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The name "La Specola" derives from the fact that the building in which the museum is housed was once an anatomical observatory. ... Here is a strange world of the "living dead" who are simultaneously dead and alive. Even so, it is said that most of the models were copied directly from dead bodies. Everything down to the smallest blood vessels and the colouration of the skin has been replicated with such brilliance that one gets the feeling that when the realm of the image of the holy God is this thoroughly invaded, the resulted takes on an undeniable demonic beauty. Is this the sort of scenery that lies on the other side of the mirror that people of medieval times believed was the abode of the devil? But the more immediate question that comes to mind is just who created these models more than two hundred years ago, and what was their purpose in doing so? ...it appears that it was the first curator of this museum, the scientist Felice Fontana (1730-1805) who was responsible for the birth of this gigantic collection of models. But what was it that gave him the inspiration to bring about this birth? In order to unravel this mystery we must begin with the story of Gaetano Zumbo, the creator of the four "Theatres of Death" (Il Teatro della Morta) that constitute one of the other attractions of the museum.
Gaetano Zumbo (1656-1701) was born into an aristocratic Siracusa family on the island of Sicily. He moved to Naples when he was a young man, where
he was strongly influenced by pictures that he found there of the plague that took half the population in 1656. ... Zumbo is said to have completed
two Diorama style collections of wax figures during his time in Naples, titled "Peste" (The Plague) and "Trionfo del Tempo" (The Triumph of Time).
In the latter, Time is depicted as an old man with wings carrying a huge sickle in his hand, and next to him is a small portrait figure of Zumbo himself.
In 1961, Zumbo traveled to Florence, carrying along with him his two works mentioned above. Grand Duke Cosimo III and his artistic son Ferdinando of
the declining Medici family became his patrons and placed extremely high value on his works. His "la Vanità della Gloria Umana" (Transience of Human Glory)
that was created under their patronage is often compared to the statue titled "Melancoria" (Melancoly) that was created by Vasari for the tomb of Michelangelo.
A godess whose head rests on her arms gazes quietly at the bodies of human beings whose rotting flesh is being stripped from their bones by snakes and rats.
...Unfortunately, from among his four collections, there are only fragments remaining of his last collections titled "Morbo gallico" (Syphilis). ... his four
collections were covered with mud during the notorious flood of November 1966. Some of the figures lost their arms and legs, and some even their heads, but three
of them were carefully restored. And yet another figure from the "Morbo gallico" (Syphilis) collection that belonged to the Corsini family suffered a different fate.
... after it was presented to the Corsini family by the Medici family, it was considered so ill-omened that it was left in one of the far inner rooms of the family mansion
where it was totally forgotten until the flood occurred. This figure from the "Morbo gallico" (Syphilis) collection shows a blind-folded cupid whose flesh is rotting.
Even blind love eventually suffers corruption.
One of the early wax anatomy model works of Zumbo is the head of a young man. ... The face of the young man who was most likely an executed criminal is filled with a
Christ-like nobility. In recent years an Xray investigation revealed that it has a real human skull as its base and that it is that of a young man around twenty-four
years of age. This means that Zumbo applied wax directly to the skull itself.
It was a French surgeon named Guillaume Desnoues of the University of Genova who was the first to get the idea that Zumbo's working style could be utilized in advancing
the field of medicine. ... Zumbo and Desnoues are said to have made the head of a woman, but it appears to have been lost. Before long, Desnoues became so impatient with
Zumbo's perfectionist attempt to make everything life-like down to the last detail that they quarreled and parted ways. After this Zumbo went to Paris where he died young
after enjoying a brief period of fame.
...Actually, the craft of waxwork itself boasts an extremely ancient history. It is said that even in the days of ancient Rome, white wax portraits of dead ancestors were
displayed in the atria of homes, and that wax portraits of the dead were carried in funeral processions. ...It was during the ... baroque period that Professor Fontana (1730-1805) and his associates initiated their grand project. It was this famed authority on muscle fiber,
the iris of the eye, and red blood corpuscles who sought after the cooperation of the great anatomist Paolo Mascagni. Mascagni who was eagerly at work clarifying the lymph
nodes hit upon the idea of injecting mercury salts into cadavers to keep them from decomposing. While this was a great contribution to the efficiency of making models, it
subsequently caused a great deal of trouble among the staff who suffered from mercury poisoning as a result.
A laboratory-atelier was built on the second floor of the museum. It contained three broad wooden tables covered with slabs of marble, and a number of modelers were hired
to work there. ...this facility was blessed with the ideal situation of having a cadaver delivered from the Santa Maria Hospital in Florence every two or three days. Most
of the cadavers consisted of such severed parts of bodies as a head or only a right arm, and they were delivered in baskets by servants. In the museum laboratory, a plaster
cast would be made (and clay would be used to make models of all parts that could not be made with plaster). Then after covering the interior with soapy water and pig fat,
wax would be carefully applied in layers with a brush. Pine resin and other materials were mixed with the wax to give it a certain amount of flexibility. And then the details
of the wax figure would be added while closely observing the cadaver. Blood and lymph vessels were created by coating wire or cotton thread with wax. Such colours as the blue
of blood vessels and the yellow of fat were produced with natural vegetable and mineral dyes, as a result of which they maintain their original hues today.
Then in 1782, Clemente Susini (1754-1814) was appointed chief modeler, the third to take that position since the opening of the museum. ... Most of the models on display in the museum today were created between 1773 and 1791 by a staff of artists centered around this same Clemente Susini. Compared to Zumbo who never could be said to have been a fast worker, Susini and his staff produced some eight hundred models with amazing speed. ... Today the museum has 562 of their wax figures on display, 19 of which are life-size. ...The strange incongruity between the anatomical aspects and the poses and facial expressions of these models was born from the use of living models to pose for the full body figures. One of the most popular figures amongst these highly sophisticated living-dead is a full-body figure of a young woman, one of the models of pregnant women. She is commonly known by the name of "La Venere Smontabile" (The Dissected Venus). ... When you open the lid that is her skin, you find her white intestines and internal organs that can be removed seperately, one at a time. And finally, when the lid of the womb is removed, a foetus is found crouching inside. Susini's models exude an even more erotic atmosphere than those of Zumbo's melancholy Vanitas Theatres.
[Another model, one of "Le Grazie smontate" (The Three Dissected Goddesses of Beauty) is described here.] The rosy tint of the fingertips around which the golden braid of hair is twined are taken directly from a real cadaver. There is a rumour that due to the extremely living likeness of this model, all the young women who resembled it disappeared from the streets of Florence for a time after the model was completed. There are any number of legends of this sort surrounding La Specola. For example, there is a rumour that the model for the muscle figure was a huge man named Palazzi and that he sold his own bones to make the model while he was still alive. While this rumour is totally groundless, as there are no bones or anything else inside these wax models, it is true that fifty years later, the anatomical models that were made in Bologna applied wax to real human bones in the same manner that Zumbo did for his head of a young man.
...there is another room in La Specola that contains anatomical models of animals and dissected animals created by a student of Susini named Francesco Calenzuoli. Also, in the Santa Maria Hospital, there are models of sick and deformed people by another student of Susini named Luigi Calamai that have not yet been put on display for the general public.
Another Look at the Models?
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