The Palazzo Poggi Museum in Bologna

Obstetrics Hall

Bologna’s 16th-century Palazzo Poggi – once the luxurious abode of Alessandro Poggi and his brother, cardinal Giovanni Poggi, featuring frescoes by Pellegrino Tibaldi, Nicolò Dell’Abate and Prospero Fontana – is now the exceptional location of the Palazzo Poggi Museum, which offers an amazing reconstruction of the old Institute of the Sciences that was headquartered here between 1711 and 1799.

The astronomic tower built in the early 18th century is now the Museum of the Specola, the Astronomy Museum of the University of Bologna, showcasing a wide range of instruments used by astronomers of the past – such as armillary spheres, wooden telescopes, clocks, nautical and topography tools – in evocative spaces such as the Globe Room, the Meridian Room and the Tower Room.

On top of the precious collection and laboratory equipment that once belonged to the Institute of the Sciences, at the Palazzo Poggi Museum you will find not one but two treasure troves of art. The first is an Eastern Art Collection with wonderful Ukiyo-e (“images of the floating world”) woodblock prints on paper – expression of a Japanese art genre that flourished between the 17th and 20th century. The second is a collection of some 700 portraits of illustrious men, spanning from the Middle Ages to the early 1900s: originally making up the University of Bologna’s Picture Gallery, these paintings offer an extensive overview over the most important historical figures in the city’s literature, sciences, theology and politics.

Palazzo Poggi Museum
Bologna
Via Zamboni, 33
Tel.: +39 051 2099610
sma.museopoggi@unibo.it
sma.unibo.it/it/il-sistema-museale/museo-di-palazzo-poggi