"Man wandering among these walls, from which thirty thousand millennia of ancient earth history gaze upon you; consider that all of human history, from its origins to today, is nothing in comparison but the history of a day, and that of your existence the history of a moment, an instant in the infinite."
Remo Malinverni
The Fossil Museum - housed in a pavilion within the centuries-old park of Villa Godi Malinverni in Lugo di Vicenza - was founded in 1852 by Count Andrea Piovene, with the fossils found the same year by geologist Achille de Zigno in the nearby Chiavon stream. The latest renovation of the Museum was in 2006 by ProLugo.
Flora: the Museum houses as many as 352 species, of which 215 are from Chiavon, 69 from Salcedo, and 68 common to both locations. This flora offers analogies with current types from the American continent, part with those from Asia and Africa, as well as the Australian continent and the Mediterranean basin, while that of Bolca presents greater affinities with the current floras of the East Indies and Australia. The famous palms, among which the impressive Fossil Palm is particularly noteworthy, is horizontally placed in the center of the Museum hall, stands 9.85 meters tall, discovered in 1863, complete with roots, trunk, and leaves, whose extraction took 4 years of work.
Fauna: the museum has collected foraminifera, corals, brachiopods, bivalves, mollusks, gastropods, crustaceans, echinoderms, and fish. The latter belong to the Carp genus.
For more information click here.
