Malleable Anatomies

Malleable Anatomies examines the early stages of the practice of anatomical modelling. It investigates the ‘mania’ for anatomical displays that swept the Italian peninsula in the mid-eighteenth century, and traces the fashioning of anatomical models as important social, cultural, and political as well as medical tools. Anatomical models offered special insights into the inner body. Being coloured, soft, and malleable, they fostered anatomical knowledge in delightful ways. But how did anatomical models inscribe and mediate bodily knowledge? How did they change the way in which anatomical knowledge was created and communicated? And how did they affect the lives of those involved in their production, display, viewing, and handling? Examining the circumstances surrounding the making and early viewing of anatomical displays in Bologna, Naples, and Palermo, Malleable Anatomies addresses these questions by reconstructing how anatomical modelling developed at the intersection of medical knowledge, religious ritual, antiquarian and artistic cultures, and Grand Tour display. While doing so, it investigates the development of anatomical modelling in the context of the diverse visual and material practices that characterized the representation and display of the body. Drawing attention to the artisanal dimension of anatomical practice, and the role of women as both makers and users, it considers how anatomical models lay at the centre of a composite world of social interactions that led to the fashioning of modellers as anatomical celebrities. Moreover, it examines how anatomical displays transformed the proverbially gruesome practice of anatomy into an enthralling experience that engaged audiences’ senses and affects.