Parma's MUST: First Fully Accessible Museum of Natural Historiography

The University of Parma has inaugurated the Museo di Storiografia Naturalistica (MUST), the first museum dedicated to natural historiography, fully accessible and housed in the university's central building. The museum combines two previously separate, little-known collections into a single reimagined space displaying approximately 6,000 objects, including paleontological fossils, taxidermied animals, anatomical specimens, and historical artifacts spanning from the 18th to the 20th century. Key exhibits include a dolphin fossil with shark predation marks and a Pliocene whale skeleton. The museum's layout features a Renaissance-inspired Wunderkammer with crocodiles, shells, and bizarre creatures, plus a contemporary intervention by director Davide Persico. A horror-themed room displays wax masks of criminals made by Lorenzo Tecchini for Cesare Lombroso. Interactive 'animated paintings' show actors portraying historical figures like Duchess Maria Luigia, who donated a narwhal tooth and a meteorite that fell in Parma in 1808. The museum highlights Pellegrino Strobel, who introduced Darwin's theories to Parma, and includes reconstructions of his study. Other sections cover ethnography, Vittorio Bottego's taxidermied animals from Eritrea, Alberto del Prato's 19th-century local fauna collection, and Angelo Andres's marine biology study. A dark polyhedral structure houses Ezio Boarini's collection of nearly 300 boxes of butterflies and beetles, acquired in the 1990s.