Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università di Pisa

In 1814 the University of Pisa took an historical turn, renouncing to the encyclopaedical timeworn approach and choosing to officially divide in different branches a science grown way too big.

To professor Gaetano Savi was appointed to the Botanic sector while professor Giorgio Santi was appointed to Zoology, Geology and Paleontology: therefore, the two of them were respectively put in charge to the Garden of Simples (the present Botanic Garden) and to the Museum, which became an autonomous administrative center. With this division, it was definitively closed the path on which the two institutions have walked together for more than two centuries.

It starts this way one of the most eventful periods of the Museum’s history.

From 1823 to 1871, under the direction of Paolo Savi, the Museum enriched its collection of tens of thousands of specimens, enlarged the areas devoted to their exhibition and preservation and published many scientific texts.

Besides, thanks to the collaboration with Pacini and Studiati, in only five years professor Savi accomplished the taxidermization of more than 170 mammals and of 1274 birds, which is also nowadays a significant part of the historical collection of the present Museum, remarkable for the care and the elegance with which the stuffed animal have been realized.

From 1823 to 1840 Savi took both the Geology and Mineralology classes and the Zoology and Compared Anatomy ones. In 1842 he called the Neapolitan Leopoldo Pilla to hold the professorship of Geology, Mineralology and Paleontology; Pilla bought to Pisa a conspicuous collection of Vesuvius rocks and of minerals.

In 1849 Giuseppe Meneghini succeeded him, creating the first nucleus of the paleontological collections.

In 1875 Meneghini himself, while he kept teaching Geology and Physical Geography, called Antonio d’Achiardi for the professorship of Mineralology and Petrography. In 1881 also the collection were divided; Meneghini was acquainted with the direction of the Geology Museum, while D’Achiardi the Mineralology one. In 1889, the professorship and the direction of the Geology Museum were given to Mario Canavari.

Eventually, in 1871, with the death of Paolo Savi, the teaching of Zoology and compared Anatomy and the direction of the corresponding museum went to Sebastiano Richiardi who, besides putting together a rich fish and cetaceans collection, left an unforgettable trail thanks to his refined zootomic preparations and for the vassal injections, well-known for their beauty and accuracy.