Established in 1991 by the Local Health Unit 9 of the Distrect of Reggio Emilia and the Institute for Cultural Heritage of the Emilia Romagna, the center documents the history of psychiatry in the Mental Hospital of Reggio Emilia. It preserves the bibliographic heritage, archival and iconographic,of the Neuropsychiatric Institute of San Lazzaro, located in a large complex of buildings built on the site used in the thirteenth century as a leper colony from and intended to welcome the alienated. Used as a place of healing in the first half of the nineteenth century, is homes different health services. The original core of the collection is the library of Dr. Zani, director of the Institute from 1871 to 1873: about a thousand volumes which were added the bequest Tamburini and other consisting of texts of psychiatry, neurology, anatomy and histo-pathology, periodicals century. A section collects forensics texts, criminology, as well as major essays of Lombroso and Ferri. The center also includes an archive of documents from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century and a photographic collection ordered since 1880. In the two rooms of the museum are exhibited therapeutic tools or containers and laboratory equipment, as well as ceramics, embroidery, leather goods, paintings and sculptures made by inmates. Oratory annex, rebuilt in 1785, keeps some interesting paintings seventeenth-eighteenth century. Through extensive investigation and pioneering in Italy, the Institute of Cultural Heritage has promoted in recent years the census of the works of art created on the territory thanks to the so-called 2%, from the year of enactment of the law up to this fact (Law 717 of July 29, 1949, requires that 2% of the total expenditure for the construction of a public building is attributed to the implementation of works of art Contextual buy or specially made by a choice of artists performed with announcement theme). The present building contains works of art acquired under this rule.