Considerazioni sull’Academic Heritage dello Studium bolognese: il museo di Palazzo Poggi

The equipment used in the past for teaching is considerable, but the most significant site of Academic Heritage is the museum in Palazzo Poggi of the University of Bologna. An institution that takes its name from the senatorial family that built the residence in the 16th century, decorated with friezes by the most significant artists of the time, and where the furnishings that belonged to the Institute of Sciences, created by Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730) in 1714 and soon famous for its adoption of the experimental method, are now located. Among the Institute’s materials, the focus here are the anatomical waxes of Ercole Lelli (1702-1766), Giovanni Manzolini (1700-1755) and above all Anna Morandi (1714-1744): a figure of exceptional value for her work as an anatomist and ceroplastist who contributed to making Bologna an important centre for the development of the discipline, which she combines in an original relationship between art and science. Another highlight of the museum is part of the collection of Ulisse Aldrovandi, the father of modern Natural History, founder of an extraordinary natural history collection and holder of the first chair of Natural Sciences at the Studium in 1560. The Museum in Palazzo Poggi, with its original and innovative solutions that are still being developed, makes available to the scientific community and the territory a great encyclopaedia that still has much to say and to be discovered.