Medieval Museum of Bologna
The Museo Civico Medievale of Bologna is located in Via Manzoni, a side street of Via Indipendenza. It houses a rich collection of works and artefacts from the medieval period, with evidence dating back to the 8th-9th centuries.
The origin of the collections
The museum owes its origin to the tradition of
private collections of great scientific personalities, which over the course of time flowed into its collections. Some of the most important ones include that of the Bolognese scientist and naturalist
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), founder of the
city's botanical garden, and
Ferdinando Cospi (1606-1686), a diplomat of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany who collected numerous objects and artefacts during his travels, to the extent that he created his own personal Wunderkammer.
Part of the private collection of
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730) can also be seen today in the Medieval Museum. Marsili was a scientist, military man, geologist and great traveller from Bologna with a very adventurous existence, to whom we owe the foundation of the Institute of Sciences in Palazzo Poggi. It was in this institute that all his collections were brought together so that they could be studied by posterity.
The works on display in the Medieval Museum were originally housed in Bologna's Archaeological Museum, which once included a wing dedicated to the Middle Ages. As the collections grew, it became clear that the building of the Archaeological Museum was no longer suitable for storing them all. In 1984, they were therefore partly transferred to Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava, and the current Medieval Museum was born.
The collection
The collections of the Medieval Museum are extensive. Inside its rooms are objects and artefacts of various kinds, starting with the first rooms. Here, objects belonging to the great personalities mentioned above are on display, including a print depicting Ferdinando Cospi's famous
17th-century Wunderkammer, a so-called chamber of wonders where various objects were collected without any particular display criteria.
The itinerary continues on the ground floor with the
large arches of the University of Bologna sculpted by the Dalle Masegne brothers, objects of Longobard goldsmithery, parts of the ancient selenite walls, and the statue of Boniface VIII, once leaning against the main façade of Palazzo d'Accursio, in Piazza Maggiore, in memory of the pope's beneficial intervention in a dispute between Bologna and Ferrara.
After admiring further tombs of the members of the Bolognese studium in the basement, the museum tour continues on the upper floor, where we first encounter
a collection of glass and ivories, then the collection of weapons of Ferdinando Marsili. Finally, in the bronze room we find some of the city's most significant statues, including the
bronze depicting Neptune made by Jean de Boulogne for the fountain of the same name.
Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava
We now come to the palace that houses the Medieval Museum of Bologna,
Palazzo Ghisilardi Fava, which stands on a site of great importance for the city of Bologna. Right here, in fact, in the 11th century stood the Rocca Imperiale, symbol of Frankish power, destroyed in a siege in 1115 and later replaced with a series of private buildings. The Rocca rested on ancient selenite walls from Roman times, some of which are still visible inside the museum.
In 1483, the palace was purchased by
Bartolomeo Ghisilardi, a member of one of the families allied with the Bentivoglio family, who started a process of renovation of the building but preserved the tower that had previously belonged to the noble Conoscenti family. With this act, the landowning but not noble Ghisilardi wished to elevate themselves to the rank of their predecessors. Having a tower was in fact a symbol of prestige, and only noble families could erect them. The tower is still visible in the central courtyard of the museum; on the opposite side are four large sandstone corbels, one of which is engraved with the initials B. and G. of Bartolomeo Ghisilardi.
