Museo di Anatomia Umana (Museum of Human Anatomy), Pisa: Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

Below, the fourth guest post by Evan Michelson of "Oddities" and the Morbid Anatomy Library documenting our trip through Italy researching the history of the preservation and display of the human corpse. Here, her response to the small but wonderful Museo di Anatomia Umana (Museum of Human Anatomy) of Pisa:

The Museum of Human Anatomy at Pisa is located at the school of medicine and surgery, just a few steps away from the Piazza dei Miracoli which contains the overly-familiar Leaning Tower - a 12th century campanile gone wrong.

The museum collection has an interesting history: Pisa was host to the First Conference of Italian Scientists in 1839 - a somewhat radical gathering uniting scientists from several disciplines. According to our guide, this was a philosophically Positivist convocation that was determined to make sure that science would have an important role to play in a newly unifying Italy. Scientists from the Papal States were not in attendance. Much of the current museum collection was organized for that gathering.

There were several "petrified" preparations in the collection (petrification being an Italian specialty), a fine osteological display, and a nice array of wet preparations. Of particular interest were the full-size flayed human specimens, whose vessels were injected with chalk (an odd method, but confirmed by several sources).

The mummy of Gaetano Arrighi, a convict who died in the early 19th century, seemed to have particular pride of place. His body went unclaimed and he was prepared according to a 19th century Italian recipe, but the results appear quite ancient. I fell in love with a particularly vivid, gesticulating infant in a nearby case, but the mummy certainly did have his charms.

You can find out more about the Museo di Anatomia Umana, Pisa (Museum of Human Anatomy at Pisa) by clicking here. You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. All images are mine, from the museum.

The Decorative Tomb Skulls of Tuscany : Pisa's Camposanto Monumentale

Above are a few decorative tomb skulls--and a corpse-themed tomb sculpture--that Evan and I encountered yesterday at Pisa's Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery). Sadly, Buonamico Buffalmacco's magnificent fresco "The Three Dead and the Three Living and The Triumph of Death" (1338-39)--also housed by the Camposanto--was much damaged by allied bombing in 1944, though what remains is wonderfully evocative; you can see what remains and learn more about it by clicking here.

Galileo's Fingers (and a Tooth): Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

Below, the third guest post by Evan Michelson of TV's "Oddities" and the Morbid Anatomy Library documenting our trip through Italy supporting our book-in-progress on the history of the preservation and display of the human body.

In this post, she responds to some very unique science age relics (see above) housed at the amazing Florence Science Museum (now the Museo Galileo):

These two reliquaries contain a total of three fingers and one tooth from the revered mathematician, astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei - the father of modern science and one of the greatest theoretical minds that mankind has ever known. He is a secular saint and a "martyr to science," a man convicted and imprisoned by the Inquisition for the crime of Copernicanism; he advocated for a heliocentric model of the solar system - the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. This was heresy according to the Roman Catholic Church, and it took 300 or so years for the Vatican to finally relent (somewhat) and issue a half-hearted apology. It is an egregious chapter in Western cultural history, and it highlights one of the central schisms between faith and science.

I have wanted to visit these particular digits for many years, and I fully expected my knees to go weak. Strangely enough, nothing of the sort happened. The power of Christian relics are both devotional and emotional - they conjure up the presence and the physical reality of the Saint; they allow the faithful to understand and commune with the very human aspect of a person who has been elevated to a more abstract state of high holiness. A secular figure such as Galileo generally needs no such reminder: we know that he lived, and we know what he accomplished. His fingers and that one tooth seemed improbable and curious - less like objects of reverence than slightly whimsical (and grisly) souvenirs.

A case on the other side of the room, however, contained Galileo's personal scientific instruments, including two telescopes of his own design. Galileo was (in addition to everything else) an inventor, and he was the first to improve on an original Dutch design by boosting the magnifying power of a spyglass considerably while creating a non-inverted image. He then trained these simple tubes at the Heavens. It was at that moment that modern astronomy was born; our solar system and our galaxy became comprehensible. We understood for the first time that the Milky Way that spills across the night sky is made of stars. I looked upon those unassuming tubes of wood, glass and leather, and finally I felt an overwhelming awe.

