Once the main building of the University of Bologna, the Archiginnasio is now home to one of the most unusual places in Bologna, the classroom where medical students learned anatomy by watching as corpses were dissected.
It's not this bizarre aspect that fascinates today so much as the exceptional interior and its unusual wood carving. The highlight is Ercole Lelli's Spellati (Skinless), a life-sized wood sculpture of a man with the musculature and skeletal structure rendered in minute detail.
Also in this building is the Stabat Mater lecture hall, its walls decorated with coats of arms. The University of Bologna, founded in the 11th century, is the oldest university of the Western world.
