Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio e Teatro Anatomico

About this audio guide

This guide to the Teatro Anatomico in the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio in Bologna opens in Ercole Lelli's workshop in 1734, as he carves the two skinned figures known as the Spellati to flank the lecturer's chair. It follows why a dissection theatre for paying crowds needed a painted zodiac ceiling and twelve carved physicians watching over the room, and how the space was designed to make an unsettling act feel like duty rather than defiance. The guide also turns to a bombing raid on the wing in January 1944. Look up at the wooden sky before you look toward the table below it.