Elena Corradini

The recent history of Italian University Museums starts with the first Network created by 12 Italian Universities, coordinated by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, for a project, approved and financed in the year 2013 by the Ministry of the University and Research, The Network realized a bilingual web portal to increase the interest for science through the knowledge of museums collections and to promote a critical, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary dialogue (https://of.unimore.it/retemusei/www.retemuseiuniversitari.unimore.it/site/home.html).

This Network, increased in 2014 with the inclusion of two Universities, between 2015 and 2018 realized a new project concerning educational paths for lifelong guidance to the scientific method and culture published in the second section of the Network web portal. In 2019 the Network, with other Universities, for a total of 29, created a quarterly web magazine University Heritage. Cultural Heritage on the web (https://universityheritage.eu/).

Another relevant initiative for Italian University Museums is the first census promoted and carried out by CRUI – Conference Italian University Rectors – between 2017 and 2019. This census revealed that 40 Universities have museums for a total of 182, number certainly set to increase.

Now for the Italian University Museums, like for all Italian museums, there is a challenge: to become part of an articulated network coordinated by the Ministry of Culture, the National Museum System.

The article reconstructs the history of the Museum of Tropical Medicine of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, created by Giuseppe Franchini, professor of Colonial Pathology, who moved from Bologna to Modena in 1930. At the University of Modena, thanks to the financial support of the city authorities, Franchini was able to give adequate accommodation to the Museum, unique in Italy1 and of great international importance, which was expanding and acquiring specimens from various parts of the world.

The history of the Museum is related to their transfers and rearrangements: the reconstruction of its history is an indispensable first step of a modern and engaging setting up which should mainly valorize the scientific and multidisciplinary context of the collections, with specific reference to the studies and researches on tropical medicine, parasitology and also on the infectious diseases that the Covid pandemic has made very topical all over the world.

Secondly, the rearrangement of the Museum should be an opportunity to critically present the historical context that was decisive for the realization and progressive expansion of this museum which, alongside the laboratories, was part of the educational infrastructure available to doctors, veterinarians, nurses, and missionaries active in the Italian colonies during the Fascist regime as well as in the Modena University Clinic. Another aspect that should not be overlooked is that the Museum also served the propaganda of the Fascist colonial policy, supported by the leader Benito Mussolini, in particularly to safeguard the health of the people who worked in the African continent. Lastly, the Museum’s reorganization should aid a reinterpretation of the multicultural contexts, by giving a voice to new citizens and to heterogeneous communities by facilitating their social inclusion through direct dialogues and common initiatives.

The Museum’s redevelopment project could be part of a larger endeavor, Ago Modena Fabbriche Culturali (www.agomodena.it), funded by the Modena Foundation, which envisages the redevelopment for cultural purposes of the entire large area of the complex of buildings called Sant’ Agostino and in particular the relocation of some University Museums to the buildings overlooking Berengario street built by the University of Modena between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to house University Medical Institutes Clinics.