Description
Padua's Anatomical Theatre is the oldest permanent anatomical theatre in the world: a wooden funnel built in 1594 inside Palazzo del Bo, where for almost three centuries medical students watched dissections of corpses from above. It has come down to us intact and can be seen on the guided tours of the Bo.
Its shape is an inverted cone on an elliptical plan: six tiers of stacked galleries, with railings of carved walnut, rising tightly around the dissecting table. At the bottom the first tier is barely three metres wide, at the top about seven and a half.
The space was measured to the centimetre: between the railing and the next step there are just 40 centimetres. Students squeezed onto the upper tiers; below, around the table, sat the rectors and a few nobles. The carved walnut chair where the professor sat is still kept today.
You reach the theatre through a small door in the Bo's Hall of Medicine. Above it, a Latin inscription explains the meaning of the place: «Mors ubi gaudet succurrere vitae», «where death rejoices in helping life».
The theatre was born from a complaint. The German medical students grumbled that they had no proper place to follow anatomy lessons, and the surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d'Acquapendente decided to build one. Until then a wooden theatre had been taken down and put up again every year.
The lessons really did have something theatrical about them. The corpse, always that of a condemned criminal, was covered with a funeral cloth, its head veiled in black. When the professor came in, an attendant uncovered it and lit two candelabra at the ends of the table, while the rest of the hall stayed dark.
For centuries the windows stayed shut and the only light came from candles, including eight tapers held by as many students. To lighten the atmosphere, the lesson was often accompanied by live music. A movable roof let the bad smells out.
In 1845 the windows were opened and the railings, until then of polished walnut, were painted white. The theatre stopped working in 1872, when executions, and so the corpses to study, had become ever rarer.
Don't miss
• Inverted cone.
• Carved walnut railings.
• The professor's walnut chair.
• Inscription «Mors ubi gaudet succurrere vitae».
Did you know?
In 1596 a decree of Doge Marino Grimani made anatomy lessons free for all students.
After Padua, similar anatomical theatres sprang up at many European universities.
Its shape is an inverted cone on an elliptical plan: six tiers of stacked galleries, with railings of carved walnut, rising tightly around the dissecting table. At the bottom the first tier is barely three metres wide, at the top about seven and a half.
The space was measured to the centimetre: between the railing and the next step there are just 40 centimetres. Students squeezed onto the upper tiers; below, around the table, sat the rectors and a few nobles. The carved walnut chair where the professor sat is still kept today.
You reach the theatre through a small door in the Bo's Hall of Medicine. Above it, a Latin inscription explains the meaning of the place: «Mors ubi gaudet succurrere vitae», «where death rejoices in helping life».
The theatre was born from a complaint. The German medical students grumbled that they had no proper place to follow anatomy lessons, and the surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d'Acquapendente decided to build one. Until then a wooden theatre had been taken down and put up again every year.
The lessons really did have something theatrical about them. The corpse, always that of a condemned criminal, was covered with a funeral cloth, its head veiled in black. When the professor came in, an attendant uncovered it and lit two candelabra at the ends of the table, while the rest of the hall stayed dark.
For centuries the windows stayed shut and the only light came from candles, including eight tapers held by as many students. To lighten the atmosphere, the lesson was often accompanied by live music. A movable roof let the bad smells out.
In 1845 the windows were opened and the railings, until then of polished walnut, were painted white. The theatre stopped working in 1872, when executions, and so the corpses to study, had become ever rarer.
Don't miss
• Inverted cone.
• Carved walnut railings.
• The professor's walnut chair.
• Inscription «Mors ubi gaudet succurrere vitae».
Did you know?
In 1596 a decree of Doge Marino Grimani made anatomy lessons free for all students.
After Padua, similar anatomical theatres sprang up at many European universities.