Storia della Psichiatria Museum

The Lombroso Pavilion within the San Lazzaro complex is a unique place that tells the story of psychiatry through the very spaces in which it evolved.

Designed in 1891 as a ward for calm, chronically ill patients and named after Antonio Galloni, the first director of San Lazzaro, the building was converted in 1911 into the Lombroso Section, intended to house ‘discharged criminal lunatics’ and ‘insane prisoners’.
Between 1945 and 1948, its rooms also housed the painter Antonio Ligabue, one of the most striking figures in Italian naïve art.
From 1972, the pavilion was gradually abandoned.

Today, the pavilion stands as a museum of its own history: the cells on the ground floor display restraints and therapeutic instruments that bear witness to the treatment methods of the era: from straitjackets to electroconvulsive therapy machines, from the infamous ‘silence helmets’ to the curious ‘light bath’ apparatus designed to have analgesic effects on patients.

In the three large halls leading up to the cells, visitors can trace the history of San Lazzaro and its leading role in Italian psychiatry.

The restoration, overseen by the Superintendency for Architectural and Environmental Heritage, has respected the original layout and preserved the marks of time and daily life: graffiti left by patients, even made with the soles of their shoes, which powerfully and movingly evoke the memory of those who once inhabited these spaces.
The pavilion itself thus becomes a place where the walls tell the story of the history and lives that have passed through this site.

The San Lazzaro complex

Located on the south-eastern outskirts of Reggio Emilia along the Via Emilia towards Modena, it covers an area of approximately 390,000 square metres.
Today, San Lazzaro is a large urban park dotted with buildings of different eras and functions.

One part houses the Local Health Authority, with administrative offices, clinics and healthcare services; another accommodates university functions, thanks to the pavilions purchased and renovated by the Province of Reggio Emilia for the Faculties of Agriculture, Engineering and Medicine.

Since 2011, the Lombroso Pavilion has housed the Storia della Pasichiatria Museum, offering a journey through the instruments, stories and memories of an era that profoundly shaped Italian psychiatry.
Recently, part of the disused Villa Marchi has been converted into student accommodation, whilst other historic buildings await restoration, preserving the charm of a bygone era and the historical and artistic value of the entire complex.