The three Museums on display that can be visited at the University Citadel of Monserrato belong to C.I.M.C.A.S. – Interdepartmental Center of Museums, Collections and Historical Archives of the University of Cagliari. The Sardinian Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography was founded in 1953 by Prof. Carlo Maxia and was attached to the then Institute of Anthropology. It has been based in the Monserrato University Citadel since 1998. The museum houses a collection of human skeletal remains, mostly Sardinian, dating from about 4,000 years BC. C., a collection of paleopathological remains, including two drilled skulls from the Nuragic period, a series of casts representative of the main stages of human evolution, and a collection of skeletal remains used for educational purposes. The museum also houses a collection of traditional Sardinian clothing, musical instruments, objects from the peasant and pastoral tradition, lithic and clay artifacts from the protohistoric period, ancient prints, a collection of votive offerings, and a collection of slides and films on the evidence of Sardinian protohistory and folk traditions. Two mummies and some anatomical preparations from the last century are very interesting. Museum of Chemistry In the hallways of the Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences are eight cabinets with display cases that constitute a remarkable example of the craftsmanship of the late 1800s in which instruments and glassware in use in the Laboratories of the Cagliari Citadel University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are stored. A display case containing a rare specimen of Deleuil’s Precision Scales was made. Several valuable pieces of chemical equipment, dating from the early 1900s, belong to the collection. Faithful copies of the originals of the devices invented and fine-tuned by Pacinotti are part of the collection: the two “Rings” and the machine for rotating the Rings. The Museum of Physics is a prestigious facility that ranks in the upper half of national science museums in terms of abundance of exhibits, their value and state of preservation. The vast exhibition (several thousand pieces) runs throughout the large gallery on the ground floor of the Physics Department. The original dynamo of A. Pacinotti, the glory of Cagliari Physics, one of the ten inventions that shocked the world, and a working copy of it can be seen. The interactive Physics Experiments section is available to the public. A modern, living museum is a place where people can interact firsthand with experiments and exhibits made available to them. Other spectacular installations include the rotation of our Globe with Sardinia’s largest Foucault Pendulum. A two-volume catalog of the collection of apparatus and instruments from the 1700s and 1800s is available upon request.
