The Restoration of the Osteological Primate Collection of the Natural History Museum of the University of Pavia.

Some years ago, the University of Pavia started a project aimed to restore the numerous collections of the Natural History Museum, established by Lazzaro Spallanzani in 1771. The samples of the collections were in a rather bad state of conservation, due to either an insufficient maintenance or the inadequacy of the rooms in which the samples were stored. The present report deals with the restoration and re-establishment of the primate osteological collection, belonging to the collections of the Institute of Comparative Anatomy, which, in 1875, became an independent section of the Museum, under the direction of Leopoldo Maggi. Since 1960, the collections of the Natural History Museum have been moved to the garret of the Visconti Castle of Pavia, except for a small amount of specimens which were left in the Botta Palace, just for educational and research purposes. As to primates, it was possible to bring skeletons and skulls to their ancient condition and this allowed the realization of a digital catalogue, never published till now. At present, the osteological collection includes 59 skulls and 63 skeletons, most of them belonging to catarrhine monkeys (94 samples); there are also samples from 7 strepsirrhines and 21 platyrrhines. Among the catarrhines, 30 samples are from Asian and African apes. Therefore, the primate osteological collection of the Pavia Natural History Museum is of great historical and scientific value, and, surely, it is one of the most important collections in Italy as the number of specimens and their representativeness of primate species are concerned. Key words: Lazzaro Spallanzani collections ∙ Restoration ∙ Primate skeletons ∙ Primate skulls.