The Museo San Colombano – Collezione Tagliavini in central Bologna features the unusual sight of a Renaissance-era church decorated with frescoes and filled with harpischords, pianos, and other keyboard instruments. The story of how this museum came to be housed within a deconsecrated church is complicated. Originally, the site held a church built in the seventh century, though little of the original structure remains. In 1591, an oratory was built on top of it, and later its interior was decorated with frescoes. The church closed in 1798 under Napoleonic rule,…
