Photo: MiBACT · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo Anatomico e Teatro Anatomico di Modena

19th-century university museum with anatomical preparations and wax models and a wooden Anatomical Theatre of 1775; closed for restoration.

Temporarily closed

Website Directions

Temporarily closed. The museum is closed for the renovation and restoration of the via Berengario complex; a virtual tour is available on the website. No reopening date has been given.

About the museum

The Museo Anatomico is part of the Musei Anatomici of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, a group of collections that began in the second half of the 18th century in the Sant’Agostino block, next to the Grande Spedale. The heart of the complex is the Anatomical Theatre, designed in wood by Professor Antonio Scarpa and inaugurated in 1775; in 1815 Archduke Francis IV of Austria-Este had a new floor built above it to house the museum, reducing the theatre’s plan from octagonal to hexagonal. The works were completed in 1818, the year the Museo Anatomico was founded.

The four communicating rooms were completed between 1822 and 1853 and hold human anatomical preparations, dried, mummified or preserved in formalin, as well as plaster and wax models, many of them the work of the Modenese wax modeller Remigio Lei. The collections were expanded above all by Paolo Gaddi and Giuseppe Sperino. The Anatomical Theatre was restored and reopened on 9 February 2018.

Alongside the Museo Anatomico, the Musei Anatomici include the Museo Ostetrico (Obstetric Museum), with 18th-century wax models and polychrome terracotta, the Museo Etnografico Antropologico and the Museo di Medicina Tropicale. Since 2017 they have belonged to the Polo Museale di Ateneo (university museum centre). At present the museum is closed for the renovation and restoration of the via Berengario complex.