Natural History Museum (NHM), Perugia
Casalina’s Natural History Museum, one of the main natural history collections in the Umbria Region, houses a very interesting keynote collection belonging to Perugia University’s History of Science Museum. Focusing on “Objects of Biodiversity”, the exhibition has become the symbol of the regional communities and part of the collective consciousness as the items were acquired through local museums’ cultural activites. The historical memories of communities in the region are represented in these collections and conserved over time for the future. The outstanding ornithological collections of OrazioAntinori (1811-1882), Monseigneur GiulioCicioni (1844-1923) and Prof.GiampaoloMoretti (1910-1997) are particularly interesting and diversified.
Birdlife collections
The birdlife samples in Perugia University’s collections were obtained in Umbria towards the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s. Some species are no longer found in the region and, apart from Sardinia, are rarely sighted in Italy. These samples are testimonies to relentless impoverishment of regional eco-systems over time and bear witness to a lost bio-diversity. They are also, however, crucial signposts that indicate pathways to research, rescue and even recovery of the diversity of eco-systems in central Italy. The birdlife collection that OrazioAntinori donated to the Free University of Perugia in 1833 was enriched by further donations over the years and now includes over 8oo exemplars. Most belong to western paleo-Arctic wildlife and O. Anrinori himself collected many samples in Umbria and Lazio in the first half of the 19th century. Monseigneur GiulioCicioni’s collection includes 1,200 exemplars with many samples of birds, some of which are now extinct, that were collected in Umbria in the late 19th /early 20th centuries. In the collection is a raven (Corvuscorax) from Colfiorito (Foligno) that was obtained in 1904. GiampaoloMoretti’s birdlife collection dating from the early 1960s includes over 100 examples of birds that were found in the Lake Trasimeno basin.
