The Museum of Natural History

Parma University Museum of Natural History is the oldest one inside Parma University Museums System (SMA) and holds an important and varied collection of natural history specimens and archives.It is home to a lively programme of research, teaching and events focused on the sciences of the natural environment.

This small and important collection, dating back to the eighteenth century, can boast the most ancient origin among the Museum of Natural History collections. This is what remains of the largest collections of father Jean-Baptiste Fourcault, monk of the monastery Convento dei Minimi from 1719 up to 1775 and ornithologist at the court of the duke Filippo I Borbone in Parma. Fourcault gave rise to the valuable Cabinet of Ornithology in 1766. The collection treasures thirty-six specimens ( 35 birds and 1 mammal) prepared and sealed in glass flasks by Father Jean Baptiste Fourcault with extreme skill. Unfortunately the monk left no explanation about the technique used to introduce his fine animal specimens into flasks with narrow necks. Moreover the specimens of Forcault have absolutely natural and rather complicated poses to obtain and in some cases in the flask is also inserted more than one animal. A puzzle not yet solved after two centuries.

In 1814, after Napoleon’s abdication, the provisional government restored the University role and the Museum returned to its normal activity. It was the Duchess Maria Luigia who revived the museum thanks to her keen interest in Naturalia, so that the collections increased significantly through new acquisitions.

In 1859 the malacologist and naturalist Pellegrino Strobel was called to Parma where he assumed the position of professor and finally director of the Museum of Natural History. Strobel was among the first Italian zoologists to follow the theory of evolution. Besides, he was the initiator of Palethnology together with his pupil Luigi Pigorini. Starting from a very compromised situation of the collections, he managed to reconstitute the museum, leading it to hire again its important cultural role in a new science vision.

In the room next to the Bottego room, a small research collection of amateur naturalist Emilio Piola can be admired. It contains various zoo-ethnographic materials collected by captain Piola during his three years stay in Congo. His donation to the University of Parma, his native place, was made in 1907.The specimens displayed in this room are mostly of ethnologic interest: weapons, agricultural tools, stringed musical instruments, wood carvings. Of great interest are a wooden mask of the Boa tribe and a table carved with full-relief figures: the formal qualities are really remarkable in both finds. 

In 1923-25 Angelo Andres completed the Galleria della Sistematica by gathering and organizing evolutionarily the existing collections. A room of comparative anatomy was adjointed.It starts from the exposition of the primates and proceeds gradually towards the vertebrates of lesser complexity.The skeleton of a fossilized minke whale found in our region is displayed along the wall. At the bottom of the Galleria you can visit the “Sala degli scheletri” where various animal skeletons are mounted maintaining their natural poses. A narrow cupboard contains human skulls evidently belonged to Roman soldiers died in the first century AD in northern Italy.