Kalamazoo Book Blog: A Real Cut-Up
Jun. 14th, 2013 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjNo, I haven't abandoned the book blog. I just got distracted for a while.
Messbarger, Rebecca. 2010. The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-52081-0
I am -- needless to say -- always on the lookout for information about inspiring historic women, particularly in the intellectual sphere. This is an engrossing biography of an 18th century Italian woman who achieved fame (and a reliable living) as an anatomist but even more so as a creator of wax anatomical models, used for educational purposes (as well as falling on that delicate balance point between art and grotesque curiosity).
She lived in Bologna at a time when there was a deliberate push to revive the reputation of the medical school there, providing the opportunity for a woman with little formal medical education to become renowned as a researcher and educator, though her career (like that of many other women) was enabled -- if not entirely made possible -- by having a husband who practiced in the same field. The author places her in a context against other academic women of the time, such as Laura Bassi, who was the first woman to officially receive a degree from the University of Bologna in 1732.
Manzolini was not simply an anatomical artist in wax but also a technician who developed her own improvements in the materials of her art and gave spirited lectures in the home laboratory she shared with her husband (who seems to have been relatively uninvolved in the public presentation of their work). They were (in the idiom of modern Kalamazoo) "independent scholars" rather than being associated directly with the university, though correspondence and other records show that she took part in an interactive community of medical researchers both in and out of academia.
Despite the fragility of her work, many of her wax models survive, including a pair of half-body sculptures of Manzolini and her husband, caught in the act of anatomizing.
Messbarger, Rebecca. 2010. The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-52081-0
I am -- needless to say -- always on the lookout for information about inspiring historic women, particularly in the intellectual sphere. This is an engrossing biography of an 18th century Italian woman who achieved fame (and a reliable living) as an anatomist but even more so as a creator of wax anatomical models, used for educational purposes (as well as falling on that delicate balance point between art and grotesque curiosity).
She lived in Bologna at a time when there was a deliberate push to revive the reputation of the medical school there, providing the opportunity for a woman with little formal medical education to become renowned as a researcher and educator, though her career (like that of many other women) was enabled -- if not entirely made possible -- by having a husband who practiced in the same field. The author places her in a context against other academic women of the time, such as Laura Bassi, who was the first woman to officially receive a degree from the University of Bologna in 1732.
Manzolini was not simply an anatomical artist in wax but also a technician who developed her own improvements in the materials of her art and gave spirited lectures in the home laboratory she shared with her husband (who seems to have been relatively uninvolved in the public presentation of their work). They were (in the idiom of modern Kalamazoo) "independent scholars" rather than being associated directly with the university, though correspondence and other records show that she took part in an interactive community of medical researchers both in and out of academia.
Despite the fragility of her work, many of her wax models survive, including a pair of half-body sculptures of Manzolini and her husband, caught in the act of anatomizing.
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Date: 2013-06-15 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-15 04:44 pm (UTC)