The science and art is alright but the coolest might be various works and documents about the city that the museum owns and (often) does not exhibit. A glimpse at the maps, models, and figures about the University and urban Bologna was not enough for me. We can just imagine the items that were 'not there' by hiding, ignoring, and (of course) destroying hands of the museum.
The occasion was a casual visit with a family visiting my home in Bologna. A morning weather greatly enriched the visit in October. In fact there was an added layer of curation "Ulisse Aldrovandi, the renaissance" in that period, which was fine apart from seeming like an obvious fundraising/kick-starter to attract certain local foundations.(fwi. Aldrovandi was born in Bologna.)
A very underrated geography/navigation collection is at the very end. And what kind of person places that next to the exit! While it is extremely tempting to pass the anatomy collection, but I will strongly recommend the reader to visit this part first. If not, (chances are) not more than a few minutes could be spent there (or even miss the whole thing!). There is clear downside of this type of renaissance-minded holistic collections.