Omboni bought and then donated to the University of Padua De Zigno’s palaeontological collections and his personal library.
The original core of the Geosciences Library was significantly enriched by the to Omboni’s donation.
In Omboni’s will of donation, De Zigno’s library is described as ‘a large number of books and pamphlets’. Unfortunately, a detailed list was never attached to the formal act of acquisition by the University.

To reconstruct De Zigno’s personal library, as it was acquired by the University, we have to look for bibliographic citations in De Zigno’s scientific correspondence or in his writings, since no books lists were ever made.

For example, in the first pages of the field notebook A, De Zigno copied the detailed drawings made by Brongniart in his work Mémoire sur les terrains de sédiment superieurs calcaréo-trappéens du vicentin (1823).

In his field notebooks De Zigno often makes comments about the books he was reading. For instance, he wrote that during November and December, 1848, while in Fanzolo, he was reading 'Elements of Geology' by Collegno and 'Elements of Palaeontology' by Pictet. He also noted that he was studying fossil osteology on Cuvier's plates and conchology on Sowerby's works.

De Zigno wrote about Darwin’s theory of evolution, mostly to criticise it. In one passage, he defined the theory of evolution as a ‘youngster blunder’ of the scholars, that later will grow out of ‘that system of creation and development that appears to be too fantastic’.

In De Zigno’s scientific correspondence, we often find discussions with other scientists on one another’s works, on various readings, and requests or exchange of books.

For example, Abramo Massalongo, in one of his letters dated 1853, let De Zigno know that he had bought some books written by the most important palaeobotanist of that time, like Schimper, Mougenot, Cotta, Göeppert, Ettingshausen, Weber and Unger. Massalongo proposed to bring the books to Padua on the first opportunity, and lend to him some of them ‘in case you think you’ll need any’.

In a letter dated 16th November 1881, Omboni asked De Zigno if he owned a copy of Sternberg's 'Voyage au Tyrol' 'where a sketch of the Coccodrillo dei Sette Comuni is supposed to be found': Omboni stated that his searches were unsuccessful, and the book was not available in the Biblioteca Universitaria of Padua, and neither in the Library of the Istituto Veneto or in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice.

Another way to recreate De Zigno’s library is to examine the annotations he made on his books, like ownership notes and handwritten comments.

De Zigno’s ownership notes found in the books of the Geosciences Library have been registered, but De Zigno did not sign all his books. Actually, De Zigno’s signature does not appear in many books that he cited in his works. To recreate his library through those clues is a partially successful attempt, as only 75 volumes belonged for sure to De Zigno, of the ‘great number of books and pamphlets’ that Omboni bought and later donated to the Geosciences Library.

A search on the University of Padua electronic catalogue allows us to browse this collection (see in GalileoDiscovery).

Here is a selection of books where you can find De Zigno’s signature.

Ittiolitologia veronese (1796-1809) was an extraordinary publishing enterprise that saw the beginning of the Giuliari typography in Verona, which was exclusively devoted to the production of this publication, for 12 years of work, until it went bankrupt due to unsustainable costs, also considering the context of war.
Giovanni Serafino Volta (1754-1842), Director of the Museo Bozziano, described the 123 species of fossil fish of Bolca of the collection that belonged to Count Gazzola, illustrated in 76 beautiful and extremely detailed plates of large format, often reproducing the fossils in real dimensions. The site of Bolca, because of the quality and the amount of fossil specimens, had been considered for years a reference for ichthyolites, studied by scholars to determine the species and, more generally, to elaborate scientific theories about the origin of the fossils.

The copy of that work kept in the Geosciences Library of the University of Padua is signed : ‘Lord Achille de Zigno Maguire  F.G.S.’ A note to the title says that all the species have been revised, and all the captions of the plates have been updated with the ‘modern nomenclature proposed by Professor Agassiz, added by Achille De Zigno’.

The oldest printed book in the Geosciences library of Padua used to belong to Achille De Zigno and is Alexandri De Alexandro Dies geniales... (Romae : in aedibus Iacobi Mazochii Ro. academiae bibliopolae, 1522 Kalendis Apri. [1 IV]). Achille De Zigno indicated in a footnote that in the work ‘for the first time the author affirms that fossil shells are the proof that the ocean in the past used to cover the land that now is uncovered’.

In the Zigno’s library there is a book that has a central importance in the controversy about the fossil origin: La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso. Lettera risponsiua circa i corpi marini, che petrificati si trouano in varij luoghi terrestri. Di Agostino Scilla pittore accademico della Fucina, detto lo Scolorito. In Napoli: appresso Andrea Colicchia, 1670.

In the Seventeenth Century, the scholars proposed various hypotheses to explain the origin of ‘the marine bodies that are found in the mountains’, as Antonio Vallisneri defined them in his fundamental work (‘De’ corpi marini, che su’ monti si trovano’). Some of those conjectures sound very strange to us. Some scholars thought about spontaneous generation into the rocks, others that fish and were transported on the mountains together with water, during the Great Flood. The story of the Bible represented an embarrassing background that could not be dismissed at once.

In the frontispiece of the work by Agostino Scilla an allegorical drawing presents the character of ‘Sense’ (Senso) showing to ‘Idle speculation’ (Vana Speculazione) some fossils, as an admonition to observe natural phenomena to discern reality.