Thesis title: “Essere versati sempre più in quella scienza”. Lo studio del corpo umano tra pratica scientifica e artistica a Roma, tra il XVII e il XIX secolo
“To be more and more versed in that science”. The study of human body between scientific and artistic practice in Rome between the 17th and the 19th centuries
The aim of the PhD thesis that I intend to present was to investigate the ways in which the study of human anatomy manifested itself in Rome, between the end of the seventeenth century and the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. This analysis involved the model of anatomical study proposed by the city's art academies, such as the Accademia di San Luca or the Accademia di Francia, occasionally put in relation with the major Italian and European art academies and with the studios of independent artists. The same Academies were also compared with studies conducted in hospital settings, in particular was examined the case of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia.
This analysis has led to an investigation, through pictorial, sculptural and printed works, into the work of artists - and sometimes even physicians who have measured themselves with art - who have understood, studied, learned and reproduced human anatomy in a different yet complementary way: from the great Baroque aesthetic theatricalizations, to the idealization of the anatomical model offered by classical statuary - of which the Roman collections abounded - up to the hyper-realistic models sculpted in wax. All the works considered were therefore created in Rome, very often however by artists only passing through, also testifying to a curious fact: the choice of this city as the "Academy of Europe" and a place where it was possible to learn human anatomy, yet significantly behind the French Academy in terms of imparting anatomical studies and at the same time very far from the English model of the Royal Academy, in which the exchange between artistic and medical anatomy was truly pursued with conviction.
The thesis, choosing Rome as the place in which to carry out this kind of reconnaissance, also aimed to show how it was possible here to witness, during the entire time span that it was concerned to cover, an intersection of three different levels regarding anatomical interests: the religious-devotional one of Catholic and popular origin, the artistic one and, finally, the medical-scientific one. The resulting work, therefore, also shows how in this city these three spheres were destined to participate in a complex system, in which the human body always occupies a central place, without the possibility of excluding each other.
The archival research for this thesis was carried out mainly at the Archives of the Accademia di San Luca, the Archives of the Bank of Italy, the Archives of the Church of San Giovanni Decollato, the State Archives of Rome, the Historical Archives of the Vicariate of Rome, the Biblioteca Lancisiana, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca Angelica and the Biblioteca Casanatense of Rome, as well as the Nobile Collegio Chimico Farmaceutico, the Museo della Specola of the University of Florence and, finally, the Hunterian Collection of the University of Glasgow. The bibliographic research, instead, was carried out at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute in Rome and at the Kunsthistorische Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute. For online archives, only the main ones examined are mentioned here, such as that of the French Academy in Rome and the Wellcome Collection, London.