The Lombroso pavilion, one of the symbolic buildings of the San Lazzaro mental hospital complex - which also hosted the painter Antonio Ligabue - was transformed into a Museum of the History of Psychiatry and opened to the public on 30 September 2012. For almost a century, a place of pain and constraint, the museum now allows us to evoke the particular atmosphere that characterized it. The original spaces, materials, colors and traces of degradation that marked its existence have been respected.

The Museum's collection was established by director Carlo Livi in 1875 to show the progress, discoveries and applications that were a source of pride for psychiatric science and its institution was expanded by subsequent directors.

The ground floor houses a selection of the most significant restraint objects and machinery used for therapeutic purposes, electroshock devices and some cells dedicated to the themes of overcoming psychiatric hospital, the promotion of mental health and the fight against stigma.

The upper floor houses a collection of objects from the historical heritage of the former San Lazzaro, such as the artistic artefacts of the patients and the scientific instruments used in the laboratories.