You can find out more about the Museo Galileo by clicking here. You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. The images are mine.

Saint Rosalia, Patron Saint of Palermo, Goth Women?

Saint Rosalia is the Patron Saint of Palermo; I would also like to nominate her as patron saint of Goth women. Why? See above for a few statues depicting her in the traditional fashion--as a young, beautiful woman, bedecked with a crown of roses, reading a book in her solitary lair with only a human skull for company, or clutching a human skull in her black robe. Simply does not get more Goth than that. Not even in the Catholic church.

More, from Wikipedia:

Born: 1130, Palermo, Italy
Died: 1166 (aged 35–36), Mount Pellegrino, Italy
Feast: September 4; July 15 (Festino)
Attributes: Depicted as a young woman, sometimes holding a cross, book, or skull. She is also seen wearing a crown of roses.
Patronage: Palermo; El Hatillo; Zuata Anzoátegui

Saint Rosalia (1130–1166), also called La Santuzza or "The Little Saint", is the patron saint of Palermo, Italy, El Hatillo, Venezuela, and Zuata, Anzoátegui, Venezuela.

According to legend, Rosalia was born of a Norman noble family that claimed descent from Charlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to life as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote "I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ."

In 1624, a horrible plague haunted Palermo, and during this hardship St Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.

The hunter climbed the mountain and found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition, and after the procession the plague ceased. After this St Rosalia would be venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, and a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.

Both images from random churches in Palermo. More to come soon!

Palermo's Capuchin Catacombs: Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

Below you will find a second guest post by Evan Michelson of TV's "Oddities" and the Morbid Anatomy Library which will document our three-week trip through Italy supporting our book-in-progress exploring the history of the preservation and display of the human body in Italy.

Here, she waxes poetic on Palermo's rightfully renowned Capuchin Catacombs, best known to some as the final resting place of Rosalia Lombardo ("The Sleeping Beauty") and to others from Marco Lanza's The Living Dead. We were both more than happy to pay a sizable "photography fee" in order to have over two hours alone--all restriction gates opened, front doors locked to the public--in this dark, quiet, wonderful, overwhelming, sad, and, we both agreed, utterly perfect place.

Above is a photo of Evan with her favorite--piece? specimen? artifact?--from a workroom in which the mummies are restored. Here, we were able to get close enough to touch stacks of mummies in dusty wooden coffins donned in rolling swaths of antique Sunday best, floral wreaths topping grinning skulls, hands folded demurely in white gloves. Not to mention a fully costumed child skeleton in a crate (see above) and the odd skull.

More (many, many more!) images to come in the book, but we promised the keeper that we would restrain ourselves from online use. But let me say this: as those who have been will assure you, neither words nor photographs really suffice to communicate the grim magnificence of this place; A focus of both Evan and I's pilgrimage longings for decades, it not only did not disappoint but astounded. We both agreed it was the most spectacular, most overwhelming, most perfect macabre site we have have ever had the luck to experience.

A few days ago Joanna and I visited the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo; they have been an obsession of mine for many years - a grotesque dream.

We had the whole place to ourselves for two hours, every gate unlocked, the doors shut behind us. In my imagination it had been only a few chambers, but the whole complex is actually quite large and it houses thousands of mummified corpses, all dressed in their finest; they are hung on the walls, laid out on crude wooden slabs and stuffed into elaborate coffins; they line corridors and adorn special chapels. To say that it was stunning and overwhelming would be an understatement - we were both giddy and disbelieving. There I was, in the place of my dreams; it was a profound experience that transcended every other deathly place I've ever visited.

