bodies of
women
revelation / mystery / risk
a cultural history of anatomy
fragmentation & revelation
the holy anatomy of evidence
chiara
1308
Chiara
Abbess of Montefalco
1268 - 1308
Chapel of the Holy Cross, 1333
after Katharine Park Secrets of Women
“... her body should be preserved on account of her holiness
and because God took such pleasure in her body and heart ...
After vespers or thereabouts, the said Francesca, Margherita,
Lucia and Caterina went to get the heart, which was in a box ...
And the said Francesca of Foligno cut open the heart with her
own hand and opening it they found in the heart a cross, or the
image of the crucified Christ.”
Sister Francesca of Foligno, 1318.
after Katharine Park Secrets of Women
Chiara of Montefalco
receives
the Cross of Christ
in her heart
Chapel of the Holy Cross, 1333
Catherine of Siena
1347 - 1380
the art of mystical
corporeality
“... we must attach ourselves to
the breast of Christ crucified ...
and by means of that flesh
we draw milk ...”
after Caroline Walker Bynum Fragmentation & Redemption
fragmentation & denial of the physical
the dangerous female body
sarah
1647
the mother as fertile ground
how demure, how mysterious
Nicolas Beatrizet Valverde’s La Anatomia Del Corpo Humano 1589
“In 1647 Sarah fasted for seventy-five days, remaining bedridden,
deaf, mute, and blind while she was convinced she was damned.
She began to speak about her conversations with God, and
women sought her counsel even while she stayed in bed ...
At one point Sarah hurled her drinking cup against the wall,
saying ‘As sure as this cup shall breake, there is no other Hell’ ...
implying there might be no afterlife at all ...
In mid-April, her brother asked her to eat a little and she said no,
‘I cannot, I have what I did desire’ ”
Mary Fissell Vernacular Bodies
fragmentation & denial of the spiritual
the body as mechanism, the body as commodity
mary
1828
the body as mechanism
rene descartes
thomas willis
william harvey
1596-1650
1621-1675
1578-1657
andreas
vesalius
1514 - 1564
the first master anatomist
De Humani Corporis Fabrica Basel, 1543
bodies for “The Weasel”
after Katharine Park Secrets of Women
London prices, 1830’s
Sarah Wise The Italian Boy
food and drink:
10 lbs potatoes
1/4 loaf of bread
1 pint Blue Ruin gin
4 pence
9 pence
1 shilling
weekly wages:
child factory worker
East End silk weaver
New Police constable
skilled manservant
skilled workingman
7 shillings
7 shillings
1 guinea
1 guinea
2 guineas
a fresh corpse
12 guineas
murder for profit
fear & loathing in Edinburgh, 1828
Joseph, lodger
Abigail Simpson, salt seller
old woman, lodger
Mary Patterson, prostitute
Effie, cinder gatherer
Drunk woman, from police
Old woman & deaf-mute grandson
Woman
Mrs Ostler, washerwoman
Ann MacDougal, distant relative
Mary Haldane
Peggy Haldane (Mary’s daughter)
Daft Jamie Wilson, street beggar
Mary Docherty, beggar
William Burke
Kemp, Wallace Spectacular Bodies
William Hare
Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection & the Destitute
Kemp, Wallace “Spectacular Bodies”
10
10
10
8
10
10
16
8
8
10
8
8
10
5
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
pounds
Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1832)
“... the bodies of all who receive
above a certain amount of public money,
shall be liable to be claimed
for the public good ... ”
the Reform Bill & the Anatomy Act (1832)
Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection & the Destitute
abnormal anatomy & the fragmentation of society
the portentous role of women
the boy with
two bodies
1317
monsters from afar
Mandeville’s Voyages, 1484
monsters close to home
The Ravenna Monster
1512
misreading the Book of God?
get the advice of angels
and if you get it
wrong
Taddeo di Bartolo Collegiate Church of San Gimigiano 1393
“In the said year [1317], in January, ... there was born in Terraio
di Valdarno di Sopra a boy with two bodies.
He was brought to Florence and lived more than twenty days.
Then he died in the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria della
Scala, first one body and then the other.
And when it was proposed to bring him alive to the then priors, as
a wonder, they refused to allow him in the palace, fearing and
suspecting such a monster, which according to the ancients
signifies harm wherever it is born.”
Giovanni Villani.
after Lorraine Daston, Katharine Park Wonders & the Order of Nature
santa maria della scala
selected sources:
Bynum CW (1991) Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender & the Human Body in
Medieval Religion.
Daston L, Park K (1998) Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750.
Fissell ME (2004) Vernacular Bodies: the Politics of Reproduction in early Modern England.
Harkness DE (1999) John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy and the End of
Nature.
Kemp M, Wallace M (2000) Spectacular Bodies.
Park K (2006) Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection.
Petherbridge D, Jordanova L (1997) The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy.
Purcell R (1997) Special Cases: Natural Anomalies and Historical Monsters.
Richardson R (2000) Death, Dissection and the Destitute.
Saunders JB deC, O’Malley CD (1950/1973) The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas
Vesalius of Brussels.
Sawday J (1995) The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance
Culture.
Schiebinger L (2004) Nature’s Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science.
Wise S (2004) The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London.