Vitaliano Donati (8 September 1717 – 26 February 1762) was an Italian medical doctor, archeologist and botanist. He took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1739.

Donati was born on 8 September 1717 in Padua, Republic of Venice. He was interested in the flora and fauna of the Adriatic, and in 1745 he published Della storia naturale marina dell'Adriatico. This work was translated into many European languages.

In 1750, Charles Emmanuel III, king of Sardinia, offered him a chair of Botany and Natural history at the University of Turin. During his career as a professor, he also occupied the chair of Mineralogy and Geology. He occupied the chair of Orto Botanico dell'Università di Torino from 1750 until his death.

In 1757, Donati was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[1]

In 1759, he visited Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Arabia. He died on 26 February 1762 in the Indian Ocean, travelling on a Turkish ship to Mangalore in India.

The Italian city of Turin has entitled a street to Vitaliano Donati.

• Della storia naturale marina dell'Adriatico, (1745).
• Viaggio mineralogico nella Alpi occidentali di Vitaliano Donati a cura di Giuse Scalva, ed. Editrice Compositori per l'Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sulla Montagna di Roma (INRM).

• Lectionary 300

• Scheda su Vitaliano Donati sul (in Italian)
• Portale di storia della scienza. (in Italian)