This festive event, full of fragrances, flavours, forms and styles, continues for three and a half days inside the historic and artistic areas of the Royal Gardens and illustrates some of the fundamental highpoints in an ancient production that has continued without interruption over the years.
The wonderful display of scents, soaps, candles, perfumes for the environment, essential oils, cosmetics, extracts from aromatic herbs, perfumed flowers and plants, papers, rare prints and books, accessories and complementary products manage to extract and provide pleasure and well being from the olfactory and sensorial universe.

It is therefore hardly surprising that a construction that was used as a Spezieria, or apothecary’s workshop, destroyed in the late 18th century, once stood in the Lower Botanical Gardens; the old perfumers and herbalists very probably treated the flowers from the gardens in this building, distilling scents and therapeutic balms from the corollas of the flowers and thus linking their aesthetical use with the more important ethical and scientific objective of serving the community.
The particular topical interest if this target is maintained in The Fragrances of Boboli event of today.

A garden within the Gardens: the Lower Botanical Gardens and the Greenhouse are exhibition areas that have been expressly allowed to keep their original structure without carrying out any major alterations that might change their atmosphere, thus preserving the spirit of the site and transmitting it to visitors.

The exhibitors taking part in this event, which is not simply a show and fair, but also a showcase onto the world, are chosen with extreme care. Selection is severe and also takes the historic and scenic characteristics of the environment into account; the final result however is well worth the limits and obstacles that are necessarily presented by a site like this.

The story of the Earth. Forms, pictures and stories of the natural planet, is the main collateral event and held in the exhibition space of the Zoology Section at the La Specola Natural Science Museum (Florence, Via Romana, 17), next door to the Boboli Gardens: the exhibition route, arranged by Danila Maneri and Elisa Nesi, authors of the recently published book Florilegio, includes drawings and stories narrated with pictures and enlargements of the more hidden and suggestive secrets of the natural heritage of our territory.
The exhibition opens on Thursday May 6th 2010 and closes on June 30th 2010.

The Fragrances of Boboli programme spreads over three and a half days (from the early afternoon of Thursday May 6th 2010 to Sunday May 9th 2010).

Opening hours: Thursday May 6th from 1.30pm to 8.30pm (with entry into the Boboli Gardens no later than 7.30pm), from 10am to 8.30pm (with entry into the Boboli Gardens no later than 7.30pm) on the days that follow.
Entry into the Boboli Gardens is free of charge for residents in the City and Borough of Florence (on presentation of an identity card).
Entry into the Boboli Gardens not only includes The Fragrances of Boboli event, but also a tour of the Boboli Gardens, entrance to the Silver Museum, the Porcelain Museum, the Costume Gallery in the Pitti Palace and to the Bardini Gardens.
Direct access to the garden of La Specola Natural Science Museum from the Boboli Gardens will also be possible on this occasion.