Pietro Franchetti Natural History Museum

Pietro Franchetti Natural History Museum is located at the San Giuseppe Institute, Turin.

The history of the Museum is closely linked to the personality of Canon Professor Pietro Franchetti, a clergyman with a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Turin.
A keen enthusiast of natural sciences and an ardent collector, he collaborated with a number of journals in the field.

The collections cover different areas of the natural sciences.

The finds are displayed in two hallways on the second floor of the school building and in a few adjoining rooms.

The museum is a traditional educational one.

Duration of the visit: approximately one hour.

No architectural barriers.

Natural History Section

• Mineralogy;
• Palaeontology;
• Zoology.

The Zoology collections include taxidermied vertebrates, insects and other invertebrates.

The Hummingbird Collection is the outcome of Franchetti's thirty-year period of untiring research and study.

It gained international scientific standing.

It is the most significant collection all over Italy: out of the 334 or so species known in the New World, 226 are represented here, numbering over a thousand specimens.

Of each species, both sexes are by far the majority.

Some species also number individuals in juvenile plumage or in rare hybridized forms.

Instrumentation section in science cabinets

The science cabinet is a setting, or a complex of settings, where instruments and materials are stored for experiments and practical demonstrations of a scientific nature.

The Museum houses:

• a collection of equipment used in the 19th century by the Brothers of the Christian Schools for the teaching of the Metric System;
• a collection of physics and chemistry instruments used in the 19th century by the Brothers of the Christian Schools for the teaching of science at the San Giuseppe Institute.

The Science Library holds around 500 volumes and pamphlets.

They are available for consultation on site by appointment with the conservator.

The Museum provides guided tours and activities for students all year round.

Booking is required.