Abstract
Reviewed by: Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, University of Bari, Italy
In recent years, a renewed interest in the history of anatomical wax models has emerged, which has been expressed in numerous conferences and interesting publications. The latter, although they have the undeniable merit of having enormously expanded the repertoire of known artefacts, nevertheless continue to offer a ‘pointillist’ vision of a very complex phenomenon, the main evolutionary phases of which developed – depending on the items one wants to take into consideration – over two or three centuries. Malleable Anatomies: Models, Makers, and Material Culture in Eighteenth-Century Italy, by Lucia Dacome, intends to offer a first summary of the studies on the subject, charting an overall reconstruction of Italian anatomical modelling around the middle of the eighteenth century: the result is a dense and fascinating book, which will be a reference point for future research on the topic.
‘Studies of eighteenth-century anatomical displays in the Italian peninsula’, the author begins by saying, ‘have largely focused on the collection of the Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History (“La Specola”), which opened in Florence in 1775, and defined new parameters of anatomical wax modelling that ended up being shared, and sometimes challenged, by others’ (3). This is the awareness that moves Dacome to address, so to speak, the ‘prehistory’ of these events – which is discussed by Anna Marker, among others, in her beautiful Model Experts (2011) – and to focus on Bologna, which she defines as the ‘capital of anatomical display’.
Probably this definition depends a great deal on the fondness that the author has for the city, nevertheless the choice to set aside Florence turns out to be a good one, because it allows her to tell a relatively little-known story, which, in my opinion, has the great merit of explaining territorial realities, such as that of Palermo and Naples, which the historiography of wider circulation often seems to forget. In fact, due to a sort of cultural imperialism, when there is a historical reconstruction that refers only to the realities of central and northern Italy, these works are thought to tell ‘Italian history’, and no critic makes reference to their incompleteness. Instead, when the research refers only to the south, it is labelled as ‘regional history’ and considered very partial and not very useful for the reconstruction of trends concerning the entire peninsula. Well, Dacome aims at a discourse less tied to specific territories, even if – as perhaps was inevitable – some contexts, including, paradoxically, the Roman artistic context (not the curial one), may have deserved more attention.
Malleable Anatomies is, however, clearly the fruit of long years of archive research. The first chapter is dedicated to the efforts made by Prospero Lambertini, and later Pope Benedict XIV, to patronize Bolognese anatomical wax modelling. To tell the truth, Lambertini is in a certain sense the true protagonist of the volume. Dacome follows his efforts, showing their relationship, on the one hand, to the re-evaluation of the importance of anatomy following the progressive ‘medicalization’ of the canonization processes; and, on the other, to Lambertini’s aim to prove himself a pape savant, intent on carrying out a cultural renewal of the Catholic Church.
The second chapter is dedicated to the important figure of Ercole Lelli, who ‘started his career as a harquebus maker and ended it as a connoisseur’ (56). These events offer the author the opportunity to talk about the relationship between art and science in the eighteenth century and, above all, the rivalries between artist-craftsmen. The context in which these personal relationships began, matured and deteriorated is that of the Grand Tour, and its economic interests. Indeed, it was thanks to the reception of foreign visitors that the anatomical room of the Academy of Sciences of Bologna acquired international visibility, relaunching the prestige of those who had wanted it and those who had decorated it.
The third chapter is devoted to the figures of Anna Morandi and Giovanni Manzolini, the former assistant chief of Lelli with whom he had developed rivalries. A particular object of reflection is the figure of Morandi: moving away from the interpretation provided by Rebecca Messbarger in the seminal The Lady Anatomist (2010), Dacome emphasizes how ‘the lady’, rather than representing herself as an emblem of enlightenment renewal, wanted to ‘tame’ her own image to make it more reassuring (we may still imagine that the two strategies were coexistent).
Anna Morandi’s work is also at the centre of the fourth chapter, which is the most ‘transversal’ of all. It raises questions of an anthropological nature, probing the use of wax, above all in artistic and religious-devotional dress. The chapter then focuses on gender issues, since Lambertini supported not only Anna Morandi, but also Laura Bassi, helping her to become one of the most important women of science in the world, and to some extent Maria Gaetana Agnesi, to whom he gave an honorary lectureship in mathematics at the University of Bologna.
The fifth chapter, starting from the obstetric models of Giovanni Antonio Galli, deals with issues related to the transmission of knowledge and practices to midwives. The author explains how, created at a time of booming mania for anatomical displays, Galli’s collection tackled the uncertainties of pregnancy and childbirth through series of anatomical models that concentrated on the parts of generation and the womb at the expense of the whole body. In doing so, it participated in the process that made female anatomy publicly available through the display of dismembered bodily parts. (166)
The sixth chapter traces the history of the construction of the myth of Anna Morandi, from the narrative and iconographic points of view. Dacome dedicates special effort to retracing the events of her collection, which, after the death of ‘the lady’, had to face the logic of a ruthless market.
Finally, the seventh chapter recounts a story delocalized with respect to the core of the book: that of Giuseppe Salerno, the priest and builder of anatomical models from Palermo who, in an attempt to build ties with the Bolognese milieu, contributed to the realization, in Naples, of Raimondo de Sangro, Prince of Sansevero’s, Masonic cultural project. ‘The story of the anatomical machines may be similarly situated in the context of the theatrical convergence of duplication and duplicity, veiling and unveiling that, in the eyes of some viewers, characterized di Sangro’s pursuits’ (251).
To sum up, the volume is rich and important. Focusing more on the lives of wax modellers than on that of the anatomical waxes (which could be a choice), it broadens the horizon on the relationships between art, science, gender and patronage in the eighteenth century.