The idea for this virtual exhibition came from the realisation that in spite of the many research opportunities offered by digital catalogues available online, our libraries hold many little known, or even forgotten, treasures.

The Library of the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences has a vast collection of antique books which grew out of the need in the early twentieth century to find new teaching and research spaces in the buildings of the Botanical Garden of Padua. This is the reason why the works of the library more closely related to medicine were transferred to the then new Institute of Pharmacology and stored there until today thanks to the foresight of the director Luigi Sabbatani.

The peculiarities of the collection became clear during the recent cataloguing of the antique books. Thanks to the curiosity and enthusiasm of the librarians, a chronicle of events of our past in the medical field, recounted directly from what is written and through exceptionally beautiful illustrations, is hereby proposed. The reasoned reading of the works in the historical context to which they belong suggests some milestones undertaken by the Materia medica along the way to the beginnings of the modern disciplines we know today as Pharmacognosy and Pharmacology.

Eugenio Ragazzi – Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy