The Jewish Museum of Bologna opened in May 1999 and stands at via Valdonica 1/5, inside Palazzo Pannolini, in the area of the former ghetto. It is run by a foundation made up of the Region, the Province, the City and the Jewish Community of Bologna.
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Where
Via Valdonica 1/5, in the area of the former Jewish ghetto.
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Open since
May 1999.
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Who runs it
A public foundation: the Region, the Province, the City and the Jewish Community.
Palazzo Pannolini
The museum occupies Palazzo Pannolini, named after the family who lived there between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Pannolini were known as cloth makers and merchants as early as 1384, and the building was put up around 1554 by Francesco Pannolini, who joined the existing medieval houses into a single block. In the seventeenth century, following a wish expressed in a will, it became a boarding school for poor students, closed in 1745 by Pope Benedict XIV; it then passed to Count Malvasia, who absorbed it into his own adjoining palace.
How the visit is arranged
The permanent exhibition tells the history of the Jewish people from its origins to the present day, in three parts. Every subject can be followed at three levels of depth — a video for the general picture, display panels for the detail, CD-ROMs for those who want to go further — and visitors choose how far to go.
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Section I · From the origins to the Diaspora
From the Patriarchs to the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem, with the sacred texts and the Jewish calendar, its months and its festivals. A large portrait by Aldo Mondino is on display, a figure wrapped in a tallit. The first room also holds a funerary stele in memory of Avraham da Trani, from the first Bolognese cemetery in via Orfeo; four more headstones are at the Medieval Civic Museum.
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Section II · The dispersal and the twentieth century
You enter beneath an arch built of stones from Jerusalem. A large map shows the dispersal of the Jews across Europe and the Mediterranean; video panels cover Zionism, Nazi-Fascist persecution and the birth of the State of Israel. A small memorial bears, cut into the ground, the names of the Jews deported from Emilia-Romagna.
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Section III · Bologna and Emilia-Romagna
The history of the Jews in the region from the Middle Ages to the present, with maps, photographs and databases. CD-ROMs cover family life, community life, festivals and traditions. One case holds the Torah objects given by the Jewish Community of Modena: the cloth that wraps it, the rollers, the plaque and the crown.
Beyond the exhibition
The museum runs seminars, courses in Jewish language and culture, conferences, exhibitions, performances, games and activities for children, and trips to Jewish places in Italy and abroad. Inside there is a Jewish bookshop, which also sells Judaica and kosher wines.
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Museum website
museoebraicobo.it
Opening times, tickets, current exhibitions and guided visits.
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Virtual tour
The museum on video
A walk through the rooms without leaving home.
Sources: the Jewish Museum of Bologna and Jewish itineraries in Emilia Romagna, Touring Club Italiano.