The "Giovanni Gussone" Municipal Park is located on Via Pianello, near the Villamaina town centre in Irpinia.
The recently established green area is dedicated to the memory of Giovanni Gussone (1787-1866), a botanist from Villamaina and professor at the "Federico II" University of Naples. His influence in the scientific field was particularly important in the last years of the monarchy in Naples, to the point that he was appointed court botanist by King Francis I.
Gussone himself was responsible for the foundation of the Boccadifalco experimental and acclimatisation garden in Palermo, and some plants even get their scientific names from him, including the Leopoldia gussonei, more commonly known in Italian as "giacinto dal pennacchio di Gussone" (Gussone's plume hyacinth), a plant found only in Sicily, in some areas of Gela and Vittoria, to be precise. In addition, Giovanni Gussone identified a woody plant belonging to the Fabaceae family in the Mefite area, a broom that Michele Tenore, his teacher, referred to with the specific term of Genista Anxantica Ten.
Today, the municipal park includes a football and basketball pitch, a bowling green, rides for children, a small outdoor amphitheatre, and, finally, tree-lined avenues with mainly medium and large-trunked olive trees.
As a result of his intense professional activity and close link with his homeland, the Villamaina community decided to pay tribute to this illustrious figure in the scientific field and, even today, the memory of Giovanni Gussone is handed down through the preservation of one of the most interesting green spaces in the Villamaina area.
To complete
Parco Comunale Giovanni Gussone
Via Pianello, 83050, Villamaina AV, Italia
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