The Natural History Museum is located in the historic center of Ferrara. The first museum nucleus was born in the eighteenth century, thanks to a donation of minerals made by the canon Antonio Marescotti to the already existing civic museum. In 1850, a donation made by Elia Rossi enriched the collection of zoological specimens from Africa. In 1862, the University of Ferrara, then owned by the municipality, established that it was necessary to create a museum to support the teachings of the new chair of Natural History. The official inauguration took place in 1872, in the premises of the former convent of the Martyrs in via Roversella. The direction was entrusted to Galdino Gardini, who assiduously looked after the relations with the various donors and benefactors (Elia Rossi, Angelo Castelbolognesi, Enea Cavalieri, Angelo Fiorini, Angelo Conti): the Museum enormously increased its patrimony reaching more than 74,000 specimens of zoology, mineralogy, geology, paleontology and ethnography. Gardini's retirement in 1892 marked a first phase of stagnation for the activities of the museum, which was closed for inventory and reopened only in 1937, after the collections, already partially dismembered, were transferred to the new building specifically designed and built. by engineer Carlo Savonuzzi in collaboration with his brother Girolamo between 1935 and 1937 on the medieval remains of the former city hospital. However, the museum regained its vitality only after the Second World War, when the management was entrusted to Mario Francesco Canella, who managed its fate between 1952 and 1978. In 1982 the management was taken over by Fausto Pesarini, naturalist and biologist, who it promoted a profound structural and functional renewal. Since 2012 it has been directed by Stefano Mazzotti, former curator for zoology at the same museum since 1990.