Vai al contenuto / Skip to main content
University Library System
University Library System
ITA
Biblioteca storica di medicina e botanica Vincenzo Pinali e Giovanni Marsili

Biblioteca storica di medicina e botanica Vincenzo Pinali e Giovanni Marsili

Historical collections of botany and medicine and a modern section dedicated to botany, history of botany, history of gardens, history of medicine

History of Medicine; Scientific Illustration; Botany; History of Botany; Pharmaceutical Botany; Ethnobotany; Gardening; Historic Gardens

Biblioteca storica di medicina e botanica Vincenzo Pinali e Giovanni Marsili

Historical collections of botany and medicine and a modern section dedicated to botany, history of botany, history of gardens, history of medicine

History of Medicine; Scientific Illustration; Botany; History of Botany; Pharmaceutical Botany; Ethnobotany; Gardening; Historic Gardens

Contacts and hours

  • Via Orto Botanico, 15 - 35123 Padova
  • +39 049 8272134
  • biblio.pinalimarsili@unipd.it

The library is accessible by appointment. 
Call or email to arrange access.

Using the Library

Find materials

Edit16 - Edizioni italiane del XVI secolo

Edit16 - Edizioni italiane del XVI secolo

The National Census of 16th Century Italian Editions (EDIT16) aims to document the printed production of the 16th century. The database describes editions printed between 1501 and 1600 in Italy, in any language, and abroad in Italian.

Corpus medicorum graecorum latinorum

Corpus medicorum graecorum latinorum

Edition of the Greek and Latin Classics of Medicine edited by the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Collections and exhibitions

Virtual exhibition
Giovanni Marsili. The library of the Prefect of Padova's Botanical Garden
Giovanni Marsili. The library of the Prefect of Padova's Botanical Garden

The virtual exhibition, realised in parallel with a physical exhibition, explores the person of the Botanical Garden prefect and passionate bibliophile Giovanni Marsili, his times, the events of the collection and its dispersion, and the subjects of the volumes. The exhibits are fully digitised and virtually browsable.

Collection
Index Seminum
Index Seminum

The library maintains a historical collection of ‘Index Seminum’, seed catalogues of plants grown in a botanical garden. These catalogues are shared with other botanical gardens for information and to enable the exchange of seeds.

Collection
De Visiani Collection
De Visiani Collection

The collection includes numerous volumes that belonged to the prefect Roberto De Visiani's personal library: classics of botany and medicine, some in precious antique editions, but also titles that testify to his interest in fossils and palaeobotany. Alongside these, numerous manuscripts relating to his studies and publications are preserved.

Collection
Malacarne Collection
Malacarne Collection

The collection includes the books, some manuscripts, and documents of Vincenzo Malacarne (1744-1816) and his sons Gaetano Malacarne (1779-1832) and Claro Giuseppe Malacarne (1774-1828).

Digital collection
Botanists Portrait Collection
Botanists Portrait Collection

2,380 portraits of Italian and foreign botanists dating from the second half of the seventeenth century through to the first half of the twentieth. The collection is made up of photographs (salt prints, albumen prints, aristotypes, platinotypes and gelatin prints), glass negatives, engravings, watercolours, drawings, paintings and photomechanical prints.

Digital collection
Illustrated herbals
Illustrated herbals

A collection of manuscript texts illustrated with images of plants dating from the 15th to the 19th century. These volumes allow us to consider the development of botanical illustration from the most abstract or fantastic forms to the most realistic naturalism. Some also bear witness to the scientific journeys undertaken to herborize.

Digital collection
Bookplates and marks of ownership from the “V. Pinali” historical medical library
Bookplates and marks of ownership from the “V. Pinali” historical medical library

Archive of images relating to the material marks left over the centuries by various owners on the books that are now part of the library's holdings, which was established in 1875 with the funds donated to the University of Padua by the clinician Vincenzo Pinali: ex libris and super libris, stamps, handwritten dedication or possession notes, reading, purchase, and other distinguishing features.

Digital collection
Descriptions of the Botanical Garden in Padua over time
Descriptions of the Botanical Garden in Padua over time

A collection of descriptions, guides, reports, manuscripts, and images to get to know the Garden through the centuries. From the first planimetric description and list of cultivated plants from 1590 to reports on activities during the Great War, through historical guides to Padua, the Athenaeum, and the Garden itself, and through printed illustrations and period photographs.

Virtual exhibition
The botanical illustration
The botanical illustration

The exhibition paints a picture of different aspects of botanical illustration (history, evolution, techniques...) through some of the most beautiful books preserved in the Library, presented along different paths. Within the very rich heritage of the Library, it was decided to select the illustrated volumes that seemed most significant: books produced in different centuries (from the 15th to the 19th century), with different printing techniques of the images and created for different purposes.

Collection
Dried herbaria
Dried herbaria

Dried herbaria are collections of real plants subjected to a drying process and then glued with various methods (glue, tape, pins...) onto sheets that can then be bound together or left loose and collected in a folder. The library preserves twenty dried herbaria bound in the form of a codex (most of them from the 18th century) and a loose-leaf herbarium from the second half of the 18th century.

Collection
Fanzago Collection
Digital collection
Gallery of the Botanical Gardens
Gallery of the Botanical Gardens

Collection of photographs of the Botanical Garden of Padua from 1880 to 1992 and other Italian and foreign botanical gardens, gardens and sites.

Open Science

About us