The donation, received in the early 1900s from the Fanzago family, includes the books of Francesco Luigi Fanzago (1764-1836), pathologist, forensic doctor and founder of the Pathology Cabinet, known for his studies on pellagra and cowpox graft. Fanzago was Rector of the University from 1823 to 24 and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1828 to 1835, held various public offices in the health field, and was a member of numerous academies.

The volumes were stamped ‘Biblioteca Fanzago’ and given the Fanzago shelfmark section. The catalogue drawn up in the early 20th century was lost due to subsequent wartime events. With the reorganization of the collections in the 1950s/60s, the oldest volumes were removed from the Fanzago collation section and placed in the Ducceschi room of the former ‘Pinali Antica’ library to ensure better preservation; other volumes were, for reasons of space, moved to a storage room in the same building.

Some rare and valuable specimens including a coloured incunabulum of the Fasciculus medicinae of 1494 by Ketham and a rare copy of the Musculorum humani corporis picturata dissectio (c. 1541) by Giovanni Battista Canani are now kept at the Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova. [Cf. G. Ongaro, Il Fasciculo de medicina (1494) in: Padua and its territory, no. 95 (February 2002)]

The collection includes numerous rare and valuable works from the end of the 14th century to the 19th century. Among these is the illustrated parchment manuscript Libro o Trattato dei cauteri (late 14th-early 15th century)