Museo di Anatomia Umana Luigi Rolando

About the museum

The Turin anatomy school dates back to 1563, when Angelo Visca was called to Turin. The first records of anatomical collections date from 1739, when Charles Emmanuel III asked Giovanni Battista Bianchi to set up a university museum in the palazzo in Via Po, today the Rettorato (university rectorate); from that period survive a plaster statue of a pregnant woman and some anatomical wax models.

After the Restoration, Luigi Rolando expanded the collections and in 1830 displayed them to the public in the Palazzo dei Regi Musei (Palace of the Royal Museums), today home of the Museo Egizio and the Accademia delle Scienze. From 1837 the museum moved to the Ospedale Maggiore di San Giovanni Battista, where the collections continued to grow: under Carlo Giacomini, in the last decades of the 19th century, dry and fluid preparations were favoured, while Darwin's ideas stimulated the anthropological and primatological collections.

In 1898 the museum was permanently moved to the new Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici, at Corso Massimo d'Azeglio 52, in rooms built specifically with an architecture expressing the prestige of the Turin anatomy school at the end of the 19th century. The collections include dry and fluid preparations, wax, papier-mâché and wooden models, and collections of anthropological, phrenological and primatological interest.

Highlights

• Anatomical wax models, including 18th-century examples
• Dry and fluid anatomical preparations
• Phrenological and craniological collections
• Brains from the Giacomini collection and skeleton of Carlo Giacomini
• Two South American mummies
• Monumental seat of 1898, the Palazzo degli Istituti Anatomici

Permanent exhibition

• Collezioni anatomiche – Dry and fluid preparations, wax, papier-mâché and wooden models, phrenological and craniological collection, and anthropological and primatological collections.

Founded

1739

Operated by

Università degli Studi di Torino (Sistema Museale di Ateneo)

Visitors per year

approx. 18,616

Admission & discounts

Free admission: Free admission every Wednesday of the year

Free admission also for holders of the Abbonamento Musei Torino Piemonte and the Torino+Piemonte Card, ICOM members, museum directors and curators, authorised tourist guides, journalists registered with the professional order, and public school classes with telephone booking.

Accessibility

• Wheelchair accessible: no information
• Elevator: no information
• Accessible restroom: no information
• Accessible parking: no information
• Service dogs welcome: no information
• Tactile models & exhibits: no information
• Sign language tours: no information
• Easy-to-read materials: no information
• Audio description: no information

In the museum, QR codes on the display cases open explanatory videos in Italian and in Italian Sign Language (LIS), and information sheets in Italian and English. The website gives no further details on physical accessibility; students with motor or cognitive disabilities should be reported when booking.

Kids & families

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Getting there & parking

Amenities & dining

The museum hasn’t published any information on this.

Events & venue rental

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