anatomical room

Abstract

In the 1960s, some of the buildings of the old Ospedale Maggiore Sant’Andrea of Vercelli were demolished. Nonetheless, an elegant late-neoclassical part of the complex was spared. The floor plans found in the Fondo Ospedaliero, in the State Archive of Vercelli, reveal this building housed an anatomical theatre, a study and, beneath it, a morgue. From the same archives we learn the year of construction was 1852. Mentions of human dissection can be found in records of that same period. Earlier such mentions can also be found, starting 1729, for both internal hospital use and for teaching purposes at the local university, which had been decentralised from Turin at the end of the 18th century. However, no mention of an anatomical theatre is made on the floor plans or legend, despite numerous sources making ample reference to it.