The herbarium of the marquise

Among the botanical collections of the Museum of the Science and Technology Foundation there is the "Paulucci Herbarium", a collection made up of 4153 ex-desiccated ascribable to 1492 taxa. It was the same Marquise who made it and donated it, in 1902, to the Tuscan Technical Institute Galileo Galilei in Florence. The herbarium is still entirely present today and is part of the naturalistic collections of the Science and Technology Foundation, in whose Museum the entire scientific heritage of the School, founded in 1850, is kept.

Marianna was born in 1835 in Reggello, in the province of Florence, to the noble and wealthy family Panciatichi Ximenes of Aragon.

A person with a witty and attentive mind observer of nature, the marquise became an extraordinary naturalist, who excelled above all in the field of malacology, but also in that of paleontology, ornithology and botany, creating important collections, publishing numerous scientific contributions and taking on a leading role in the cultural debate of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Today, in addition to its numerous publications, its remarkable naturalistic collections, including the herbarium, are witnesses of this extraordinary scientist.

1880 is the year that marks the beginning of Marianna's herbization activity. The first collections took place on an occasional and casual basis but, shortly thereafter, they became assiduous and conducted with scientific and taxonomic criteria, focusing mainly on the plant species present in its estates. In the same year, just in Sammezzano, an estate rich in conifers belonging to various taxa, the marquise measured the historic first sequoia introduced by her father

The peak of accessions corresponds to 1888, with collection of almost a third of the total number of specimens. The increase ended in 1898, when the last sample in Piedmont was taken, with which 4153 exsiccata ascribable to 1492 taxa were reached.

The herbarium, built over nearly twenty years, was divided into two large groups of plants, depending on their Tuscan origin (Plantae Thusciae) or more generally Italian (Plantae Italicae).

Most of the specimens belong to the first group and, in particular, to the areas relating to the various family estates.

Only 766 samples come from Sammezzano, equal to over 18% of the entire herbarium.

The flora of Novoli is also very represented, where, in correspondence with another of its estates, namely the aforementioned Villa of Torre degli Agli, the marquise collected 238 samples of about 200 species: a precious testimony on the relative floristic composition to a location now completely incorporated in the urban fabric of Florence.

If in the Plantae Thusciae series there is a collection mainly concentrated on the various family possessions, in the Plantae Italicae group are included essences found mainly in Piedmont and in the Val d'Aosta, in particular at climatic stations of the Alpine arc, where Marianna used to stay in summer vacation. Of the 4153 specimens, only 5% of the species come from foreign areas, including Nice, Menton, Russian locations and even New Zealand and the Caucasus.

The herbicization activity, mainly linked to places of usual frequency and therefore apparently carried out for amateur purposes, was supported by a solid scientific approach, which led the marquise to correctly determine the finds and to resort, when necessary, to botanical talents. The presence of names such as Sommier, Ajuti, Biondi or Martelli among the determiners, denotes the quality of the contacts that she built and maintained in this naturalistic discipline.

Collection data and systematic framing written in one's own hand with neat handwriting, tags pre-printed by the prestigious Pineider typography, technically well-made and aesthetically composed samples, contribute to enhancing the collection and allow to frame Marianna as one of the first female naturalist figures of the second half of the nineteenth century, which knew how to renew scientific culture with value, talent and elegance.