Culturally enhancing the local community, the new Nature and Humankind Museum is the main enduring legacy bestowed upon the city of Padua following the anniversary celebrations.
The inauguration of the University of Padua’s Nature and Humankind Museum will take place on Friday 23 June 2023 in the recently restored Palazzo Cavalli in Padua. The inauguration day will precede the opening to the public expected on Saturday 24 June.
The Nature and Humankind Museum will be the largest university museum in Europe: an exhibition area of approximately 4.000 sq.m. with captivating display solutions and wide selections of our collections of original finds, more than 200.000, of Mineralogy, Geology and Paleontology, Zoology and Anthropology.
The scientific concept of the museum (also presented to the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism in October 2017) aims at a national and international audience and envisages the unification of precious finds from different collections. The clear and exciting narration of our planet’s history carved in stone with literal fossils allows visitors to view examples of animal adaptation. The museum preserves a thousand years of human artefacts up to this present phase where only the Homo sapiens species is capable of altering every ecosystem.
The museum leads visitors on a unique and exciting experience with an interdisciplinary, interactive, and multimedia scientific interface, showing how Earth is a great system of physical, chemical, and biological elements, which man is naturally part of.
Comparable to that of other major Italian science museums and spread over three floors, the Museum of Nature and Humankind includes a large exhibition area of almost 4,000 square meters for permanent and temporary exhibitions. Entrusted to the architectural studio Guicciardini and Magni, the museum includes the development of innovative solutions for digital exhibits as a compliment to the implementation of a dedicated Museum of Nature and Man app.
Dedicated to temporary exhibitions, the second floor covers up to 400 square metres of space, corrisponding to the average dymensions of scientific exhibitions. The area will allow the University museum system to enhance its heritage by housing an autonomous space for temporary exhibitions to be changed once or twice per year according to costs.
The opportunity to curate and host important international scientific exhibitions allows the Museum of Nature and Man to enter the international networks of the more successful exhibitions.
The auditorium, located on the ground floor and the garden area are set to host a rich program of events. Conferences, video screenings, and meetings aimed at holding the media’s attention to the museum and encouraging an influx of visitors.
The museum is centrally located between the railway station, city centre, and Scrovegni Chapel, the main touristic attraction of the City now enlisted as UNESCO world heritage, and the Eremitani Museum.
The museum is at the centre of a specific fundraising campaign, started in 2021, which already gained the support of the Cariparo Foundation and Camera di Commercio di Padova.
