Museum of Adriatic Zoology ‘Giuseppe Olivi

The ‘Giuseppe Olivi’ Museum of Adriatic Zoology is a university museum open to the public, located in Palazzo Grassi on the Fondamenta del Canal Vena in Chioggia. The rooms display the historical zoological collection of Trieste and Rovinj, acquired by the University of Padua in 1968 by Professor Umberto D'Ancona. The marine organisms are preserved in liquid and were only collected in the Adriatic between the second half of the 19th century and 1943.

The museum presents marine organisms and habitats, narrating biology, ecology and fishing traditions. The over 300 exhibits come from the collection kept for over 40 years at the Hydrobiological Station ‘Umberto D'Ancona’ in Chioggia.

The exhibition is distributed over the second and third floors of the building. The second floor houses a specimen of basking shark or cetorino, an 8-metre female caught by mistake in 2003 off the coast of Chioggia. It was named after the eighteenth-century naturalist from Chioggia, Giuseppe Olivi, author of the first Adriatic Zoology. The room introduces the world of the sea and its inhabitants, illustrating the different marine environments, their characteristics and the factors threatening their biodiversity and balance.

On the third floor is the main collection, where over 300 original preparations from the historical collection of Trieste and Rovinj are on display in six circular showcases, illustrating the variety of species and organisms that inhabit the Adriatic Sea. On the walls are display panels on the history of the collection, the greatest naturalists from Chioggia, life in marine environments, and the work of the Hydrobiological Station in Chioggia, named after Umberto D'Ancona.

The didactic apparatus is enriched by monitors showing explanatory images on the morphological characteristics and life habits of the specimens on display in the room, and other rooms illustrating the senses that marine organisms possess, the feeding relationships that are created in the sea between animals and plants, and the video room showing various aspects of the local marine environment.