An ancient tradition that comes back to life.
he gardens of the Priory of San Pietro in Cavallermaggiore are gathered around the Romanesque church of San Pietro, the oldest monument in the city. Built in the 10th century outside the medieval walls, the church was part of a dense network of monastic foundations, which during the Middle Ages were a significant center of cultural, economic, social and religious aggregation.
The green area includes the Giardino Tintorio and the Giardino dei Semplici. The latter is grown with utilitarian plant varieties, both for food use and for their medicinal virtues.
Il Giardino Tintorio was born instead as an open-air laboratory to celebrate local traditions: the territory of Cavallermaggiore was in fact distinguished by the cultivation of mulberry plants for bachiculture and the green space offers horticultural, ornamental and medicinal plants divided according to color of the dye. The aim is to make known to the general public, through educational activities, the use of the plants grown in the Tintorio Garden.
The project makes use of the botanical consultancy of the Department of Agricultural, Forestry and Food Sciences of the University of Turin, which has oriented the selection of botanical species towards dyeing plants, with the aim of developing an educational and cultural project focused on use of natural colors.
The plants have in fact been identified on the basis of their vegetative development, bearing, the chromatic change of the foliar apparatus and the seasonal cycle.
