MUSEO DON BOSCO DI STORIA NATURALE E APPARECCHIATURE SCIENTIFICHE DEL LICEO VALSALICE

The Valsalice Natural History Museum was inaugurated by Don Bosco on 5 July 1879. Its origin can be traced back to the purchase of the zoological collection formerly belonging to Canon Giovanni Battista Giordano of Rivalta Torinese, which expanded over time following donations, purchases and exchanges. Since 1969, the Museum has been located on the third and fourth floors of the Salesian High School in Valsalice, Turin, in the wing with the entrance at no. 37 Viale Thovez. The third floor houses the collection of scientific instruments from the 19th and 20th centuries, some of which are still in use at the Institute, and the vast systematic collection of minerals and rocks, with around five thousand samples on display. The fourth floor houses the biological collection (including the malacological collection from the Rigoletti donation with around 30,000 shells), anthropological and ethnographic collections. Finally, a special room houses the palaeontological collection with around one thousand five hundred fossils, including trilobites, ammonites and dinosaur eggs.The Museum can be visited free of charge and offers: guided tours for the public, schoolchildren and groups, educational activities, temporary exhibitions on research topics carried out in the Museum or related to its aims, courses and conferences on naturalistic and scientific topics, initiatives with the Amici del Museo and Gruppo Mineralogico Valsalice associations, and activities in collaboration with other Piedmontese science museums.