The “Sistema Museale Universitario Senese (SIMUS)” constitutes a coordinated network and services dedicated to the collection, guardianship, enrichment, classification, development, study and public exposition of the historical, artistic, archaeological, scientific and naturalist goods of interest of the University that, for esteem, importance, and quantity, can not be considered of pertinence to other structures of research and teaching.
Instituted in 2007, the Sistema Museale Universitario Senese (SIMUS):
- favors the safeguarding of the historical, archival, artistic, scientific, archaeologic, and naturalist historical heritage of the university;
- favors and cares for the identification, the appraisal, and the eventual acquisition of historical material present in the teaching and scientific structure of the university, other than the other national or international museum reality, and is responsible for the multicentury history of the Senese University;
- promotes and cares for the activities of inventory, cataloguing, and conservation from the university history;
- promotes the production of catalogs and of other scientific publications;
- promotes and coordinates exposition events, whether they be permanent or temporary, directed also at scientific research, to be educational and informative;
- promotes and coordinates the participation of the University to local, regional, national, and international museological projects by taking care of the relationships with external subjects of the University;
- promotes and coordinates teaching activities meant for the diffusion of the knowledge of the museum heritage of the University and turn it over to the schools of every order and grade.
The museums which comprise SIMUS are:
▪ University Archive and Museum, that conserves the paper documentation produced and acquired from the ancient Studium from 1560-1955, in addition to numerous objects bound to the University life from the fifteenth-century and beyond.
Via Banchi di Sotto, 55 (ground floor) – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 232382
▪ The Prehistoric collection, Classical and Medieval Archaeology: a documentary heritage that was formed in the corse of more than thirty years of inquiry research in Tuscany, Italy, and abroad.
Via Roma, 56 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 233659 / 0577.23 3684 / 0577.23 4637 (Ceramology Laboratory)
andrea.zifferero@unisi.it , alessandra.pepi@unisi.it
▪ The Physics Tools Collection, that comprises of 400 appliances, instruments, and models in a perfect state of conservation, in large part from the 1800s, that attest the history of the discipline.
Via Roma, 56 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 234675 / 0577 232337
▪ The “Leonetto Comparini” Museum of Human Anatomy places in display ancient anatomical tables, wax models, microscopic preparations and relative istoteche of the time period, osteological collections and scientific instrumentation of the era.
Polo scientifico San Miniato, Via Aldo Moro, 6 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 232080 /0577 232089 / 0577 232096 / 0577 235827
margherita.agliano@unisi.it, daniela.franci@unisi.it, paola.lorenzoni@unisi.it,
▪ The Botanical Gardens (Gardens and Herbarium). The garden covers a surface of 2.5 hectors, where the biological diversity (more than 1000 species of plants) is preserved outside of its own habitat and activities of environmental conservation are furthered in situ. The Herbarium is a structure that collects, catalogues, and conserves more than 80,000 dried samples of vascular plants, mushrooms, lichens, bryophytes, and algae.
Via P.A. Mattioli, 4 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 232075 / 0577 232076
▪ The Earth Sciences Museum, that gathers mineralogical, petrographical, and paleontological collections of the Sienese University.
Via del Laterino, 8 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 233730
museodiscienzedellaterra@unisi.it
▪ The Medical Equipment Museum exhibits in the eighteenth-century church of Santa Maria Maddalena ancient medical instruments (from the 17th to the 20th century) coming largely from the thousand-year-old Santa Maria della Scala hospital, seat of the Medical Faculty, and from university institutes, which testify to the great activity of the Sienese University in the research and teaching of sciences, with particular regard to the health field.
It has an organized museum depot with more than 5000 medical-scientific instruments.
Via P.A. Mattioli, 4/B – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 235469 / 0577 235470
Via Aldo Moro, 6 – 53100 Siena (organized museum depot)
Tel. +39 0577 235468
davide.orsini@unisi.it, antonio.giudilli@unisi.it, angela.caronna@unisi.it
▪ Astronomical Observatory. The Observatory at the moment is a powerful teaching and study asset for university students, but also an engaging and alluring experience for high school students involved in vocational guidance activities. The Observatory’s telescope and instruments enable them to discover the night skies, and learn how to interact with all the most up-to-date technologies for remoteobservation and acquisition of astronomical imagery.
Via Roma, 56 – 53100 Siena
Tel. +39 0577 232331