Marchese Ferdinando Cospi (1606 - 1686) was a Bolognese nobleman who acquired a large collection of natural curiosities, donated for the use of scholars to the city of Bologna in 1657.

In August 1604 Vincenzo Cospi married a great-granddaughter of Cardinal Alessandro Ottaviano de' Medici, who the next year was briefly Pope Leo XI before dying in office.

Here, at the age of eight, Ferdinando Cospi became a page of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

He mediated between the Bolognese and Tuscan authorities, and promoted trade and the interests of Florence in Bologna.

They had just one daughter, Dorotea, although Cospi was said to have had a child in Florence whom the Granduchess Vittoria della Rovere accepted as one of her court ladies.

The next year he made another trip for the Cardinal Giancarlo de' Medici to pay his respects to Mariana of Austria, the new Queen of Spain.

[4] In 1743 the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute obtained the donation of this collection, the Naturalia Museum.