12:1
(18) The Anatomical Venus begins at the time and place of the creation of the Medici Venus—eighteenth-century Florence, Italy. Staunchly Catholic, with a long tra dition of realistic wax anatomies in the form of sacred ex-votos manufactured for the pilgrims trade, Florence was also the epicentre of the Renaissance, which ushered in a great flowering of naturalistic representation in the arts and an unprecedented popular interest in the study of human anatomy. Ruled and patronized by the Medici dynasty from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, in 1765 it came under the power of Leopold II (1747–92), a secular and humani tarian ruler from Habsburg, Vienna. Ten years later, led by his Enlightenment values, Leopold II—as Grand Duke of Tuscany—founded the first truly public science museum in Florence in 1775. Under the leadership of the court’s physi cian, natural philosopher Felice Fontana (1730–1805), the wax workshop at the fig. 2 Early-eighteenth century dissectible ivory miniature manikin of a pregnant female, Italy. fig. 2 fig. 3 fig. 3 Eighteenth century wooden and ivory miniature based on Rembrandt’s famous painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). The original subject—Aris Krindt, a man hanged for robbery on 16 June 1632 and dissected at the Surgeons’ Guild, Amsterdam—has been replaced by a dissectible female figure, similar to the ivory anatomical manikins of the period (see pp. 36, 52–53). museum’s core attempted to create an encyclopaedia of the human body in wax with which to teach and delight a popular audience. The finest and most iconic of these wax bodies—and the centrepiece of the museum—was the Medici Venus. This book examines the precursors of the Medici Venus—anatomized and dissectible female figures in both sacred and profane domains—along with the artistic and theological predecessors that provided an aesthetic and conceptual framework for these models of feminine beauty intended to beguile as well as instruct. It tells the story of the creation of the first anatomical museum in Bologna, equal parts church and pedagogical tool, founded by the scientifically minded Pope Benedict XIV (1675–1758). It also investigates the similar yet con flicting ways in which Catholicism and medicine seek to preserve and effigize the body, and delves into the history of wax itself, uncannily similar in appear ance to human flesh, and used since ancient times for a variety of death- and magic-related purposes. The book follows the journey of the Anatomical Venus to the fairground and the popular museum of the nineteenth century, where AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 18 12/01/2016 12:14 IntroductIon
(19) she and her sisters—living, wax and even automated ‘sleeping beauties’ in glass boxes—served as alluring centrepieces for displays that were at once educa tional and titillating. It traces the transformation in the meaning of the ecstatic from a religious, mystical experience to an erotic one, and follows the degen eration of the Anatomical Venus from beautiful instructional model to passive, life-sized doll created for men who prefer idealized surrogates to real women, or who have fashioned effigies of their beloveds in order to possess them for all time. It also looks at some of the ways in which artists and writers have taken the Anatomical Venus as their departure point or muse. Finally, The Anatomical Venus provokes reflections upon the ways in which formerly mystical experiences have been sublimated and in which the ghost has officially become redundant in the machine. It ultimately considers why fig. 4 Miniature wax memento-mori models depicting a fashionable Regency-era man and woman with semi exposed skeletons. UK (c. 1800). fig. 4 fig. 5 the Anatomical Venus has come to seem so strange to modern sensibilities, a classic example of the uncanny. Only a little over two hundred years ago she was the perfect tool to teach human anatomy to the public; today she is bizarre—an alluring, life-like female wax model in a state of ambiguous ecstasy with her inner organs on graphic display. Perhaps she could only be truly understood for a brief period, a time when it was still possible for religion, art, philosophy, and science to coexist peacefully; she is a relic from an age in which the torch was passed from spirituality to science as the primary arbiter of death, disease, the nature of life, and humanity’s place in the universe. In her passive, waxen exter nal beauty and realistically represented innards we can perceive a lost attitude to life: one that unifies rather than divides and allows for mystery and incom prehension. This book describes the enigma that makes the Anatomical Venus so fascinating without seeking to destroy it. It investigates her function, beauty, and evolving forms and uses without spoiling her charm, casting a wistful look back at a time when the study of nature was also the study of philosophy. fig. 5 Two of nine wax plaques demonstrating female anatomy and fetal development. Probably made in Vienna, Austria (c. 1801–30). AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 19 12/01/2016 12:14 unveiling an anatomical enigma
AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 20 12/01/2016 12:1
ch a p t e r o n e t hE • BiR t h oF • t h e a n atom i c a l vEn u s ( 2 1 ) AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 21 12/01/2016 12:1
AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 22 12/01/2016 12:1
AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 23 12/01/2016 12:1
(24) preVious owards the end of the eighteenth century, in a wax workshop in page 20 Florence, a life-sized, anatomically correct, dissectible goddess of Detail of a wax model coloured wax was created. Artist and master ceroplastician Clemente in the ninth month of pregnancy. From the Susini (1754–1814) took the idealized feminine beauty for which Italian workshop of Gustav artists had long been renowned in an ambitious new direction, and to Zeiller, Berlin, hyper-realistic lengths. The result—an Anatomical Venus known as the ‘Medici Germany (c. 1880). Venus’ or the ‘Demountable Venus’—is a masterwork of human ingenuity; the pages 22–23 product of a mystic marriage between art, science, and metaphysics. The Medici Venus The Medici Venus swoons langorously, apparently in the full flush of health, (1780–82), displayed on a silk cushion in a casket offine wood and Venetian glass. She is designed intact and dissected. fig. 6 fig. 7 fig. 6 Wax self-portrait of Clemente Susini (1754–1814), who oversaw the creation of the finest wax models at La Specola. fig. 7 Marble bust offelice Fontana (1730–1805), natural philosopher and director of the museum and wax workshop at La Specola. Fontana strictly monitored his employees and resented state supervision, refusing to keep proper records. to charm in every detail: her glistening glass eyes are rimmed with real eye lashes, her bared throat is bound by a string of pearls, and she boasts a lustrous cascade of human hair. Seemingly alive but for her stillness and supernatural perfection, if you lift off her breastplate you will find that she is completely dissectible into seven layers, each revealing perfectly rendered, anatomically accurate organs. At the final remove—despite the figure betraying no outward signs of pregnancy—you will find a perfect, tranquil fetus curled in her womb: the raison d’être of the female body‚ at the the time. To the modern eye, the Medici Venus is a perplexing object‚ one that chal lenges conventions of scientific visualization and explodes neat categorical divides between art and science, entertainment and education. In her own day, she was considered the ideal tool to teach anatomy to a general public, alleviat ing the need to resort to actual cadavers; indeed, she was so highly regarded by anatomists that copies were commissioned for a variety of museums and teaching collections around Europe. The Medici Venus was a perfect embodi ment of the Enlightenment values of her time, in which human anatomy was understood as a reflection of the world and the pinnacle of divine knowledge, and in which to know the human body was to know the mind of God. Although AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 24 12/01/2016 12:14 chapter one[1]
(25) she was neither the first nor the last of her kind, she was the most accom plished Anatomical Venus ever made, setting the standard by which all other Anatomical Venuses—or reclining anatomized wax women—are today judged. The Medici Venus was born in the workshop of The Museum for Physics and Natural History in Florence, better known as La Specola (after a new observatory was added in 1789). The museum was founded by Leopold II, a revolutionary new leader from Vienna’s Habsburg royal family. He became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1765, succeeding his father, who had inherited the territory when the last Medici, Gian Gastone, died without an heir, ending three centuries of Medici dynastic rule. The Florence he inherited was far from fig. 8 fig. 9 the centre of wealth and influence the city had been during the Renaissance. Determined to address Tuscany’s decline and what he regarded as the more irra tional practices of the Roman Catholic church, Leopold
