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Museo di Anatomia Umana “Filippo Civinini”

The Museo di Anatomia Umana “Filippo Civinini” was inaugurated in 1832 thanks to the work of figures such as Tommaso Biancini and Filippo Civinini, and to the centuries-old presence of an Anatomical School where studies in human anatomy were carried out. Today it is located on the second floor of the Scuola Medico-Chirurgica, built in 1874. As regards the American continent, it houses a collection of anthropological and archaeological material from South America gathered by Carlo Regnoli. A significant part of this collection consists of 121 pre-Columbian vessels dating to the twelfth–sixteenth centuries, found along the Peruvian coast and belonging to various pre-Inca cultures. Among them stand out vessels of the Chimú and Chancay cultures. In the 1980s many of these damaged vessels were restored under the direction of Renzo Galluzzi, through cleaning and reconstruction. In addition to the vessels, the collection includes other objects such as decorated baskets, copper tools, stone mace heads, and musical instruments. Part of the pre-Columbian material is preserved in glass vials containing fragments of vessels, shells, and plant remains from excavations carried out in Peru in 1869. There are also crania, funerary assemblages, and fardos containing well-preserved mummies from excavations conducted by Regnoli between the 1860s and 1870s, and from subsequent donations, among them that made in 1894 by Baroness Elisa de Boileau.

References

Longhena, M., et al. 2012. “La collezione di reperti preispanici del Museo di Anatomia Umana.” Musei dell’Università di Pisa, Supplemento di Athenet, N. 25, 1-2. Pisa: Tipografia universitaria.

Natale, G. 2002. “Le collezioni di Anatomia umana.” In Arte e Scienza nei musei dell’Università di Pisa, 243-270. Pisa: Edizioni Plus, Università di Pisa.

Rita, C.M. 1990. “Nineteenth-century collections in Italian university museums: a reconsideration of the pre-columbian treasures in Pisa.” In 46° Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti. Atti del simposio Collezionismo Americanista durante il XIX-XX secolo: tradizioni, proposte ed investigazioni. Sezione: Collezioni, collezionismo e musei come fonti storiche, ed. L. Laurencich Minelli, 187-190. Museologia Scientifica 6 (1-4).

Links

Via Roma, 55 – 56126 Pisa