Mudimed: Italy's first digital museum of medical history launches

Mudimed, Italy's first digital museum dedicated to the history of medicine and the scientific method, launched on October 20. Promoted by Novartis Italia and the Ministry of Culture, with participation from the Ministry of University and Research and technological support from Google Arts & Culture, the online platform showcases artifacts from major Italian museums, libraries, and archives. These include the National Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples, as well as the Museum of the History of Medicine at La Sapienza and the National Central Library in Rome. Exhibits range from terracotta anatomical votives from Pompeii, reflecting ancient devotional medicine, to 17th-century frescoes depicting past epidemics, early surgical instruments, and milestones in vaccination and modern pharmacology. Expert-led explanatory videos cover topics such as theurgic and magical-religious medicine, patient intervention, the perception of suffering, the development of anatomy, and frontiers of modern medicine. The museum aims to engage both specialists and the general public, revealing historical curiosities like terracotta body parts offered to deities for healing, the story of a child from Fidene with hydrocephalus, and artworks showing disease and cure, such as Luca Giordano's fresco of San Gennaro interceding for the plague of 1656. Mudimed is designed as an evolving project, with new works and pathways added regularly.