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| Anatomical Wax Museum |
As I sat on plastic
chair in a very institutional-looking corridor, I wondered whether I was in my
right mind. Outside, the sun was shining and the birds were singing, but I was inside
a drab university building waiting for a member of staff to escort me upstairs. I may work as a university administrator, but
I was supposed to be on holiday. Before
I could think better of it and slip away, a young man approached and asked ‘you
want to see our museum?’ ‘Oh yes, thank you’ I replied and meekly followed him
upstairs and along a corridor into a room full of glass cases. This was the University of Bologna’s
Anatomical Wax Museum: a collection of nineteenth-century
anatomical wax models by famous modellers. The exhibits were beautifully
crafted models showing parts of the body in section along with some really gruesome
models of pathological specimens of malformations and tumours.
By the time we made our escape, we felt
that we had seen enough of university museums for the time being, so did not
visit the Obstetrics Museum or Museum of Natural Sciences in the nearby Palazzo
Poggi. The University Botanical Gardens,
on the other hand, provided a welcome green refuge whilst we planned our next
move.
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| Archiginnasio Palace stairway |
We had already visited the Archiginnasio
Palace, which was inaugurated in 1563 as the first permanent seat of the
university. Although Bologna is the oldest university in Europe, it did not
have a permanent home until it came under the influence of the centralising
tendencies of the Papal State during the Counter Reformation. The galleries, halls and staircases are all
richly decorated with arms of former students – nearly 6,000 of them. We
visited the beautiful Stabat Mater lecture hall (named after the first
performance of Rossini’s opera which took place there) and the Anatomy Theatre
which was added in 1637, and is decorated with statues of famous ancient and
Bolognese physicians. There, I was interested to see a small display about the
first woman university professor, the physicist Laura Bassi, who received her
doctorate in 1732.
There is a great deal
more to Bologna than its university. It is packed with historic palaces,
churches and museums, but on that Thursday morning we decided it was time to
turn to another of the city’s attractions – lunchtime was approaching so we set
off in search of a plate of tagliatelli ragù.
