We now enter an early–nineteenth-century apothecary shop, donated to the University by the pharmacist Giuseppe Maggioni, complete with original furniture, fittings, and instruments. Here the evolution of the pharmacopoeia is illustrated, from medicinal herbs to the synthetic drugs of modern times.

In 1533, the University of Padua appointed Francesco Bonafede professor of “lectùra sèmplicium” for the teaching of how to recognize plants with healing properties. For this purpose, the professor had in mind a herb garden – founded later, in 1545 – and an apothecary’s shop. It was not until Maggioni made his donation a few years ago, however, that the apothecary’s shop was added to the botanical garden and its heritage. The jars, bottles, spatulas, mortars, scales, and curiosities (like a label-printing machine, for example) tell us what the apothecary did, what their tools were, and what “ingredients” were used to produce remedies.

Of these, the most famous medication in the history of medicine is theriàca, considered for over a thousand years a panacea, an infallible remedy. Its key ingredient was viper flesh, believed to contain not only the poison but the antidote too. Theriàca was handed down in all recipe books until the nineteenth century, as were the plants found here, including poisonous varieties.