I have resolved the problem doing this :
In my fxml file: <AnchorPane> <ScrollPane fx:id="myScrollPane" id="myScrollPane" AnchorPane.bottomAnchor="0" AnchorPane.leftAnchor="0" AnchorPane.rightAnchor="0" AnchorPane.topAnchor="0"> <content> <TabPane id="myTabPane" fx:id="myTabPane" > The tab that should contains my tableView </TabPane> </content> </ScrollPane> </AnchorPane> In java ScrollPane scrollPane= (ScrollPane) lookup("#"+myScrollPane); TabPane tabPane=(TabPane)scrollPane.getContent(); return tabPane; the result is that i can see the table with no row and with a horizontal scroll bar