THE TRANS-EUROPEAN EXHIBITION “PaCE – PLANTS AND CULTURE IN THE HISTORY OF EUROPE”

The project PaCE-Plants and Culture: seeds of the Cultural Heritage of Europe (Culture Programme 2007-2013, EACEA 09/2006) has promoted and still promotes the green cultural heritage common to Europe. PaCE project was proposed with the main idea of creating an interdisciplinary cooperation on the scientific and humanistic cultural heritage of Europe; this was performed by contacting institutions of several countries, involving research centres and museums, searching for a wide international work group and a common interest which went beyond geographical and chronological frontiers. The net of PaCE consisted of 30 teams belonging to 12 countries. The main successful action of this project was the performance of the trans-European PaCE Exhibition, translated in 11 languages and exhibited in 28 locations in different countries. From September 2008 to today, the exhibition has been set in 10 European countries (Norway, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Italy, San Marino, Spain) and approximately at least 320,000 persons have visited it. Since the beginning of 2009 the virtual exhibition is available on the web (http://www.plants-culture.unimore.it). Different botanical cultures, which are part of the history of European countries, are represented. The project has valorised the relationships between plants and people as cultural markers, and has improved the knowledge on the evolution and the history of the green cultural heritage.