Anatomia per uso degli studiosi di scultura e di pittura, Firenze, Giovanni Marenig, coll. B.6.1.4, 1816

Accademia di Belle Arti, Firenze

In 1809 the celebrated anatomist Paolo Mascagni was asked to hold anatomy classes at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. For a month every year – usually in February – a select group of painting students were permitted to attend his dissections, which he carried out in the nearby hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. Conceived specifically for art students, the Anatomia per uso degli studiosi di scultura e pittura, like his monumental work Anatomiae Universae, was published only after Mascagni’s unexpected death. Neither encountered the favour of critics or the market. The busy, coloured illustrations of the two volumes are the work of draughtsman and etcher Antonio Serantoni. Their exuberant compositional vitality (note how different anatomical parts are shown overlapping) were a sharp break with the accepted norm in other anatomical atlases used in art schools at that time, which still showed idealised, composed and expressionless ‘corpse-statues’.