, fertilization and the conservation of plants in hot-houses and cold frames and would, in its final edition (figure 1), also offer precise information on lesser-known specieswhich had been brought from the plantations in America. Concerning the conservation of these rare plants, Bradley (following a conversation with Galilei) described him as ‘a most skilful Architect’ for the design of a particular type of greenhouse ‘as might be agreeable to the Rules of Architecture, and at the same time be rightly adapted to the welfare of foreign plants’.¹ The structure which was clearly illustrated by a plan (figure 2), a facade (figure 3) and a cross-section (figure 4), measured 32 metres in length and 11 metres in height, including the lantern, and was conceived as a vast, open, central space surmounted by a cupola, with flues to control the climate. These were flanked on either side by instruments and storage space for tools and positioned at the extremities in such a way that cold air was prevented from reaching the plants in the central part of the building.