The original Botanical Garden was conceived by King Fernando VI on the banks of the Manzanares River in 1755, but it was Carlos III who, two decades later, relocated it to its current location as part of the Prado Promenade project. The design was carried out by Juan de Villanueva, the same architect of the Cabinet of Sciences that now forms the Prado Museum, along with Sabatini and the botanist Casimiro Gómez Ortega. These enlightened individuals planned a space divided into terraces where they could plant species from all corners of the world, creating a splendid garden as well as other spaces such as a greenhouse, a seedbed, a herbarium, a library, and a Botany classroom. Today, it is an entity dependent on the CSIC that continues to fulfill its research mission, housing over 500 species and an important archive.