Bologna Museum for Palaeontology

[rocket]

This year in March we visited Bologna in Italy to go to the Bologna-show. After shopping we went in the fantastic town and visited Ice-Cream-Shops (fantastic...), Coffee-shops and the wonderful Museum for natural History, Giovanni Capellini (Collezione di Geologia "Giovanni Capellini" - Bologna Welcome)

We were really impressed..., great museum, love to take more with me than we can store at home... (did not do, even some pics shows something other... )

What can I say to the museum? GO there, its great!

I add some pics, enjoy..

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by rocket
some pics double

[rocket]

some more pics..

 

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we did a lot...

 

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last ones..

 

[Italo40]

Thanks for the report!

The paleontological collection of Bologna is one of the finest in Italy. I have visited the museum three times and always learnt something new.

On the other hand I feel that the display is a bit too outdated, it has hardly been renovated since it was opened. There is way too many specimens exhibited in most of the display cases, lighting is reduced or even absent and there's a lack of explanatory boards and labels in english.

As a paleontology enthusiast, I get to enjoy the collections in spite of these issues, but I guess that a casual visitor might struggle a little bit more and not fully enjoy the richness and the significance of this collection. 

I'm not saying that the museum seems to have been abandoned; I for one appreciate an old-fashioned exhibit, it looks like going back in time to the early days of paleontology research. It is not easy at all to strike a balance, between exhibiting a large number of specimens and having adequate explanations, lights and so on for all of them.

All in all, Bologna museum for paleontology would definitely benefit from a full-scale renovation, but somehow those dusty, dark, old-school display cases would be missed!

[rocket]

49 minutes ago, Italo40 said:

Thanks for the report!

The paleontological collection of Bologna is one of the finest in Italy. I have visited the museum three times and always learnt something new.

On the other hand I feel that the display is a bit too outdated, it has hardly been renovated since it was opened. There is way too many specimens exhibited in most of the display cases, lighting is reduced or even absent and there's a lack of explanatory boards and labels in english.

As a paleontology enthusiast, I get to enjoy the collections in spite of these issues, but I guess that a casual visitor might struggle a little bit more and not fully enjoy the richness and the significance of this collection. 

I'm not saying that the museum seems to have been abandoned; I for one appreciate an old-fashioned exhibit, it looks like going back in time to the early days of paleontology research. It is not easy at all to strike a balance, between exhibiting a large number of specimens and having adequate explanations, lights and so on for all of them.

All in all, Bologna museum for paleontology would definitely benefit from a full-scale renovation, but somehow those dusty, dark, old-school display cases would be missed!

 

Sometimes I think it is good to renovate museums, sometimes... In case of the Bologna-Museum I would say: no. It is like the full town, everywhere you look is history, charm, all it not ready but perfect as it is. For us the museum was a fantastic event, full of great fossils but an athmosphere..., full of history, stories, interesting and funny things to see. A real museum, complete as it is. I am sure we will go there again next year

[FranzBernhard]

2 hours ago, Italo40 said:

would definitely benefit from a full-scale renovation, but somehow those dusty, dark, old-school display cases would be missed!

 

1 hour ago, rocket said:

A real museum, complete as it is.

That´s a really tricky thing!

 

The historic mineralogical exhibit from the 1880 in the Joanneum museum in Graz was preserved during the complete, and I mean complete, rearrangement and rebuilding of the natural history museum, located in an 16th century building. You can see some of the old exhibit from 2:10 onward in this video, with the crammed full, historic display cases. Its considered a museum in the museum.

I have worked there in the mineralogical department several times about 20 years ago, but have never visited the new arrangement. The labs are now about 10 km away from the exhibits...

Nature Museum Graz (link to video)

 

Franz Bernhard

[Troodon]

Enjoyed thanks for posting

[Nimravis]

Great pics- thanks for taking the time to post the pictures.

[jdp]

Molto bello, tanti grazie per i foti. Non ho visitato questo museo, e sono molti felice a vidire questi foti qui.

 

As per renovating museums, I have to say, I like some of these older-style halls; there used to be a lot of them in North America too, and they've mostly been renovated away at this point. I think something is definitely lost when every museum display looks basically the same. I've personally always enjoyed museum displays where there are lots and lots of fossils without a ton of explanatory material; I find that this makes each visit new, because you notice different things each time. But, that's just me.