The zoological wallcharts are part of the conspicuous collection of Department of Biology of University of Padua. Restored, digitized, and freely accessible in the Phaidra collection named "Scientific wallcharts", the tables are preserved in the Library of the “Vallisneri” Biological Medical building.

These illustrations are designated also as wall boards, figured tables, educational posters or, more simply, posters.
This type of presentation, rigorous from a scientific point of view and endowed with relevant artistic aspects, has already developed since the sixteenth century up to the end of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century. During the XIX century a huge figurative patrimony for the science teaching has been yielded. Indeed, in the study of Natural Sciences the wealth of details requires adherence to naturalistic data, which relies on the professional and technical competence of the author.

The wallcharts of Department of Biology, originally Institute of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, represented an important component of didactics performed by professors of Biology, Zoology and Comparative Anatomy until a few years ago and, in some cases, are still used. With the establishment of more comfortable and immediate teaching tools and of the digital world , these posters are a relevant historical and scientific document as well as an artistic and noteworthy heritage.

It is important to note that illustrations of many Zoology textbooks, currently in use, repeat the ancient illustrations of the wallcharts, owing to the drawings performed with extreme accuracy of the details and effectiveness in the graphic representation of the anatomy of subjects.

Tables treat the following topics: systematics of both Protozoa and Invertebrate and Vertebrate Metazoa, comparative anatomy and genetics. There are essentially three documented sources of such panels: one is the series of Leuckart and coworkers (see page Wallcharts authors, see in Phaidra here and here), the second one is that of Pfurtscheller, published in Germany and Austria, respectively (see page Wallcharts authors, see in Phaidra). The third series is French and is named Collection Rémy Perrier & Cépède (see page Wallcharts authors, see in Phaidra). A fourth series is composed by tables which do not reach the precision and refinement of the trait of the previous ones and are anonymous (see in Phaidra).

The interpretative and stylistic differences in each series are immediately recognizable. Indeed, the systematic aspect is particularly stressed in the tables by Leuckart and coworkers: the external anatomy and internal one, in both entire or dissected animals, is represented, without any reference to the environment where animals live. In the tables by Pfurtscheller animals are depicted in a stereoscopical and dramatic way. Tables of the Collection Rémy Perrier & Cépède illustrate not only the morphological traits, but also the ethological and ecological aspects (see as an example the tables of Orthoptères Acridiens and that of Mimétisme), and the life cycles (see the table of Hémosporidies du Paludisme and that of Infusoires Ciliés, Conjugaison du Paramecium caudatum).

Because science and knowledge progress and evolve, it is almost obvious to find differences between the taxa indicated in the tables and those of the most recent classifications based on phylogenetic reconstructions by means of biomolecular investigations.

Finally, the remarks here reported intend to focus the historic and scientific heritage of the tables of Department of Biology. The tables express the relationship between science and art, made over the years by the collaboration of scientists, professors and artists to transmit the results of the biological research and to provide the didactic tools for a correct interpretation of the world of life.

Details from the wallcharts of the Department of Biology.