Salvatore Cantarella, descendant of the Sicilian botanist Salvatore Portal, is the owner of The Botanic Garden of Biancavilla.

After his founder's death the garden was left abandoned , but in a short time it will be restored in its old site, the rear area of Palazzo Portal, in the very historical centre of the town.
Its owner is doing any effort for its renewal by planting the old flora. Other experts are collaborating with him in this recovering and renewing process:

• Professor Mario Catalano is responsible for the agronomical aspect. He is the Responsible of the Botanic Garden of the University La Sapienza of Rome, (Largo Cristina di Svezia, 24 - Rome).
  
  
• Architect Enrico Auletta is responsible for the architectural and landscape aspects. He is a garden architect and a member of AIAPP, EFLA and IFLA (responsible for the Research Office Progetto Verde : Il Gazebo) via Leucosia, 165 - Salerno)00.

(AIAPP: Associazione Italiana di Architettura del Paesaggio - EFLA: European Foundation for Landscape Architecture - IFLA: International Federation Architecture).

The Botanic Garden will be a private institution until Salvatore Cantarella's death. However students and public in general can visit it. Afterwards it will be part of a foundation entitled to the former founder, the Canon Abbot Salvatore Portal.

Salvatore Cantarella presented a formal requests to the local authority to restore the old street names Via Orto Botanico and Cortile Botanico . He obtained it by means of Major Orders. In fact , in the Seventies, the town council changed the old town street-plan for an absurd and awkward political action. The names of the streets close to the Botanic Garden changed too.

The Abbot Salvatore Portal lived between the centuries VIII and XI and he was a very important scholar of Botany. In the following pages you can find his biography taken from Salvatore Cantarella's degree thesis.