The Museum of Biomedicine preserves important biomedical collections belonging to the tradition of ceroplasty, macroscopic anatomy and criminological and forensic constitutionalism developed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries at the University of Parma
Pianta di Palazzo CusaniSistema Museale Università di Parma
Anatomical artifacts appear, probably, in the Studium Farnesiano in the seventeenth century, by a wax Anatomical and Pathological Cabinet, whose existence is still today a reason for historical-scientific investigation, which was located in the ancient seat of the University (now Palazzo Cusani) next to the Church of San Francesco del Prato.
The wax collection
Of particular importance is the wax plastic collection, which includes two extraordinary wax statues from the 18th century and 37 wax masks (moulages) dating back to the end of the 19th century.
The wax statues
The life-size wax statues, with a horizontal arrangement, are kept in glass and wood showcases on mattresses, all original from the 18th century. These two masterpieces, attributed to the Florentine School of Clemente Susini, are perhaps the work of a still largely unknown ceroplast, Andrea Corsi, anatomical professor of ceroplasty in Parma between 1776 and 1820. A body highlights part of the superficial and deep arterial system in relation to the muscular masses, presenting strong similarities with Susini's works preserved at the Specola in Florence and in Vienna. The other shows the distribution of the subcutaneous lymphatic and venous vascular system, the fine detail of which suggests the contribution, in the course of modeling, of a specific anatomical consultation such as the one that Paolo Mascagni, a great scholar of the human lymphatic system, provided to Susini for many of his works.
Restauro Spellato_1Sistema Museale Università di Parma
In 2013 one of the two wax statues, the so-called “Spellato” (literally "skinned"), underwent a major restoration.
Restauro Spellato_2Sistema Museale Università di Parma
Due to the bombings during the Second World War and subsequent, numerous and inadequate repairs and / or consolidation interventions, the statue had progressively deteriorated.
Restauro Spellato_3Sistema Museale Università di Parma
The work, which lasted a year, took place in Florence, at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. The statue highlights parts of the superficial and deep arterial system in relation to the muscular masses and presents strong stylistic analogies with works by Susini preserved at the Specola in Florence and in Vienna.
Restauro Spellato_4Sistema Museale Università di Parma
TenchiniSistema Museale Università di Parma
Tenchini's masks (Moulages)
The precious collection of moulages, created by the anatomist Lorenzo Tenchini, professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Parma, is, on the other hand, unique in the Western world: the wax masks, vegetable tissues (cotton), human epidermis and plaster, reproduce the face of inmates on whom Tenchini performed anatomical studies and were prepared for strictly scientific purposes.
Maschere in ceraSistema Museale Università di Parma
The precious collection of moulages, created by the anatomist Lorenzo Tenchini, professor of Human Anatomy at the University of Parma, is, on the other hand, unique in the Western world: the wax masks, vegetable tissues (cotton), human epidermis and plaster, reproduce the face of inmates on whom Tenchini performed anatomical studies and were prepared for strictly scientific purposes.
The dry preparations
Also of great importance is the remainder of the anthropological-criminal collection, which includes over 400 skulls of prisoners and / or psychiatric patients, who died of disease, which corresponds to a collection of mummified brain) and a part of dry preparations of whole regions of the human body (mainly for didactic use for students of university courses at the University of Parma).
Encefalo mummificatoSistema Museale Università di Parma
All the finds can be associated with medical records and those relating to their personal and judicial history.
Preparati a seccoSistema Museale Università di Parma
These paper materials are kept in the Historical Museum Library, annexed to the current headquarters of the collections.
The collection of modern waxes
Towards the middle of the twentieth century, thanks to the work of the Anatomical School of Gaetano Ottaviani and Giacomo Azzali, the collections were enriched with wax-plastic reproductions concerning the ultrastructural anatomy of the lymphatic vessels of mammals and humans, through a complex technique that, starting from images obtained at the transmission electron microscope of ultra-fine serial sections, it allows, through various steps, to reform the three-dimensional wall of the studied lymphatic vessel in wax. Today the Museum's activity ranges from biomedical robotics to human organogenesis morphology and endocrinology, to the techniques of anatomical conservation and ceroplasty.
The Historical Museum Library
The Historical Library, annexed to the Museum, collects the historical-scientific documentation relating to the collections. In particular, it includes the files of dry preparations, the autopsy books and the publications made in the nineteenth century by the anatomists who taught at the University of Parma, in particular those of Giovanni Inzani and Lorenzo Tenchini, as well as the scientific works and monographs that they were published using the materials that are now part of the Collections. The Library also possesses precious Renaissance (16th century) editions of ancient medicine and rare anatomical texts from the 18th century.
