I am unquestionably stating the obvious when I say that Naples, and of course, Italy as a whole, is chock full of amazing options for museums and galleries. In most cities around Italy, you could take a week's holiday and do nothing but hop from museum to museum, gallery to gallery and have an amazing time you would never forget. That being said, a truly great holiday ideally has more than a little variety - so if you are still in the mood for a museum, but have ticked off the traditional collections of ancient statues and awe-inspiring paintings, why not do something a little different? Having personally had our fill of beautiful displays and historic wonders, we found ourselves looking for a new experience, and we certainly found that at the Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti. Situated within the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, this is a small but fascinating display of anatomy knowledge straight from an active university, while it may not be ideal if you are a little squeamish it is a wonderful opportunity to see something you may not get a chance to anywhere else.
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The Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti is situated in the heart of Naples, in the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli not too far from some major landmarks. If you are a tourist walking on foot, the easiest route is to follow Spaccanapoli (the long straight street, quite literally the "Naples Spitter" full of food, drinks and shops) until you reach Via S. Gregorio Armeno, or "Christmas Alley", follow that north up the hill, cross the small square with the statue Monumento a San Gaetano and keep heading up to the next junction, take a left then a right, just up the slope on the Via Luciano Armanni is the entrance on the left. If you are following public transport then it is just as easy to get to, on metro line 2 Cavour is pretty close to the University, if you are on line 1 then Museo is only a little further away - both see you crossing the major road outside the stations and finding a way up to the hills with Via Mario Longo perhaps being the simplest option - when navigating Naples I 100% recommend downloading an offline copy of the city in Google Maps (or the maps app of your choice) to make navigating the alleys and narrow cobbles a bit easier. I will make no recommendations in terms of driving around Naples, I only experienced it from a passenger seat, that being said the road directly outside the University, Via Luciano Armanni, is wide enough for roadside parking and there are a couple of car parks near the metro stations. If you are based outside of Naples but are thinking of a day trip in, even if you have access to a car I would still recommend hopping on public transport instead, it is easy to navigate, cheap and a much quicker way to get around Naples' chaotic streets!
Before you arrive at the Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti, you will need to register, the MUSA website is entirely in Italian but is simple enough to navigate and use and if you use a browser which supports translations automatically it should be a breeze (If you can't, you're looking for "Prenota la Visita" - "Book a Visit", once through you should be greeted by a calendar where you pick a slot and add how many visitors you are booking in). When we visited, the museum was entirely free and we booked about 30 minutes before showing up, although we were certainly in Naples' off-season, so busier times may see slots get taken up quicker. Once through the doors at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, you need to head upstairs and start following signs for MUSA, you will pass through a few halls and up some stairs, nothing that should result in you getting lost - remember as you make your way through, this is an active university, so there will be lectures and people studying, so be respectful. If you are a little confused the folks on the entrance are friendly and very helpful. At the end of the final corridor, there will likely be a member of staff waiting to greet you where you will also find some lockers you can use along with a QR code for the tour-guide app (available in Italian and English) you can install to get the most out of your visit - the university also provides wifi, so downloading the tour won't require data if you are roaming.
The Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti is a single room, with displays separated into glass cabinets, perhaps more modest in scale than some of the museums around Naples, but this makes it a perfect addition to an already chock-full day: if you choose to follow the audio tour you can probably be in and out in about 45 minutes having seen everything on offer, and if you just want to skim around at your own pace you are naturally free to do so. With the tour you will follow the numbered displays up one side and back down the other - I do recommend taking in the audio tour, especially if you are going in a little blind and are not familiar with the scientific world of anatomy, the snippets of information are concise and are informative without being boring or too advanced for a layperson like myself.
Onto the displays, starting with surgical equipment including some ancient examples and onto wax models all the way through to skeletal collections and preserved parts in formaldehyde or dried/mummified bodies - there is a little bit of everything you could really expect to see, and then some! The displays range from documenting the natural progression of human and animal development to showing abnormalities and diseases to help study and better understand them. Some of the most fascinating things at the Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti may turn your stomach if you are squeamish, but to imagine the knowledge that has been derived as well as passed on in teachings through this collection is interesting to contemplate. The back wall and the return walk, dedicated to fetal malformations before transitioning to dissections and body parts preserved in liquids all the way to the full bodies, is particularly enthralling - a real in-depth look at the human body, as well as some interesting anomalies and all the complications that could arise during our gestation. A personal highlight was the Jivaros Trophies, a real-life example of a shrunken head, as well as the collection of ancient skulls dating back as far as the 1st Century BC, including former Pompeii and Herculaneum residents. Even some of the displays that are not quite as eye-catching, like the vascular casts and the stone collections, are just as interesting - it is nightmarish to consider some of those stones actually being kidney and gall stones! If you don't think you have the stomach for some of the real examples, you could always view these from afar while enjoying the wax-work displays instead, safe in the knowledge that these are at least reproductions.
Hopefully, this has tempted you to explore some of the knowledge on offer at the Museo Universitario delle Scienze e delle Arti, it really is a charming little museum and while it may not have been something you would have considered, it offers some amazing insight into the world of medicine - perhaps these items are all perfectly normal for someone pursuing their Medical Degrees, but as an outsider looking in it is all truely engrossing. As a smaller museum, this could easily be tacked on to a bigger day, but as you are right nearby to the main thoroughfares of Naples there are plenty of things you could easily do alongside this, with major museums, great places to eat and the aforementioned streets of Spaccanapoli and Via S. Gregorio Armeno just a stone's throw away. Regardless, the anatomical Museo di Anatomia is a great stop in its own right, one that left us discussing what we had seen for the rest of the day, inspired and curious about what really makes our bodies tick!
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