It was the clothing that did it, that and the somewhat crude method of mummification practiced by the monks. The result is mummies in every state of decay: some not much more than skeletons, others with their faces artfully peeling away; there are only a handful that are eerily well preserved. They all wear gorgeous linens, laces, silks and woolens, their feet in lovely shoes, their hands stuffed into dainty gloves. The effect is uncanny, fascinating and strangely personal. These are real people, their post-mortem body language a grotesque parody of life. Long after the muscles stiffen the skin continues to shrink, harden and slough away, giving rise to hideous and comical expressions alike. The stuffed, hanging bodies, obeying the call of gravity, slump and lean in intimate ways.

This photo was taken in a disused restoration room - abandoned a while ago when the money ran out. The baby in the box is just one of many children brought here to spend some portion of eternity dressed in its Sunday best, welcoming curious strangers.

You can find out more about the Palermo Capuchin Catacombs by clicking here. You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. Top three images are Evan's; the rest are my own.

Stay tuned for more posts from our new convent lair in Florence!

Makeshift Shrine, Wall, Palermo

Collector of Rare Diseases, Wellcome Library Blog

[Frederick Parkes Weber (1863-1962)] was more generally a relentless collector of examples of rare diseases and conditions, in fact had been a committed collector since boyhood, when he took up the collection of coins and medals, later becoming a noted expert in numismatics, as well as stamps, butterflies and moths, mineralogical specimens and fossils. His papers reflect this tendency very strongly, revealing the accrual over the many years of his lengthy career of material on diseases either rare in themselves, or unusual manifestations of more common disorders...

You can read the whole article about this "collector of diseases"--from whence came the text and image above--on the Wellcome Library blog by clicking here.

Carcere Penitenziati Museum, Palermo: Italy Trip Guest Post by Evan Michelson, TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library

Below you will find the first of a series of guest posts by Evan Michelson--star of TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence--which will haphazardly document our three-week trip through Italy collecting images and information for our book-in-progress exploring the history of the preservation and display of the human body in Italy.

In this post, Evan shares her thoughts on a macabre relic of Palermo's history under Spanish rule: the Carcere Penitenziati Museum, a former Inquisition prison and torture site turned museum. The visual highlight of this museum was the charming, Catholic-imagery-heavy, Darger-esqye graffiti covering the walls of many of the prisoners' cells (see above) which was, our guide suggested, perhaps less a reflection of ardent faith than a means to impress the guards and increase the odds that they would be judged innocent of heresy.

Following is Evan's thoughts on our visit:

These delicate and fascinating images are scratched onto the walls of individual cells in the Carcere Penitenziati prison here in Palermo - a place of imprisonment used by the Inquisition. Many of these images were created in the 17th century by unlucky souls confined here for being heretics, Jews, reformers and various other non-believers; these inmates decorated the walls while awaiting violent "conversion" by torture (if death did not take them first).

Apparently the prison guards allowed (or even encouraged) the inmates to create these pictures, which were produced by using wet bricks as a kind of chalk. The prisoners were thus able to express their hopes and fears while awaiting the unspeakable tortures that took place in a small room just a few feet down the corridor (close enough, perhaps, for the future "penitents" to hear the screams).

Our thoughtful guide helped us unravel the meaning of some of these images: first we see the Inquisition personified as a crescent-shaped monster (a theme repeated elsewhere; top image), swallowing up traditional Biblical characters (this piece is quite large and flows from one wall to another). Next there is Christ's passion, but the figures surrounding him are of Spanish (rather than Roman; second image down) origin, perhaps illustrating the fact that this particular "penitent" came from Spain; he is paying witness to his own personal journey to Golgotha. The third image down depicts the host and the chalice - a scene of transubstantiation. Although these are by turns crude and surprisingly accomplished, many of them have a whimsical quality that belies the horrifying conditions under which they were created.

There is beautiful writing all over these walls (some in English); many of the texts are prayers, but there are also heart wrenching autobiographical passages. This place of great suffering and death is serene and beautifully preserved in a new museum that has only been open for two years. Until somewhat recently these rooms were government offices, and a few of the cells had been bureaucratically whitewashed ("criminal!" chimed our guide). Our informed (and passionate) docent later lamented the lack of ordinary hours and access to many of Italy's lesser-known cultural treasures, but this quiet, low-key and out-of-the-way little museum is a thoughtful addition to the grander, shinier cultural attractions.

