Although the Istituto Sperimentale per la Zoologia Agraria, which is also the headquarter of the Accademia Nazionale Italiana di Entomologia, was not officially formed until 1875 its activity can be traced back at least ten years prior.
The Lorena family sought the advice of Adolfo Targioni Tozzetti, holder of the chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy of the Invertebrates, to obtain answers to the pressing problems presented by locusts, scale insects which were major pests of peaches, and other phytophagous insects and by diseases of silkworms.
Targioni, the President of that society for thirty years became the Director of the Institute, the first centre for phytopathogy in the world.
Of particular importance is volume 84 (1876) of the "Annali del Ministero di Agricoltura Industria e Commercio" in which Targioni reported on the life of the Institution in 1875, 1876, 1877–1882, 1882–1886.
Successive directors were: Antonio Melis, Giacomo Del Guercio, and Guido Large, formerly a Professor of Entomology in Bologna.