Giacomo Doria Museum of Natural History, Natural history museum in Genoa, Italy
The Giacomo Doria Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in Genoa, housed across two floors with rooms dedicated to zoology, botany, and geology. On display is a selection of specimens drawn from one of the largest natural science collections in Italy.
The museum was founded in 1867 by naturalist Giacomo Doria, who built up its first collections through expeditions across Asia, Africa, and South America during the 1800s. Over time, the collection grew into one of the most complete natural science archives in the country.
The museum has been home to the Italian Entomological Society since 1922, and visitors can see insect collections gathered during scientific expeditions from around the world. This link to ongoing research gives the place a working, active feel rather than that of a static display.
The museum sits on a central street in Genoa and is easy to reach on foot or by public transport from the city center. Everything is indoors and the building is fully wheelchair accessible, so a visit works well in any weather.
One room, known as the Cell, contains a three-dimensional model of a biological cell scaled up 100,000 times its real size. Walking around it gives visitors a sense of what the interior of a living cell actually looks like at a human scale.
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