The following is my translation of an article called: Botanische Gärten von Paul Dehn. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1914, Heft 9, Seiten 399-400.
The author mentions the Peneltische garden of Naples. While this was apparently famed in the 1500s, I've been unable to track the place down more closely. Still, that's the spelling in the article.
I'm not aware of any previous translation.
Trevor Dykes.

Botanical Gardens by Paul Dehn

The first botanical garden was established by Matthäus Sylvaticus at the start of the 14th century in Salerno and, during the 16th century, such gardens also arose in Ferrara, Padua (around 1533), Pisa (1544), Bologna (1568); the botanical gardens of Florence and the (Peneltische) in Naples were already famous by then. The oldest botanical garden in France was planted by Belleval at Montpellier towards the end of the 16th century. In the Netherlands another was established at Leyden in 1577 and, during the 17th century, the royal English garden was founded by Queen Elisabeth at Kew. In Germany this example was followed by the responsible authorities in Leipzig (1580), Breslau (1597), Heidelberg (1597), Gießen (1610), Jena (1629), Kiel (1669), Helmstedt (1683) and other university cities.

The oldest botanical garden in Berlin was originally (1650) the hop garden of the Kurfürst brewery. The great Kurfürst (Additional note: A Kurfürst is a very big cheese among the dairy products of German nobility) altered it into a fruit and kitchen garden, and enriched it with plants from Holland. Friedrich I ordered greenhouses and orangeries to be laid out to make a pleasure garden. Friedrich Wilhelm I presented the garden to the Society of the Sciences (Sozietät der Wissenschaften), and instructed that medically significant plants should be grown for the pharmacy. And so it became a pharmaceutical garden and then, in 1801, it was reformed into a botanical garden in the present sense.

As well as botanical gardens of dukes and universities, others were created by private people; the most famous in the 16th century was that of J Camerarius in Nuremberg. There were already many botanophiles by 1600, and some towns maintained a hortus medicus for the town doctor.

At the start, botanical gardens only contained native plants. Soon, more from southern Europe were added, the Levant, western Asia and America. Greenhouses for plants from warmer lands were first built in Leyden in 1600, and in Altdorf in 1650. The introduction of North American trees began in around 1700. Already, in 1670, Tradescant, the court gardener of Charles I, had brought in the western platanus from Virginia. But soon, there was competition among the gardens of Sherard in Eltham, the Royal Garden of Hampton Court and the Chelsea Garden of Ph. Miller, the 'most famous gardener of his century', when it came to cultivating North American trees and shrubs. Various oaks, firs, sycamores, poplars, birches, elms, cornel cherries, snowballs, larches and beeches has long stood in gardens in England before they found their way onto the mainland. In Germany, three great landowners in particular acquired these novelties: the garden of Schröbben near Hamlin (near Münchhausen), the scientifically more significant one of Vellheim's in Harbke near Braunschweig, and the plantation on Weißenstein near Kassal, the present Wilhelmshöhe. The trees soon spread from these to other German gardens; Göttingen, Halle, Weimar and so on.

In around 1760, Josef II arranged for large consignments of tropical plants from the West Indies to arrive at Schönbrunn. By 1800, many gardens already cultivated more than 10% of their plants in warmhouses. Orchids, tree ferns, nepenthes, cycads and, above all, palms found their entry into Europe. Among the first palmhouses in Germany, Herrenhausen was well known, but at the fore stood the Berlin Gardens of Decker, Borsig and the Potsdam one of Augustin.

Presently, there are about 50 botanic gardens in Germany. As well as 21 universities, 5 agricultural academies (Weihenstephan, Hohenhelm, Jena, Braunschweig, Papelsdorf) and 11 agricultural university institutes have their own botanical parks. The facilities at our 75 agricultural experimental centres cannot be regarded as botanical gardens. In contrast, a whole group of larger cities have their gardens: Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Bremen, Elberfeld, Frankfurt am Main and so on, and there are also forestry academies (Eberswalde, Hanoverian, Münden, Aschaffenburg). Not included are the small gardens serving only restricted parts of the plant kingdom, eg. the Alpine Gardens near Tegersee and Partenkirchen, those on the Brocken in Harz, on the Alsatian Belchen in the Vogesesn, the National Arbortorium in Zöschen near Herseburg or the rosarium at Sangerhausen. One of the largest is also old, the Imperial Garden of Petersburg; in 1891, it contained no fewer than 26,700 plant species. Kew, in contrast, had only 20,000 and Berlin 19,000. Of non-European botanical gardens the most remarkable are: in Asia, the gardens of Calcutta, Madras, Peraceniya in Ceylon, Buitenzorg on Java, Canton; in Africa, the gardens on the Cape, on Maritius and Tererife; in the New World, those at Kingston on Jamaica, the French one at Cayenne, the gardens of New York, Philadelphia, Cambridge, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico, finally in Australia those at Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

In a ceremonial script in honour of the 350th anniversary of the Erfurt Gymnasium: Botanische Gärten früher und jetzt ('Botanical gardens earlier and today'), Professor Biereye presents, in grandiose style, a summary of the development, arrangement and objectives of botanical gardens. The following is taken from his short and fruitful presentation.

With the efforts in the 17th century to collect all known plants in the botanical gardens, it soon became apparent, that the number of plants which became known from further research was climbing immeasurably. Fedde's collected works already included 8 volumes with about 5,000 new species in each. Should there prevail such a mass of material, then how should a botanical garden be able to house all living species? Therefore, it cannot be the duty of botanical gardens to collect all plants and bring them into a single system, as this challenge can be better approached by herbariums. Rather, it should attempt, as Hildebrand (Freiburg) states, to select an elite of scientifically and technically important plants in good cultural conditions, and with correct labelling.

Regardless of whether scientific or educational purposes play the leading role for a botanical garden, the increasing artistic sensibilities of our age have found entrance into such parks. No longer enough are dull, straight pathways cutting through the landscape, but rather beautiful curving paths, groups of trees and shrubs, and flower beds planted in accordance with the rules of landscape gardening bring pleasure to the eye. Should the area be hilly, than each advantage will be recognised so as to allow a variable view across the whole with quiet corners, soft leaves, grottoes and idyllic silent spots. The Berlin garden is a blueprint of this. From the terraces of the Fichteberg one sees across the entire geographic departmentalisation, and this plan has enabled Berlin to rise to the fore among all modern gardens. From Japan in the southwest across to the stone blocks piled up for the Himalayas, over the Caucuses, Alpine mountains, Alpine forelands, the eye carries on to the German mixed forest in the northwest, while the buildings of the western Berlin suburbs and the dark Grunewald frame the picture.

Landscape gardeners and technicians work together when laying out botanical gardens, and some worthwhile results come from this interaction. Where is has been attempted to interest members of the military and commercial ship transportation in the equipping of botanical gardens, as in harbour cities, and to encourage their involvement, then one can certainly achieve much success. When Austro-Hungarian warships return from distant journeys to polar regions, they come back with rare plants and decorations for the beautiful park areas that frame the memorial of their hero, Tegetthoff.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive
kosmostranslations.htm

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.