44.49° N · 11.34° E · Bologna
The palace that first brought the University of Bologna's classes together, in 1563, has walls covered with students' coats of arms and a wooden anatomical theatre of 1637. You enter with an online booking, with a 40-minute audio guide in Spanish or a 1 h 15 min guided tour.
Part of Bologna
Who offers it
Independent companies: you book with them, on their terms. Prices are as they publish them and may change.
Step by step
Booking is compulsory. Choose audio guide or guided tour, and arrive ten minutes early: if you are late, you are not moved to the next slot.
With the guided tour, the meeting point is in the courtyard, to the right of the entrance. With the audio guide, on the first floor.
The largest collection of painted heraldry on walls in the world: coats of arms of students from all over Europe.
The old lecture hall of the jurists, if it is not occupied by another activity that day.
Wooden tiers around the dissection table, with wooden sculptures that catch the eye.
The chapel of Santa Maria dei Bulgari and the Cubiculum Artistarum, which cannot be seen with the audio guide.
Since 1838 the palace has been the municipal library, but the visit is to the university of old: corridors and staircases with thousands of painted coats of arms of students and professors, the Stabat Mater lecture hall and the theatre where dissections were carried out in front of the students.
The University of Bologna is one of the oldest in Europe, but for centuries it had no single home: classes were spread across different places in the city. The Archiginnasio, built in 1562 and 1563 next to the basilica of San Petronio, brought all the teaching under one roof for the first time. Jurists on one side, artists and doctors on the other.
What impresses as you walk in are the walls. Corridors, staircases and lecture halls are covered with painted coats of arms and memorial plaques of students and professors from all over Europe: it is the largest collection of painted heraldry on walls in the world. And in the centre, the Anatomical Theatre of 1637, a wooden room with tiers in a circle around the marble table where dissections were carried out before the students.
Anyone curious about history, science or medicine, and teenagers, whom the anatomical theatre usually leaves silent. Children up to 12 get in free. It is a short visit, 40 minutes with the audio guide, easy to fit between other things in the centre.
If you are looking for a big museum with collections, this is not one: it is a building and its history. The library, moreover, cannot be visited.
Audio guide (€10). It lasts about 40 minutes and is in Italian, English, French, Spanish and German. It works with your own phone and headphones, through an app with videos and images. You go in Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 17:30, every ten minutes.
Guided tour (€12). It lasts 1 h 15 min, only in Italian or English, and is the only way to see the chapel of Santa Maria dei Bulgari and the Cubiculum Artistarum. From 1 March, Monday to Saturday, there are Italian slots at 11:30, 15:30 and 16:40, and English at 10:20, 14:20, 16:00 and 17:10.
If you do not get by in English or Italian, choose the audio guide: in Spanish you understand much more.
The audio guide costs €10 (€8 reduced for young people aged 13 to 18 and students with a card). The guided tour, €12 (€10 reduced for young people aged 13 to 18, university students and over-65s). Children up to 12 and people with disabilities, with one companion, enter free. The booking can be cancelled with a full refund up to 24 hours beforehand.
It opens Monday to Saturday; on Sunday there are no visits. The first slots of the morning are usually the quietest. Because the Stabat Mater Hall and the rooms on the guided tour are used for other activities, they may sometimes be closed: the website itself warns of this.
People with reduced mobility enter by Via de' Foscherari 2. The guided tour is accessible only in the first-floor part, and the guide waits for you at the entrance to the Anatomical Theatre. Animals, bulky bags, rucksacks and bicycles are not allowed.
You arrive from Piazza Maggiore without getting wet, under the porticoes. It is a good visit for a rainy day: combine it with the basilica of San Petronio, next door, and a coffee under the porticoes.
Who it's for
What to bring
Map
What you have around the starting point.
More to do
Itineraries
Tips
The guided tour is only in Italian or English; the audio guide is in five languages, Spanish included.
The Archiginnasio is a step from the square and the Clock Tower.
If you are late, you lose the slot and are not refunded.
You can cancel with a refund up to 24 hours before your time.
Questions
From €10 with the audio guide. The guided tour costs €12, €10 reduced for young people aged 13 to 18, university students and over-65s.
Yes, online booking is compulsory.
40 minutes with the audio guide and 1 h 15 min with a guide.
Older children find the anatomical theatre impressive, and with the audio guide it is only 40 minutes. Up to age 12 they do not pay.
No. Visits are Monday to Saturday.
No. The municipal library area is not open to tourist visits.
Geocaliahttps://www.geocalia.com/en/italy/emilia-romagna/bologna/things-to-do/archiginnasio-anatomy-theatre
