Conceived in 1972 by University of Padua Professor Giovanni Giorgio Lorenzoni, to whose memory it is dedicated, and by Giovanni Zanardo, Inspector of the State Forestry Corps, the gardens were inaugurated in 1995, and are under “Veneto Agricoltura” management. Centrally-located on the Cansiglio Plateau, the garden occupies a two-hectare expanse of limestone at an altitude of some 1,000 metres above sea level that is divided up into multiple levels of beds, meadowland, pastures and wooded areas, offering a microcosm of the vast, orographically-complex border area of the Prealpi Carniche Cansiglio-Col Nudo-Cavallo mountainous massif. Showcasing a number of highly-diverse habitats, it is located between the Alpine and Dinaric-Balkan biogeographic regions, straddling the provinces of Belluno, Treviso and Pordenone. The area’s Alpine foothills, just beyond the Venetian plain, ensure abundant rainfall from humid oceanic currents, resulting in high levels of biodiversity and generally lush vegetation. The garden has collected close to a thousand species of plants exclusively from the uniquehabitat of centuries-old forest on the Cansiglio karst plateau, and from the Col Nudo-Cavallo mountain massif. Alpine environments, wetland vegetation, beech, spruce and fir woods, medicinal plants, arid environments and numerous threatened species are all on featured.