Giovan Battista Manfredini
(1742 - 1789)

Statua in terracotta dipinta raffigurante una donna a cui sono state asportate la cute, la tela sottocutanea del tronco, le mammelle e il muscolo grande pettorale di destra

Statua in terracotta dipinta raffigurante una donna alla seconda gravidanza (secondipara) con addome pendulo

second half of 18th century
plastered and painted terracotta

Museo Ostetrico Antonio Scarpa - Polo Museale dell’Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia

These sculptures are part of an extremely rare series of anatomical models of eight, life-size female figures – six heavily pregnant and two showing the subcutaneous anatomy of the torso. They were made by Bologna-born sculptor Giovan Battista Manfredini for the Museo Ostetrico, which was founded together with the city’s obstetrician and midwife school by Antonio Scarpa (1752-1832) in 1775. Professor of surgery at the university of Modena, Scarpa was also responsible for the erection of the anatomical theatre between 1773 and 1775, which was next to the Museo Ostetrico and which has recently undergone restoration.

Special contents

The polychrome terracotta obstetric models of the Museo Ostetrico Antonio Scarpa
by Elena Corradini

  

The creation of the Museo Ostetrico, in the large hall adjacent to the west of the Teatro Anatomico, was brought about by Antonio Scarpa (1752-1832), who had been called to Modena in 1772 to teach surgery and anatomy following the reform of the university ordered by Francesco III d’Este. Scarpa also coordinated designs for the construction of the Teatro Anatomico, which was inaugurated on January 11th, 1775. The obstetrics museum was officially opened on December 11th, 1775, when Scarpa inaugurated the academic year with a lectio magistralis. As the Modena newspaper Il Messaggiere reported in its issue of December 13th, 1775 (no. 50), the Scuola dell’Arte Ostetricia had opened in the city, for physicians and with separate courses for midwives. The Scuola in Modena had been conceived along the lines of other similar institutions which Scarpa knew well and had attended, such as the one in Padua – set up by his teacher Luigi Calza (1736-1783) in 1765, or the one in Bologna founded by Giovani Antonio Galli (1708-1782) in 1757.

With the support of Francesco III d’Este, Duke of Modena (1698-1780, who had acceded to the dukedom in 1737), the Museo Ostetrico was equipped with machines illustrating childbirth, anatomical sections and wax models. In particular the duke, through the Magistrato degli Studi dell’Università, had approved Scarpa’s request to commission the Bolognese sculptor Giovan Battista Manfredini (1742-1789) for the creation of the wax models. Scarpa was in a position to attest to Manfredini’s mastery, having seen the work he had produced for his teacher Luigi Calza in Padua. The Museo was completed in 1776 with the creation of specifically-constructed shelves for obstetrics sections and the wax models, and subsequently also with a three-shelved cupboard in berettino grey-blue and yellow, as described in an inventory from 1788.

In order to aid the practical learning of the obstetrics students and midwives, Manfredini also produced wax and polychrome terracotta models under the supervision of Francesco Febbrari, a Bolognese physician who had graduated in Modena and who had been authorised by Scarpa to return to his native city to oversee the production of these terracotta obstetrics models. These pieces were completed under the guidance of Bolognese anatomy physician Carlo Mondini (1729-1803), with the collaboration of Giovanni Battista Sandri and Alessandro Barbieri, and consist of eight statues of female bodies, six of which are in an advanced state of pregnancy. Two female figures served to illustrate the subcutaneous anatomy of the torso, as reproduced in plates III and IV of the journal “Dell’Arte Ostetrizia”, published in Bologna in 1787. As well as these female statues, which are unique in his production, Manfredini – who became a member of the Accademia Clementina of Bologna for his unquestionable ability and who enrolled in the anatomical sculpture class – also completed models of sections of the female pelvis and the uterus containing a developed foetus, as well as examples of natural childbirths and dystocia and models of the female reproductive organs. Having transferred to the university of Pavia in 1783, Scarpa was no longer in Modena to witness the arrival of Manfredini’s terracotta studio ostetrico. The pieces had in fact remained in Bologna and were not delivered to the university of Modena until after the Restoration in 1815, thanks to the financial support of the Habsburg-Este Duke of Modena Francis IV (1779-1846, instated as duke in 1814). The obstetrics professor Antonio Boccabadati had traced Manfredini’s terracotta obstetrics models to Francesco Febbrari’s sister Angela, in whose house they had been stored.

Confirmation as to the utility of the Museo Ostetrico in teaching obstetrics to future physicians and midwives emerged clearly when it was rehoused between 1880 and 1882 together with the Istituto Ostetrico, under the direction of Alessandro Cuzzi, into an eastern annexe of the Sant’Agostino hospital. In 1963, when the new Policlinico hospital was built in the eastern area of Modena, the obstetric terracottas were not moved there with the Istituto Ostetrico but remained in the Istituto’s former headquarters, which had since been moved to Via Berengario, near the historic premises of the Museo Ostetrico. Since 1992, Manfredini’s terracotta obstetric models have been on public display in a room adjacent to the Museo Anatomico, laid out in the first half of the Nineteenth Century on the upper floor of the Museo Ostetrico and the Teatro Anatomico. The models had previously undergone restoration as part of the second edition of the Settimana della Cultura Scientifica (scientific culture week) and are currently awaiting to be adequately housed within a planned rearrangement of the Museo Ostetrico.