ANCIENT COLLECTIONS
Bagatti Collection
Undoubtedly the richest in artefacts, it is of purely taxonomic interest today as the precise locations of origin are not indicated and it is therefore mainly used as comparison material
Cocconi Collection
It is undoubtedly, and not only historically, the most important collection that is still of considerable scientific value today. In fact, there are numerous species established by Cocconi, some of which are still under discussion and others considered to be valid species in their own right. The finds from this collection were published in 1873 in the volume ‘Systematic Enumeration of Miocene and Pliocene Molluscs of the Provinces of Parma and Piacenza’, in the introduction to which Cocconi emphasises the importance of the Piacenza and Parma foothills of the Apennines (albeit to a lesser extent) for the palaeontologists of his time, citing Bellardi, Deshayes, Brocchi, Mayer, Hoernes, Michelotti, Doderlein, Jan, etc. as frequent visitors to those places.
Guidotti Collection
The Guidotti collection is of great importance to palaeontologists in order to distinguish different ecobiozones in the Pliocene, based on the extinction rates of molluscs with reference to western Emilia. In fact, the main interest of this collection lies in the fact that Guidotti was the only one to form it by directly assembling the material, indicating for each artefact the exact location where it had been collected; a criterion that was little followed at the time. It was this collection that contributed to Scottish geologist Lyell’s idea of dividing the Tertiary into the Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene on the basis of mollusc survival rates. Because of its topicality, and its scientific value, an initial attempt was made to separate it in its original conception from the Cocconi collection; a task that was not made easier by the museum’s various relocations over the last century, but not impossible given that most of the original labels, handwritten by Guidotti himself, are still preserved today
Levi Collection
This collection bears witness to the first attempt to do stratigraphy within the Pliocene on the basis of the extinction rates of molluscs, even though the author had not advanced any particular hypotheses, aware that rates can vary even in coeval environments (published in Riv. Ital. Paleont., 1900)