La prima notizia della presenza di un Erbario universitario si ha agli inizi dell’800 sotto la prefettura del medico e bibliotecario Bonato (1753-1836) che nel 1835, ormai anziano e prossimo alla pensione, decide di donare all’Ateneo la sua collezione di piante essiccate. Già pochi anni dopo, e più precisamente in uno scritto del 1842, de Visiani, che lo sostituirà come Prefetto dell’Orto botanico, annota:”…trattasi di circa quattordici mila piante nostrali ed esotiche, coltivate e spontanee, il quale si va accrescendo continuamente…”. E infatti per tutto l’800, e fino agli anni cinquanta del 900, grazie all’interesse dei vari...

Botanical Museum – Herbarium

The museum includes the Herbarium and a series of collections of fruits, seeds, models, teaching boards, different types of wood, mushrooms, lichens, and all that is connected to the plant kingdom. The top part is the Herbarium, founded in 1835 when the Prefect of the Botanical Garden, Joseph Anthony Bonato, having to retire, gave all his collections to the Athenaeum. This initial core of dried plants has been joined by thousands of specimens worldwide thanks to donations and purchases. The most scientific and historically important collections are Achille Forti’s seaweed collection, Pier Andrew Saccardo’s mycology collection, Robert de Visiani’s Dalmatian flora, Alexander Trotter’s Cecidoteca, Alexander Marcello’s phenological Herbarium and the painter Philip de Pisis’ Herbarium. The oldest dried plants date back to the end of the eighteenth century, but collections continue, at least partially, so we may have information about the current environment.