In 1563 the gifted Angelo Visca was called from Savona and this marks the start of the Turin School of Anatomy. However the first information about an Anatomical collection dates back to 1739 when Charles Emmanuel III asked the Anatomy professor Giovanni Battista Bianchi to create the University Museum in the building in Via Po which is now the rectorate. Some objects from the eighteenth century collection are conserved to this day in the present Museum of Anatomy. Amongst them is a plaster statue of a pregnant woman (it can be identified in the 1739 inventory conserved in the Turin State Archives) and some anatomical waxes.
1815 – 1837
With the Restoration of the Monarchy the anatomical collection increased again, thanks to the initiative of Luigi Rolando who exhibited it in public in the Palace of the Royal Museums (now the Egyptian Museum). Numerous objects from this collection including important wax models are conserved in the present Museum.
1837 – 1898
The Anatomical Museum was transferred to the Saint John the Baptist main hospital where the collections continued to be enriched. In the last few decades of the century, under the direction of Carlo Giacomini, particular importance was given to the presentation of dried specimens and specimens in alcohol. The enthusiasm for the ideas of Darwin stimulated the development of the Anthropologocal and Primatological collections.
1898
With the construction of the new Anatomical Institute building in Corso Massimo d’Azeglio 52 the Museum was finally transferred to its present location.