The Museum of Adriatic Zoology “Giuseppe Olivi”

The Museum of Adriatic Zoology “Giuseppe Olivi” is a university museum open to the public, housed in the rooms of the second and third floors of Palazzo Grassi, the eighteenth-century residence of the Grassi family in Chioggia, in the province of Venice. The museum exhibits the historical zoological collection of Trieste and Rovinj, acquired by the University of Padua in 1968 by Professor Umberto D'Ancona. Marine animals are stored in liquid and were collected exclusively in the Adriatic between the second half of the nineteenth century and 1943. The museum presents marine organisms and environments, telling their biology, ecology and fishing traditions.

The more than 300 pieces exhibited in the Museum come from the collection preserved for over 40 years at the hydrobiological station “Umberto D'Ancona” in Chioggia. The original nucleus of the collection was collected in the second half of the nineteenth century in Trieste, through the work of the Zoological Station of St. Andrew. moved to the Italo-Germanic Station of Rovinj. In 1943 another location was changed: the collection, threatened by the ongoing war, was transferred to Venice. In the 1950s Umberto D'Ancona, professor at the University of Padua, worked to ensure that the collection was transferred to Chioggia, something that happened in 1968. With the arrival in the spaces of the Hydrobiological Station, the gradual reorganization of the material of the collection began: the change of conservation liquids, the definitive counting and the cataloguing of the which has come to our days.
What will you see?
Shark Hall: It houses a specimen of elephant shark or cetorino, an 8-metre female caught by mistake in 2003 off the coasts of chioggiotte. It owes its name to the naturalist Chioggiotto Giuseppe Olivi, who lived in the eighteenth century, author of the first Adriatic Zoology. The room introduces the world of the sea and its inhabitants, illustrating the different marine environments, their peculiar characteristics and the factors that threaten their biodiversity and balance.
Hall of the Collection: In the third floor lounge there are more than 300 original preparations from the historical collection of Trieste and Rovinj, displayed in six circular windows illustrating the variety of species and organisms that inhabit the Adriatic Sea. On the walls there are exhibition panels on the history of the collection, the major naturalists Chioggiotti, the life in the marine environment and the work of the hydrobiological station of Chioggia, named after Umberto D'Ancona. The didactic apparatus is enriched by monitors that transmit explanatory images on the morphological characteristics and life habits of the specimens exposed in the hall.
Sensi Room: Multimedia installations and interactive panels illustrate the senses that marine organisms have, including electroreception, or the ability to perceive electric fields, typical of sharks, and the lateral line, which makes possible the complex synchrony of fish banks; to these are added the more “classical” senses, common also to humans, more or less developed.
Hall of the trophic network: it has as its topic the food relations that are created in the sea between animal and plant organisms, trying in this way to understand the complex mechanisms that regulate the ecosystem marine. Some interactive workstations allow insights into the teeth and the different ways used to procure nourishment.
Video room: illustrates several aspects related to the local marine environment: the tradition of fishing and its importance in the history and present of the city; the recent engineering interventions made by the MOSE project and some hypotheses on the possible environmental changes that will result; the environment of the Tegnùe (submerged rock formations); the past and the folklore of Chioggia, through the memory of its protagonists.