Whoever studies the history of medicine finds L’Orvietan,” says Lamberto Bernardini. In his laboratory in Orvieto, Italy, a medieval hill town famous for its soaring duomo, that history is all around. Bernardini’s vaulted, frescoed space dates to the 1200s.

One of the rooms in his lab is a museum-like space filled with historic books and framed antique letters, advertisements, and certificates. Centuries-old apothecary jars line the wooden shelves, their labels hand-painted in Italian script: angelica, genziana, mirra. Separated by a glass wall, the other room could be a medieval alchemist’s studio were it not for the modern stainless steel vats, which sit amid rows of glass bottles and stacks of cartons and labels.