Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa


The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa is an Italian natural history museum at Pisa. It is part of the University of Pisa and is now located in Pisa Charterhouse 10 km from the city of Pisa in the comune of Calci.
In 1596, Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany established the Museum of Natural History of the University of Pisa, transferring specimens from the Florentine palaces of the Medici, particularly from the Uffizi. This was expanded to serve the natural history faculties of the University of Pisa. Initially, the gallery was in the botanic gardens.
The oldest collections in the museum are Niccolò Gualtieri’s shells. was separated from the Natural History Museum and in 1827, Paolo Savi, assembled more than five thousand zoological specimens which are mostly extant.

Galleries

The museum contains the osteology collections of Sebastiano Richiardi.
The bird collection consists of 9,000 mounts and c. 1,000 skins, 275 skeletons, 1,100 eggs, 800 nests, and 450 anatomical specimens. The bird collection is specialised in Italy, especially the Pisa area and Toscana region generally (e.g. the Savi coll also the Americas, Central & South Africa, Middle East, SE Asia, Australia, with birds of virtually all families and includes extinct birds like Fregilupus varius and Pinguinus impennis.

Mollusc collections

The museum contains shells collected by:
The museum contains insects collected by:
The collection includes exceptional fossils from Italy for instance specimens from Monte Bolca.