The next great museum in Bologna was the
Pinacoteca Nazionale. On the way there I saw graffiti reflecting the city's political persuasion (
"Viva Che Guevara!") alongside effigies of Bart Simpson... a very modern paradox, I'm sure. The Pinacoteca Nazionale is situated near the
University of Bologna, "probably the first University in the Western world" (according to their website and pamphlets), which was established around the year 1088 a.d. The art in the museum ranges from the 13th through the 19th centuries, and while it is primarily paintings there are also frescoes, marble busts, wooden carvings, and Byzantine wooden paintings (specially featured in the
current exhibit). The paintings' themes, like those in most of Italy, mostly focus on either Biblical stories or Greco-Roman mythological stories, the latter of which has been my obsession for some time, so I was delighted to see the many interpretations of the Rape of Europa, Perseus and Andromache, and various images of Poseidon ("Nettuno"), who seemed to be something of a secular saint in Bologna.
The next museum on my list was the
Museo Civico Medievale, which houses some of the most amazing works of bronze I have ever seen.
From archbishops to St. Michael,
fish to unicorns, Greek heroes to butterflies, these were some of the most finely wrought metalworks in the world. The museum also holds funerary reliefs, marble statues, reliquaries
boasting
the digits of some of history's most important figures, and a wonderful collection of antiquated weapons that I have only ever seen the likes of in Venice's Palazzo Ducale. Everything from wooden lances and muskets to maces and armor for horses filled the cases, much to the delight and fascination of the male schoolchildren who were there on a field trip.
The next great museum in Bologna was the Pinacoteca Nazionale. On the way there I saw graffiti reflecting the city's political persuasion ("Viva Che Guevara!") alongside effigies of Bart Simpson... a very modern paradox, I'm sure. The Pinacoteca Nazionale is situated near the University of Bologna, "probably the first University in the Western world" (according to their website and pamphlets), which was established around the year 1088 a.d. The art in the museum ranges from the 13th through the 19th centuries, and while it is primarily paintings there are also frescoes, marble busts, wooden carvings, and Byzantine wooden paintings (specially featured in the 
current exhibit). The paintings' themes, like those in most of Italy, mostly focus on either Biblical stories or Greco-Roman mythological stories, the latter of which has been my obsession for some time, so I was delighted to see the many interpretations of the Rape of Europa, Perseus and Andromache, and various images of Poseidon ("Nettuno"), who seemed to be something of a secular saint in Bologna.
The next museum on my list was the Museo Civico Medievale, which houses some of the most amazing works of bronze I have ever seen.
From archbishops to St. Michael, 
boasting 
the digits of some of history's most important figures, and a wonderful collection of antiquated weapons that I have only ever seen the likes of in Venice's Palazzo Ducale. Everything from wooden lances and muskets to maces and armor for horses filled the cases, much to the delight and fascination of the male schoolchildren who were there on a field trip.
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