From hospital “knife” to cultural museum artefact. Da “ferro” ospedaliero a bene culturale musealizzato

The University of Siena for almost thirty years has chosen to safeguard and preserve its scientific equipment no longer in use, to study it and to make it available to the public. This choice, at the time considered a “rescue operation” in a context of abandonment, was a fixed point in the process of changing mentality and the beginning of a non-occasional recovery of historical scientific assets. There was also the creation of an organized depository, in conjunction with the establishment of a Siena University Museums System (SIMUS). Over the years, the instruments recovered and cataloged have been valued through temporary exhibitions, but especially have become a fundamental tool for teaching and scientific dissemination to school students, as well as for career counseling. Today, SIMUS has a new great cultural opportunity: to become an actor in local development and to transform its cultural heritage into an effective means of communication with the outside. A new Medical Instrumentation Museum is the latest result of the research work carried out by the staff of the Center for the Protection and Valorization of the Ancient Scientific Heritage (CUTVAP).