The Virtual Museum of the Salerno Medical School was born from the transformation and expansion of the Educational Museum of the Salerno Medical School, created in 1993 by the Superintendent. In the virtual museum, the themes and protagonists of that glorious chapter, which, in the years immediately following the thousand, saw Salerno at the center of the Western scientific renaissance, come alive again in an engaging and interactive narrative. An important hub for cultural and commercial exchanges, Salerno, a Lombard capital deeply rooted in classical culture, achieved in scientific elaboration expressions of freedom and cultural openness with an international outlook.
Here, through the study of authoritative sources of classical medicine and Arabic medicine and through the medical practice taught and performed by monks and laypeople, the scientific knowledge was defined that placed man with his health, his rules, and his harmony with nature at the center of philosophy. The virtual theater, through a specifically designed script, emphasizes this centrality while symbolically representing the meeting of two distant worlds.
A careful research among precious medieval codices, preserved in the most important Italian and European libraries, provided the very rich iconographic repertoire of the narrative which unfolds smoothly and accessibly, between dramatic presentations and animated miniatures. Over the years, the small museum became a reference point for scholars, tourists, and school audiences to whom extensive documentation and information were offered through films, light panels, photographic reproductions, and reproductions of ancient surgical instruments.
Technological innovation quickly rendered the used equipment inadequate, and it was therefore necessary to design this new setup, which uses the most advanced IT technologies and is capable of widely communicating with a generally informed audience.
Information on the Virtual Museum of the Salerno Medical School
Via dei Mercanti, 74
84100 Salerno (Salerno)
089 2573228 – 089 2573245 / 213
Internet: https://www.lascuolamedicasalernitana.beniculturali.it