You can find out more about the Carcere Penitenziati Museum by clicking here. You can read future posts by Evan both on this blog and on her Facebook page, which you will find by clicking here. Top three images are Evan's; the rest are my own.

Stay tuned for more posts from our trip as we head from Palermo to Florence.

"Memento Mori," Beginning of the 17th Century, Unknown Artist from the Reno Region, Marble Paste; Capodomonte Museum, Naples, Italy

"Memento Mori," beginning of the 17th Century, unknown artist from the Reno region, marble paste. As seen at the wonderful Capodomonte Museum, Naples, Italy.

Caption on website reads:

Memento Mori

As far as its size and appearance are concerned, this unusual object bears similarity to the many ivory objects in production at that time. It shows the partly decomposed body of a woman, and is a crude allegory of death and of the transient nature of human life. It follows an iconographic tradition which appeared in the Fifteenth Century and which was consolidated during the course of the Sixteenth Century, above all in French Flemish and Germanic areas

More here.

Thanks so much to Dana Sherwood for turning me on to this!

Arrivederci Naples! A Few Final Views, and Off to Palermo

Today: off from Naples to Palermo to meet good friend and fellow trouble maker Evan Michelson--star of TV's "Oddities" and Morbid Anatomy Library scholar in residence--where we will commence a three-week trip through Italy collecting images and information for our book project investigating "the history of Western culture as revealed through the preservation and display of the human corpse." 

Evan and I plan to post regularly here about the amazing things we encounter, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, a few final images from my beloved Naples, "the most macabre of cities... [where] the dead are played with ... like big dolls..." (The Necrophiliac, Gabrielle Wittkop)

You can also find out more about our project here.

A Few Slots Left for "The Art and Science of Preserving Animal Specimens at Home...D.I.Y Style" with Susan Jeiven

We have just a few more slots left for Monday's D.I.Y. Wet Specimen class with the fabulous Sue Jeiven! If you are interested, please email Laetitia Barbier at Laetitia [at] atlasobscura.com!

Full info follows:

The Art and Science of Preserving Animal Specimens at Home...D.I.Y Style!
Lecture and Wet Specimen Workshop with Susan Jeiven
Date: Monday, February 25
Time: 7 PM - 9 PM
Admission: $75
Observatory: 543 Union Street (at Nevins), Brooklyn, NY 11215
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
***Must RSVP to Laetitia [at] atlasobscura.com to be added to class list; 15 person limit
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

In this class, Susan Jeiven--instructor of our popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class--will teach students the arcane art of wet specimens, or organic material suspended in liquid preservative such as formalin, with the aim of preserving that within for ongoing study and contemplation. These stunning artifacts fill natural history, medical and anatomy museums; deceptively simple to the eye, they, in fact, demand special skills to do properly. These skills are generally taught only in professional apprenticeships rather than classes for the general public.

Tonight's class will begin with a brief illustrated lecture showcasing the history of artful preparations, featuring such artists of the specimen as 17th century doctor, dissector, museologist, and wet specimen innovator Frederik Ruysch. Following, Jeiven will lead students in the creation of their very own wet specimen in a vintage jar. Students will also learn to make beautiful labels with waterproof ink using the classic scientific system. All students will leave class with their own finished piece, and the knowledge to source their own materials and create their own pieces in the future. They will also learn how to care for and maintain their pieces.

All materials will be provided, and all animals are ethically sourced.

Directions:

R train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right. Go right on Nevins and left down alley through large black gates. Gallery is the second door on the left.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge, take left on Nevins, go down the alley to the second door on the left.

More info here.

Image: Photo by Elaine Duigenan, bat specimen from The Hunterian Museum; from her "Mysteries of Generation" series. More here.