Category Archives: Europe

Spallanzani Museum

Posted on by
Reply

The Spallanzani Museum (Reggio Emilia, Italy)

Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) was a Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist (I guess back then those three things went together?) who, according to Wikipedia, “made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and animal echolocation.”  During his lifetime he amassed a large collection of specimens which, upon his death, ended up in a gallery at the Palazzo dei Musei in the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Italy.  It’s generally just an old-style zoology collection, but there are quite a few curiosities as well, like two-headed snakes in jars and stuffed cows with legs coming out of their shoulders and that sort of thing. But of particular morbid interest is THIS:

The above photo and others of the exhibit can be viewed at Morbid Anatomy.

Museum Boerhaave

Posted on by
Reply

Museum Boerhaave (Leiden, Netherlands)

From Atlas Obscura:
“The museum, named for Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738), a Dutch physician and botanist, displays over four hundred years of advances in knowledge in a building that dates back to the 1500s. Originally the St. Caecilia nunnery, then a “plague hospital and madhouse,” the historic building was converted to a university hospital in 1653. In 1720, Herman Boerhaave gave a famous series of lectures known as the “sickbed lessons,” marking the beginning of clinical teaching and of the academic hospital in its modern form. In 1991, the St. Caecilia nunnery took its current form as a museum, where displays of human pathology bring to mind a different sort of “life after death” – that of the medical specimen.

“The museum also contains a wonderful collection of antique scientific instruments, natural history displays, and an old operating theater.”

There’s a lovely collection of photos at the Morbid Curiosity Flick page.

Musée de la Médecine

Posted on by
Reply

Musée de la Médecine (Brussels, Belgium)

This museum was created in 1995 to house a variety of medical specimens, most notable of which are a collection of vintage wax models illustrating all sort of horrible venereal diseases and malformations of the genitals.  In other words, when in Brussels, you absolutely need to stop here!

Morbid Anatomy has an article about the museum and a lovely collection of images on Flickr.

Anatomical Museum

Posted on by
Reply

Anatomical Museum (Basel, Switzerland)

The Anatomical Museum (Anatomisches Museum) of the University of Basel dates back to the acquisitional activities of Carl Gustav Jung in the 1820s. As the Collection of Pathology and Anatomy (Pathologisch-Anatomische Sammlung), it moved into its own building in 1880. Two especially significant objects in this collection are the oldest anatomical specimen in the world (prepared by Andreas Vesalius in Basel in 1543) and a skeleton prepared by Felix Platter in 1573.  (Suggested by William Thirteen)

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Posted on by
Reply

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (Orienienburg, Germany)
A Morbid Must-See!

I visited this compelling concentration camp in the former East Germany in the summer of 2014 with a couple of friends who are of the non-morbid persuasion.  I didn’t think they’d be very interested, so I tried to be polite and only allowed a few hours for the visit.  As it turned out, they were every bit as fascinated by this tragic site as I was and we all wished that we’d had a full day to explore.  They have done an incredible job of reconstructing the horror of life and death in the camp via first person accounts and memorabilia, with an especially huge collection of medical history memorabilia.  I highly recommend that if you go, you allot a full day and get there early!

The account of my visit can be read on my Forlorn Photography site:
Nineteen Thirty-Sick!

Wolhusen Mortuary Chapel

Posted on by
Reply

Wolhusen Mortuary Chapel (Lucerne, Switzerland)

“If you wander the streets of Lucerne, you’ll doubtlessly cross the Spreuer Bridge at some point. It’s probably one of Switzerland’s most notable series of Totentanz (Dance of Death) paintings with 45 of the original 67 panels still intact. However, 20 kilometers outside the city, in the quiet suburb of Wolhusen, one of the most unique Dance Of Death paintings is housed in an unassuming mortuary chapel. What makes it so special is that there are actual human skulls set into the plaster of the large mural that circles around the ceiling.”  (Thanks to Howard for the tip.)

Museum of Sepulchral Culture

Posted on by
Reply

Museum of Sepulchral Culture (Kassel, Germany)

sepulchral

This sounds like a goth dream come true!  A museum that blends death-themed modern art with ancient coffins, tombstones, hearses, framed death notices, memorial photography, embalming equipment, mourning clothing, etc.   Here’s an article that goes into greater depth on this fascinating museum:

German Museum of Death Anything But Morbid

Thanks to Steve ORourke for the link.

Museum of Criminal Anthropology

Posted on by
Reply

The Museum of Criminal Anthropology (Turin, Italy)

In 1876 Cesare Lombroso, a forty-year-old former army surgeon and the medical superintendent of a lunatic asylum at Pesaro in northern Italy, published a treatise on criminal man, L’Uomo Delinquente, which claimed that his lifetime study of more than 6000 criminals had shown that they tended to possess certain well-developed physical characteristics.  In Lombroso’s view, habitual criminals tended to have wide jaws, high cheekbones, long arms, and large ears (approximately square in shape), as well as an unusually narrow field of vision.  In 1898, Lombroso founded this museum under the name “the Museum of Psychiatry and Criminology” to display his collections.  There are 400 skulls in his collection, Also on show are drawings, photos, criminal evidence, anatomical sections of “madmen and criminals” and work produced by criminals in the last century. The exhibits also include the Gallows of Turin, which were in use until the city’s final hanging in 1865.  And, best of all, Lombroso’s own head is on display in a jar!