Aboca Museum

The Aboca Museum demonstrates how to harness the healing power of herbs.

Precious herbariums, books on pharmaceutical botany, antique mortars, and ceramic and glass artifacts offer visitors millennia-old insights into nature’s beneficial effects on health.

The museum is housed in the historic Renaissance building “Bourbon del Monte” in Sansepolcro, at the headquarters of the Italian healthcare company Aboca. Since 1978, this market leader in the herbal medicine sector has specialized in 100% natural health products.

The Processing of Medicinal Herbs Through the Centuries

The museum’s permanent exhibition, “Herbs and Health Through the Centuries,” is spread across twelve rooms. In the first room, the mortar is presented as a tool for producing medicinal remedies. It demonstrates how the pharmacist’s primary tool evolved over time; a wide variety of materials were used to make it—from alabaster to iron, from silver to ceramics and glass—until bronze emerged as the optimal material.

Read, smell, marvel

The ancient library also houses precious treasures: more than 2,500 specialized books contain information on medicinal plants, chemistry, medicine, and the advancement of human knowledge regarding the healing power of plants. The herb room, lined with dried medicinal plants, is also of great interest: surrounded by the soothing scent of herbs, visitors can admire the ancient tools used for harvesting and processing these natural treasures.

Progress and caution

In the exhibition, visitors also learn about the advances made in the field of natural medicine in the 18th century, the harm that toxic substances can cause if improperly dosed, and what a pharmacy looked like in the 19th century. After visiting the museum, visitors can purchase books and natural medicine products at the Aboca store.