The Herbarium Museum was founded in 1872 under the direction of Giuseppe De Notaris (1805-1877), one of the most authoritative figures in the field of Botany , called to Rome to hold the chair of Botany at the University, at the time at via Panisperna.

The current arrangement of the Herbarium Museum dates back to 1938, the year in which the collections were definitively moved to the premises of the Botanical Institute of the New University City.

Currently the Herbarium Museum consists of numerous historical and contemporary collections , whose overall consistency is estimated at more than one million specimens, an evaluation that places it among the main Italian and European Herbariums.

The Herbarium Museum , now registered in the I ndex Herbariorum , an international network of Herbariums with the acronym RO, is in full operation and its collections are constantly growing: two important herbariums , Erbario Fanelli (10,000 specimens) have recently been acquired. and the Lattanzi Herbarium (16,000 specimens).

From 2020, the “ HeRO-Herbarium Ro Online” project entered into full operation, which envisages the enhancement of the heritage of the Herbarium Museum through the digitization and progressive online display of the museum collections .