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Photo: enrico tabellini, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
A spectacular collection of music scores, historic instruments, and opera artifacts from 1500 to the early 1900s. There is the first printed score, a 1501 Petrucci. There is the original Clavemusicum Omnitonum of 1606, with 125 keys playing 31 quarter-tones per octave. There is a portrait of Farinelli, perhaps the greatest opera singer of all time. The library was kickstarted in the 1700s by Padre Martini, a Bolognese composer and music teacher, who in addition to teaching students like Johann Christian Bach and Wolfgang Mozart, was a voracious collector of scores and books. The museum highlights the best of the extensive library. Look for unobtrusive drawers in display cases, marked only by finger-holes; a pull lights up the drawer, and reveals some precious, and light-sensitive, book within. The eight rooms of the museum are also painted with beautiful 19th century trompe l'oeil frescos. Classical music fans will go nuts.
The Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica is a music museum and music library in the Palazzo Aldini Sanguinetti, in the historic center of Bologna, Italy.
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Davia Bargellini Museum
A most curious collection, including religious art of the 1500s, a marionette theatre, an 18th-century gilded carriage, and antique keys and door hardware. Housed in a 17th-century palazzo.
Philharmonic Academy
The Philarmonic Academy of Bologna was established in 1666. Since then it has become a reference point for the city musical life and its fame has spread throughout Europe. Here are preserved the works of many illustrious students, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1770) and autographed documents by Puccini, Verdi and Beethoven
Loggia dei Mercanti
Museo della Storia di Bologna
The Museum of the history of Bologna is located there.
Tower of the Asinelli
Closed to the public since October 2023, the tower (built between 1109 and 1119) is 97.20 metres tall (330 feet), with 498 steps and an incline of 1.3 meters (4 feet). Until 2023 you could climb the 498 steps of this tower for spectacular views of the city, but that month it was closed to the public for safety reasons and renovations are expected to take ten years.
Tower of Garisenda
Torre dei Garisenda is 47 m (162 feet) tall and has a lean of over 3m (10 feet). It was built in the 12th century.