In Parma, Italy, in the splendid Palazzo del Governatore, the unique exhibition Impronte. Noi e le piante (Imprints: us and the plants) traces in more than 200 figurative objects (historical herbals, botanical illustrations, nature prints and xylographs, as well as modern photographs and high-tech images) the relationship between humanity and nature, botany and images, science and art.

Realized by the University of Parma in collaboration with the Municipality of Parma and the support of the Cariparma Foundation, the Chiesi Group and the Davines Group, Impronte unravels in its 10 sections the thread of natural memory that man has always tried to grasp and fix, from map of the herbariums to today’s satellite images of tree censuses, passing through illustrations, notebooks, models and even magnetic resonance imaging and X-ray views. At the center, an ideal and concrete connection between the eras, the audiovisual installation Artificial Botany, curated by fuse *, explores the suggestions and expressive capabilities of classic botanical illustrations through the use of modern machine learning algorithms.

The exhibition, which can be visited free of charge until 1 April 2024, from Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 7pm, including holidays, also includes guided tours, educational workshops reserved for young explorers accompanied by their teachers and a competition for young illustrators, thus intensifying the dialogue ever interrupted between Parma and its University. A relationship that is even deeper today thanks to the start of the renovation works on the Botanical Garden, the subject of a significant recovery aimed at making it one of the city and national hubs on which scientific communication, education and shared research can be based, especially on the themes of plant culture in all its humanistic and scientific declinations. In the recovery project, the University is supported by local institutions and private entities: Ministry of University and Research, Ministry of Culture, Cariparma Foundation, Chiesi Group and “Parma, I’m here!”

Many works on display bring to light the relationships between botanical imagery and the city, from the herbariums of illustrious figures determined to give the right value to botanical knowledge (such as Luigi Gardoni, whose homonymous pharmaceutical herbarium was brought to light only in 2014 after a silent stay in the cupboards of the Botanical Garden lasting more than a century), to the “royal donation” of wax mushroom models purchased by Maria Luigia of Austria for the Botanical Garden, passing through stories, news and curiosities contained in the equally large digital universe composed of QR-codes and videos.
The origin of the materials is rich and varied, which in addition to local providers involved foreign institutions (Real Jardin Botanico of Madrid) and first-rate ones in Italy (Botanical Gardens of Padua, Bologna, Pavia, Italian Central Herbarium of Florence, among others ). At the center of the exhibition itinerary, however, is the scientific depiction of plants and its transformation of style, perception and objectives: a journey that uses the lever of beauty to show how much our way of looking at plants has changed over the centuries. and, with it, our opinion of them.