Museums and Collections of Pisa University an Archive of Arts And
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16 Bedini-Garbari 12-05-2005 16:12 Pagina 195 Atti Soc. tosc. Sci. nat., Mem., Serie B, 110 (2003) pagg. 195-199 G. BEDINI (*), F. GARBARI (*), A. TOSI (**) MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS OF PISA UNIVERSITY: AN ARCHIVE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Abstract - After about twenty years of analytical investiga- Christine of Sweden in 1658 (Garbari & Tosi, 2002; tions, co-ordinated by a special Commission, updated infor- Milone, 1993) – unique in the world; like, also, the mation on origin, history and role of museums and collec- churches, monasteries and palaces, that were the jeal- tions of Pisa University was produced. Drawing from this ous custodians of a less visible, but equally precious body of data, a synthesis is here offered about both the inter- patrimony of art works, handiworks, clothes and fab- esting and complex development of the Institutions, and the illustrious men of arts and sciences who devoted their life to rics, codices, books, naturalistic findings. academic purposes from Renaissance to present days. Because, once left the «miracolous square» with the Starting from the first Botanic Garden in the world in 1543, a Cathedral, the Baptistere, and the Leaning Tower, the brief account is given for each of the 11 units that today con- street dedicated to St. Mary marked the beginning of serve, under rigorous curatorial standards, the milestones of an itinerary that could impress even the most exacting teaching and research, in both artistic and scientific fields, traveller. The English Robert Dallington, during his laid by the Athenaeum in four and a half centuries of history. travel in Italy in 1596 (Dallington, 1605), noted – above all – the curiosities conserved in the «Gallery» of the Key words - Museums, collections, University of Pisa, his- Garden of Simples: statues, paintings, medals, miner- tory. als, even a coral branch «born on a human skull» (a bizarre artefact still conserved in the Natural History Riassunto - Musei e collezioni dell’Università di Pisa: un archivio di arte e scienza. Dopo un ventennio di studi Museum located in the complex of the famous approfonditi, coordinati da una apposita Commissione, sono Chartreuse of Calci, near Pisa). Likewise, young grand disponibili notizie aggiornate sulla origine, la storia e il ruo- duke Peter Leopold, who visited Pisa in May 1766, lo dei Musei e delle collezioni dell’Università di Pisa. Sulla admired the Specola, with its collection of instruments base di questi recenti dati, gli autori presentano una sintetica of experimental physics, and the Garden of Simples, ricostruzione dell’interessante e complesso sviluppo di que- with its rich Museum of Natural History (Luchetti, ste istituzioni e un profilo degli illustri scienziati e artisti che s.d.; Burresi, 1999). hanno dedicato la loro vita alle attività accademiche, dal In the history of Pisan collections, originating from Rinascimento ad oggi. Cominciando dal primo Orto Botanico ancient vocation, the University plays a central role. del mondo (1543), si illustra brevemente ciascuna delle undi- ci unità che oggi custodiscono, secondo rigorosi criteri di Probably, in the first centuries of life of the Pisan conservazione e di cura, le pietre miliari dell’insegnamento e Athenaeum, there was no attempt to create museum della ricerca, di ambito sia artistico sia scientifico, poste collections: from 1343, when the Studium was found- dall’Ateneo in quattro secoli e mezzo di storia. ed, to 1543, when it was finally reopened (Tangheroni, 2000; Del Gratta, 2000), no trace is left of collections Parole chiave - Musei, collezioni, Università di Pisa, storia. of items aimed at documenting any research or didac- tic activity. «Holy relics, rare masterpieces, and marbles, and All disciplines, speculative in character and taught stones of admirable rarity, size and craftsmanship, can according to the scholastic system, never involved any here be found as in no other Italian city». direct contact with natural objects or handiworks to So Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1581 (De Montaigne, display. Hence a knowledge exclusively theoric, pre- 1774), during the Pisan stop of his Voyage en Italie. venting any attempt to check the real identity of plants, While attesting the city’s dimension of century-old animals, minerals, fossils, artificialia and their possi- repository of artistic and antiques memories, the ble uses. learned Frenchmen acknowledged Pisa’s museal voca- It is in the modern age that the awareness to be able to tion and identity, already granted by History itself. order knowledge develops. When Cosimo I reopens Pisa as an open museum, therefore, with truly signifi- the Studium, he is faced with the need to satisfy the cant