The Universities of Padua and Trieste have recently signed an agreement to deliver a cross-institutional anatomical education programme for students of a dentistry and orthodontics course. According to this agreement, the students of the two universities are jointly involved in anatomical education activities. The University of Trieste has recently implemented a programme of digital anatomy, which aims to provide teaching with detailed three-dimensional views of anatomical structures. Firstly, dental students at both universities attend digital anatomy sessions on this programme. The Institute of Human Anatomy at the University of Padua holds the Reference Centre of the Veneto Region for Body Donation (Decree of 8th March, 2019), which is also one of the few Italian Reference Centres recognised by the Health Ministry (Decree of 21st November, 2022). As such, the University of Padua is one of the few Italian institutions that is permitted to deliver anatomy teaching using cadaveric resources. Following the sessions of digital anatomy in Trieste, dissections are performed at the Institute of Human Anatomy in Padua, with both sessions delivered for the students at both universities. For both the digital and cadaveric sessions, dental specialists contribute to delivery by emphasising the clinical implications of the anatomy being taught, and by highlighting surgical approaches to anatomical dissection. Here, a pilot evaluation of a combined digital-cadaveric approach to anatomy education is presented, which shows highly positive student perceptions of the format across several areas, including the content, resources, educators and facilities. The valuable cross-institutional collaborative interactions between anatomists, dental specialists and dental students who are facilitated by this combined approach are also described.