Anatomical Theatre of Archiginnasio

The hall, called Teatro because of its characteristic amphitheatre shape, was designed in 1637 for anatomical lessons by the Bolognese architect Antonio Paolucci, known as Levanti, a pupil of the Carracci. It was covered with fir wood and decorated with two orders of statues representing twelve famous doctors (Hippocrates, Galen, Fabrizio Bartoletti, Girolamo Sbaraglia, Marcello Malpighi, Carlo Fracassati, Mondino de' Liuzzi, Bartolomeo da Varignana, Pietro d'Argelata, Costanzo Varolio, Giulio Cesare Aranzio, Gaspare Tagliacozzi) and twenty of the most famous anatomists of the Bolognese Studio. The reader's chair, which dominates that of the demonstrator, is flanked by two statues called "Spellati", sculpted in 1734 to a design by Ercole Lelli, which served to visualize the human body, like an open book. Above the canopy a seated female figure, an allegory of Anatomy, receives as a gift from a winged putto not a flower, but a femur. The anatomy room was badly damaged in the bombing that destroyed this wing of the building on January 29, 1944, and was rebuilt immediately after the war by reusing the original wooden sculptures, fortunately recovered from the ruins. It is one of the oldest preserved anatomical theatres.