Leipzig's botanical garden dates back to at least 1542, [1] although the garden has moved several times. They were created shortly after the university's reform in 1539, when Maurice, Elector of Saxony donated the Dominican monastery of St. Pauli. Its former monastery garden, on the north side of the Paulinerkirche, which was reworked as a hortus medicus by May 1543.
This first garden was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War and in 1648 the university acquired a new site (now Grimmaic Street) where in 1653 it created its second garden. In 1807 the garden was moved to the grounds of the Pleißemühlgraben, where greenhouses were constructed after 1840. By 1857 the garden was cultivated more than 10,000 species, of which 4,500 were grown in the greenhouses.
