Anatomy Lessons

When Bologna first received university students in 1088 there were no halls of residence or lecture halls. Instead the sons of the wealthy (women were initially admitted too, but this later changed) would stay in the homes of doctors, lawyers and other learned members of the community, and be taught by them. Among many others, Thomas a Beckett was sent to Bologna University to study law, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the twelfth century.

The first university building in Bologna was the Archiginnasio Palace, dating from the mid-sixteenth century, for the teaching of law, arts and medicine.

Although the building suffered much damage in the Second World War, it was re-built, using all the surviving materials, and is open to visitors today.

Incredibly, a number of statues survived and were used in the re-building.

The Anatomical Theatre was created in the Palace in 1636. Here corpses of prisoners and prostitutes were dissected for the medical students.

The dissecting table in the middle of the theatre. The corpses were dissected by ‘demonstrators’.

The lecturer taught from this rather magnificent ‘throne’. On either side of his chair are the ‘spellati’ (skinned) statues based on drawings by Ercolano Lelli, a famous wax modeller.

This seventeenth century book was on display, showing the care of fractured limbs. The book was owned by Giovanni Girolamo Sbaraglia (1641-1710) professor of medicine at Bologna University.

Sbaraglia, the owner of the medical book

Galen (129-200) ‘The most important physician of antiquity’.

Stabat Mater Hall, formerly a lecture hall for law students.

This space, now used as a book deposit, was formerly divided into ten student classrooms.

The Archiginnasio Palace ceased to be part of the university in 1803. It is now the Bologna Civic Library, and is used for its vast collection of antique and rare books.

Also in the Palace today, we visited an exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of Richard Scarry, children’s book illustrator. It was delightful to view some of his very familiar artwork.