emblems, such as the candid monuments where didactic requirements posed by the naturalist charged art works of diverse cultures united in what was in fact with not only the lecture of simples but also their osten- a great collection of styles, languages, memories; like sio, which from a practical standpoint implied the avail- the Cemetery, where «holy relics», frescoes, «marbles, ability of a lot of ground for growing the pharmaceuti- and stones» formed an extraordinary and fascinating cal plants to show to students. In this requirement is gallery, a «nobile Musaeum» – as will be defined by rooted the birth of the first Botanic Garden in history, (*) Dipartimento di Scienze Botaniche, via Luca Ghini 5, I-56126 Pisa, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] (**) Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti, piazza S. Matteo in Soarta 2, I-56127 Pisa, Italy. 16 Bedini-Garbari 12-05-2005 16:12 Pagina 196 196 G. BEDINI, F. GARBARI, A. TOSI founded by Luca Ghini in 1544, when he came to Pisa, 1995), still conserved in the historic-didactic section of upon invitation by Cosimo I (Garbari & Tongiorgi the Pisan Garden. Tomasi, 2002). In a letter sent to the grand duke’s but- Annexed to the Garden of Simples was an assemblage ler, Ghini discloses that the Garden’s purpose is «to be of naturalistic items, exotic objects, paintings, books useful to students» (Chiarugi, 1953), i.e. to serve as a and all kinds of curiosities. It was the grand duke’s didactic aid for University students of medicine, who order that many objects of the Florentine collections be had to learn to recognize the plants – the simples – transferred to the Gallery for the sake of study. whence curative substances were extracted. For this Gathering and collecting naturalia, especially miner- reason, collections were oriented to medicinal plants, als, was a daily practice of the prefects in the first confirming the close links between botany and medi- decades of the Garden: the overwhelming amount of cine, already strengthened in the medieval tradition of naturalistic items versus the curious or exotic objects monastery gardens (Garbari, 1993), which is likely to clearly emerges in the Gallery inventory compiled in have influenced Ghini’s vision, particularly since the 1626 by prefect Matteo Pandolfini, shortly after his original Garden’s site was the claustral garden of St. appointment at the Garden’s head (Tongiorgi Tomasi, Vito monastery, close to the Arno river, in the west side 2002). of the town (Garbari & Tongiorgi Tomasi, 2002). After a period of crisis and impoverishment, the histo- The birth of the Garden is of primary importance also ry of University collections enters into an important for the development of botany that, from a subsidiary and significant age, following the advent of the discipline to medical sciences, gradually acquires its Lorraines, as successors to the Medici dynasty, who own identity. Andrea Cesalpino, Ghini’s disciple and stimulated the sudden onset of a cultural milieu of Garden Director from 1554 to 1558 and from 1563 to extraordinary vivacity. The development of the Studium 1583, moves the first step in this direction, as for the in compliance with modern didactic and experimental first time in his work De Plantis, published in 1583 at requirements is then matched by a marked interest Florence, the plants are classified based not on their towards the young scientific disciplines and, conse- pharmacological properties, but on the morphological quently, towards the creation of collections increasing- characters of flowers and fruits, thus laying the foun- ly linked to new research visions. dation of modern systematic botany. The purchase of Niccolò Gualtieri’s malacological col- It is not by chance that the differentiation of didactic lection, in 1741, promoted by Superintendent Gaspare collections corresponded to the transfer of the Garden Cerati, and the birth of the Natural History Museum in to another site, near the street presently dedicated to St. replacement of the old Gallery in the Garden of Martha (Fischer, 1998). Simples, as well as the establishment of the chair of Such a decentralized location, though, will prove inad- experimental physics and the first teachings of equate in consideration of the strong interest that the Chemistry, are important signs of a new organization Botanic Garden aroused also outside the academic of scientific knowledge (Tosi, 2002a). community, calling for a more central location, near The growing prestige of the Garden, which the the heart of the city’s cultural life. Linnaean systematic criteria begin to pervade, is In 1591 the Grand duke Ferdinand I decreed a further accompanied by the fast development of museum col- move near St. Mary Street, where the Garden still lections of natural history, marked by significant pur- stands today. The new position was shown to fulfil all chases