Description of the attraction
The Rinaldo Zardini Paleontological Museum in the resort town of Cortina d'Ampezzo houses one of the most important collections of fossils dating back 220 to 230 million years. The museum was opened in 1975 in the historic building of the Chaza de ra Regoles in the very center of the city. Its expositions reconstruct the life and ecosystems of the tropical seas, the bottom of which in that distant era was the Dolomites. You can imagine this life, wandering among thousands of samples of different marine organisms, ossified over time and revealing the geological history of the Earth. The collection of the Rinaldo Zardini Museum is one of the largest in the world. Here you can see the shells of marine invertebrates, corals, sponges and the fossil remains of numerous animals. The limestone coating that covered them allowed the fossils to survive perfectly - some of them even retained their original chemical structure!
Rinaldo Zardini was a local research scientist who spent many years of his life exploring the Dolomites around Cortina d'Ampezzo. He carefully collected his exhibits and cataloged them, giving each a name and recording the place and time of its discovery. Over time, the collection of the paleontological museum expanded with exhibits donated by other researchers, and the museum's reputation grew not only nationally, but also internationally.
