Archiginnasio Municipal Library
Renaissance university hall with a wood-carved anatomical theatre once used for public dissections.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Archiginnasio Municipal Library in Bologna centers on the Spellati, wooden statues of skinned men carved in 1734 by Ercole Lelli, a wax modeler turned sculptor whose anatomical figures surgeons studied like real bodies. It follows how this small amphitheater, built in 1637, once seated hundreds of medical students watching public dissections, and how Lelli's carved figures doubled as teaching tools mapping muscle beneath skin. The guide also turns to a January night in 1944, when an Allied bomb tore through the wing. Look up at the canopy the Spellati still hold above the lecturer's chair.
This audio guide was created using AI.