The study of the Marsili catalogue and the cataloguing projects

In the year 2000, the University of Padova Library Centre launched a general project for the computerized recovery of the catalogue in SBN (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale) of the books owned by the university libraries, in particular the rare books (prior to 1830). Thus began the cataloguing of the ancient fund of the Library of the Botanical Garden, in accordance with national standards.

The cataloguers' work also includes direct verification of the library's historical catalogues, including the manuscript catalogue of the Marsili library and the catalogue drawn up under the prefecture of De Visiani and Saccardo (1835–1915), also a manuscript. Thus, a group of volumes to which the prefect Marsili's name should be linked as owner began to be distinguished and the personal antique library within the present library of the Botanical Garden began to be identified. Subsequently, the work extended to the rest of the volumes with a year of publication up to 1830.

Page of the Marsili catalogue (from Phaidra)

In the same years, the project of cataloguing the rare books in SBN also took place in the other libraries of the university, including that of Geology (now Geosciences) and Pharmaceutical Sciences. In these two libraries, a subsequent research, carried out again thanks to the study of the manuscript catalogue of his library, allowed to recognize the volumes that belonged to Marsili.

In 2010, the exhibition Padova, l'impronta della natura (the imprint of nature), organized by Padova's Botanical Garden Library, the Botanical Garden University Centre and the University Museums Centre, exhibited manuscripts, printed books, herbals of dried plants and other historical objects to testify to the development of botany and the illustration of plants as well as printing techniques. For the occasion, the volume Il fondo Marsili nella Biblioteca dell'Orto botanico di Padova (The Marsili Fund in Padova's Botanical Garden Library) is published with a transcription of Marsili's manuscript catalogue accompanied by texts on the Prefect, his library and the history of the Botanical Garden Library.

From 2011 to 2018 a similar work of cataloguing and studying of the catalogue of the Marsili library leads to the identification of the volumes already in that collection and now in the Botanical Garden Fund of the University Library of Padova, while provenances and owners have been included in the Archivio dei possessori (Archives of the possessors, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana).