A New Spirit, Again: Sandro Pignatti, the European Vegetation Survey and the Future of Vegetation Science

Abstract

This Special Issue of Annali di Botanica originates from a meeting held on 21 October 2025 at the Botanical Garden
of Sapienza University of Rome, where friends, colleagues and pupils gathered under the auspices of the European
Vegetation Survey Working Group of the International Association for Vegetation Science to celebrate the scientific
and human legacy of Sandro Pignatti (Attorre et al., 2025). The place was not accidental. The Orto Botanico of Rome
was one of the intellectual homes of Sandro’s mature work and, more specifically, the place where, in March 1992, he
convened the first workshop of what was to become the European Vegetation Survey (Rodwell et al. 1995). Nor is
the journal accidental. Since those first meetings, Annali di Botanica offered a hospitable forum for the proceedings of
the EVS, at a time when European vegetation science was still seeking a common language, common standards and,
perhaps above all, a common horizon.