Bologna Archaeological Museum
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Archaeological Museum Photos
About Archaeological Museum
This building of the Civic Archaeological Museum of Bologna is located inside Palazzo Galvani, next to Piazza Maggiore. Construction of the building dates back to the XV century. Modifications and renovations continued up to 1881, when it was inaugurated and opened to the public as a Museum. It comprises of 18 rooms of which 12 are dedicated to archaeology.
Down in the basement here is this huge Egyptian collection – one of the largest and most important outside of Egypt – and displays findings made by Kminek and Szedlo in 1895. The collection was transferred here in 1994. Some of the items include limestone reliefs dating to 1332BC, vases, funerary stelae, painted wooden coffins and bronze sculptures. Particularly beautiful are the heads of various Pharaohs dating as far back as 1500 years BC. Other sections here illustrate important items relating to Egyptian civilisation such as coins, medals and mint marks.
During the 18th century when the institute earned prestige among naturalists both national and internationally, the number of historical items increased due to the donations handed in even from private citizens. Among those were distinguished people like Benedetto XIV – the Bolognese Pope Lambertini.
In the beginning of course the institute was part of the university but in 1805 after the Napoleonic invasion it was transferred to Palazzo Poggi. However, a convention many years later held by the Casarini Union in 1871 inaugurated a new museum but it still had no home. The local council after much deliberation then decided to allocate the building of Palazzo Galvani for the new museum which was to house all the archaeological finds in bigger and better surroundings. Antonio Zannoni, the chief engineer of the Commune was set to work on making this possible.
Located on the first floor is the lapidary containing Roman tombstones dating between the mid 1st century BC and mid 2nd century AD. A few in particular are those with portraits of the Cornelli, Alennii and Furvi families. Other tombstones located outside of Bologna display Greek, Christian and Coptic inscriptions and are equally interesting. Most of them though were discovered in 1894 around Bologna’s so-called Reno Wall which acted as a flood barrier against the Reno River.
This area of the museum was one of the first rooms to showcase findings and has since doubled in size. It contains the most ancient of discoveries indicating that humans lived in this area of Bologna since the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age.
The earliest collections which were essentially a few polished stones had been kept on display in the Antiquities room of the University. In 1881 they were transferred here.
In terms of documented history perhaps the best collection can be experienced here through Bologna during the Etruscan age. Thousands of catalogued findings date from 9-8th BC, the aforementioned Villanovan period. Discovered tombs brought to light terracotta and bronze ossuaries which contained figurative decorations on rare vases. Ornaments, pottery and weapons were also found and quite clearly showed evidence of past civilisations having existed within the modern walls of Bologna city.
Most of the items were discovered around the late 19th to early 20th century by chance around excavation sites. This coincided with Bologna’s role in helping to create the study of palaeontology. In the mid 19th century French and Swiss scientists encouraged their Italian counterparts to explore ancient settlements on the shores of the Lombard Lakes.
Italian naturalists at the time such as Giuseppe Scarabelli, Gaetano Chierici, Luigi Pigorini and Pelligrini Strobel soon discovered vast areas of other historic sites and this in turn created great interest and hence more eager scientists joined this new revolution of digging their way into the past.
Newspapers covering these exciting times even managed to whip up excitement among the ordinary folk. Unfortunately this glorious moment was short lived and it wasn’t until after WWII that people like Renato Scarini, Fernando Malvolti and Luigi Fantini once more lead research again in this region.
Between 1871-1881 excavations around Bologna were intensified. Zannoni established the Archaeological Society in 1873 and during this period also many archaeological discoveries were made around Bologna. For example, 991 tombs mostly from the Villanovan period were found although some were also from the Gallic and Roman periods. Etruscan tombs were also discovered in the Marguerite Park during this same huge scale excavation project.
The Villanovan Culture was defined by Giovanni Gozzadini as the most advanced stage of Iron Age demonstrated by many items which where discovered in the Tuscany in a village called Villanova.
Alongside Zannoni and Gozzadini was another influential figure called Edoardo Brizio who was held in high esteem for his studies in liberal arts. He brought with him a new perspective regarding antiquities and soon established a reputation for his work covering prehistoric and proto-historic periods.
Finally, this last room contains a complete gallery of plaster casts of famous Greek and Roman sculptures.