In Western Europe between 1500 and 1700 the human skeleton became an object: a scientific object, a natural object, an artistic object, an artisanal object, independent of its bodily origins yet retaining a troubling moral status. The act of making a skeleton created a scientific object that also had aesthetic value, with qualities of authenticity, accuracy, and whiteness. Beginning with Vesalius, many anatomists included instructions on how to make a skeleton in their anatomical texts, and many more taught their students how to do this. Skeletons became central to anatomical instruction, both for medicine and for art. By the end of the seventeenth century, skeletons increasingly were found in cabinets and collections, and their aesthetic qualities, particularly their whiteness, became critical. However, the emotional and moral impacts of making skeletons remained unspoken.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Sachiko Kusukawa;
(2024)
Andreas Vesalius: Anatomy and the World of Books
Book
Rose Marie San Juan;
(2023)
Violence and the Genesis of the Anatomical Image
Article
Cynthia Klestinec;
(2018)
Vesalius among the Surgeons
Article
Jonathan Sawday;
(2018)
They Shall No More Be Remembered by Their Name: Cartography, Anatomy, and the Renaissance Eponym
Thesis
Tricia M. Ross;
(2017)
Care of Bodies, Cure of Souls: Medicine and Religion in Early Modern Germany
Chapter
Fabio Zampieri;
(2021)
The University of Padua Medical School from the Origins to the Early Modern Time: A Historical Overview
Chapter
Elide Casali;
(2012)
"Anatomie Astrologiche". Melotesia e pronosticazione (sec. XVI-XVII)
Chapter
Massimo Rinaldi;
(2012)
Perspicuitas ed evidentia nella letteratura medica e anatomica dell’età moderna
Chapter
Maria Pia Donato;
(2012)
Anatomia, autopsia, sectio: problemi di fonti e di metodo
Chapter
Rafael Mandressi;
(2012)
Dividere per conoscere. La "parte" come concetto nel pensiero anatomico in Età Moderna
Book
Nelli-Elena Vanzan Marchini;
(1993)
Dalla scienza medica alla pratica dei corpi: Fonti e manoscritti marciani per la storia della sanita
Article
Joaquin Fortanet;
(2015)
Anatomía de la monstruosidad: la figura del monstruo como objeto de la mirada médico-anatómica moderna
Chapter
Alexander Kästner;
(2020)
Reading Moral Conduct and Physical Characteristics: the Classification of Suicide in Early Modern Europe
Chapter
Berg, Sara van den;
(2013)
Dwarf Aesthetics in Spenser's Faerie Queene and the Early Modern Court
Article
Danielle Jacquart;
(2017)
L’harmonie des parties du corps entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance
Article
Belle S. Tuten;
(2021)
Correcting the unnatural breast: gynecomastia and gender in medieval medicine
Chapter
Oliver, Lisi;
Mahoney, Maria;
(2010)
Episcopal Anatomies of the Early Middle Ages
Article
Jorge L. García;
(2020)
The Aesthetic Dimension of Scientific Discovery: Finding the Inter-Maxillary Bone in Humans
Article
Vivian Nutton;
(2018)
1538, A Year of Vesalian Innovation
Article
Jennifer F. Kosmin;
(2018)
Midwifery Anatomized: Vesalius, Dissection, and Reproductive Authority in Early Modern Italy
Be the first to comment!