Founded by Maria Luisa di Borbone, the Botanical Gardens underwent difficult times during World War I until the end of the 1950s when the city administration began renovation work. In 1974, the Gardens resumed their original functions. They house several thousand species of Mediterranean vegetation.

The Cesare Bicchi Botanical Museum is part of the Botanical Gardens annex; however, it is not currently open to the public. 

The museum houses historic herbariums by Puccinelli, Bicchi and others.Scholars working in the Botanical Gardens continue to study the museum’s contents. 

Among the most important collections are the officinal species, Ericaceae, aquatic plants, nutritional plants and camellias. 

Among the most interesting herbariums conserved in the museum are the ones by Benedetto Puccinelli, the gardens’ second prefect in the late 1800s, which highlights the local Lucca flora; and Cesare Bicchi’s herbarium, which contains more than 10,000 types of dried vegetation.