The origin dates from 1869 with the inauguration of the Istituto Forestale di Vallombrosa, the first school for forestry specialists established in Italy. In 1912 the Institute was moved to Florence and transformed into the Istituto Superiore Forestale Nazionale, located in the Parco delle Cascine. In 1924 the Istituto Superiore Agrario e Forestale was constituted and in 1936 the Faculty of Agrarian Science was instituted. In 1983 the Department of Environmental and Forestry Science and Technology was transferred to its current location at Quaracchi.

In 1880, the Department’s forestry technology collection, coming from the Istituto Forestale di Vallombrosa, included 250 examples of 121 different kinds of instruments. In 1943 the number of examples had dropped to 168. At present the collection, further reduced by the transfer of some items and by the flooding of the Arno River in 1966, includes tools for forestry work, as well as models of equipment used in the Alps. The objects date from the 19th and 20th centuries. Another interesting item is the seed collection, containing forestry seeds from numerous species, for the most part European. The collection was started in the years prior to World War II for educational purposes, linked to the laboratory for the certification of forestry seeds, and was incremented up to the 1970s . This collection is now under study.

The Library of the Department contains some 50,000 volumes, including ancient and modern texts on forestry technology.