Director of Medical Humanities
Professor of Italian
Affiliate Professor of History, Art History, Performing Arts, and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
The Lady Anatomist: The Life and
Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini
ISBN 978-0-2265-2081-0
© University of Chicago Press, 2010
Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714-74), a woman artist and scientist, surmounted meager origins and limited formal education to become one of the most acclaimed anatomical sculptors of the Enlightenment. The Lady Anatomist tells the story of her arresting life and times, in light of the intertwined histories of science, gender, and art that complicated her rise to fame in the eighteenth century.
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Examining the details of Morandi's remarkable life, Rebecca Messbarger traces her intellectual trajectory from provincial artist to internationally renowned anatomical wax modeler for the University of Bologna's famous medical school. Placing Morandi's work within its cultural and historical context, as well as in line with the Italian tradition of anatomical studies and design, Messbarger uncovers the messages contained within Morandi's wax inscriptions, part complex theories of the body and part
poetry. Widely appealing to those with an interest in the tangled histories of art and the body, and including lavish, full-color reproductions of Morandi's work, The Lady Anatomist is a sophisticated biography of a true visionary.
Critical Acclaim
"A pleasure to read, The Lady Anatomist allows us to view Morandi’s world while taking the reader through the extant corpus of her surviving work including her anatomical writings."
Paula Findlen, Stanford University
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"This astonishing and greatly informative account . . . paints a rich canvas of the political, cultural, and scientific life of eighteenth-century Italy and Bologna specifically. . . . May this work have many readers!"
Sabine Hildebrandt, The Journal of Clinical Investigation
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The Lady Anatomist: The Life and
Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini
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"Messbarger's multifaceted approach to her subject makes this book a fascinating read."
Marta Cavazza, The History of Science Society
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"This elegantly written and beautifully produced study is an essential contribution to the history of science, art, women, and gender roles in eighteenth-century Italy."
Wendy Wassyng Roworth, Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
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"Messbarger convincingly argues for Morandi’s place within Enlightenment science, and not, as Crespi and most later biographers suggested, merely as the dutiful wife of one of Bologna’s premier wax anatomists."
Marjorie Och, Woman's Art Journal
"The Lady Anatomist is a timely biography of a fascinating figure at the nexus between art and science in the eighteenth century."
Anna Maerker, British Journal for the History of Science
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"I thoroughly recommend reading The Lady Anatomist. It offers a rich and valuable insight into eighteenth-century anatomical practices."
Rina Knoeff, Oxford Journal of the Social History of Medicine
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"Rebecca Messbarger's beautifully written and richly illustrated work brings to life a corpus of knowledge at the intersection of culture and history, gender studies, science, and the arts."
Natalia Costa-Zalessow, Italica
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"Beautifully written, thoroughly documented, and wonderfully illustrated, it is a pleasure to read."
Mark K. Fulk, Eighteenth-Century Studies
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"Decaying corpses, flayed limbs, home laboratories—Rebecca Messbarger’s new book, The Lady Anatomist, has all the makings of a horror story. Yet as Messbarger demonstrates, these grisly items were merely the tools of a nearly forgotten trade: anatomical wax modeling."
Elizabeth Alsop, Book Forum
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"Messbarger unraveled the riveting story of an innovative female scientist underappreciated even in her own time."
Brooke E. O’Neill, University of Chicago Tableau
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"As Messbarger convincingly argues, Morandi thus embodied a reversal of anatomical authority's traditional gender dynamics. Instead of a man dominating women's bodies in order to speak about anatomical structure, Morandi the lady anatomist subjected both male and female bodies to her gaze and scalpel."
James Delbourgo, Times Higher Education
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"Messbarger's handsome book brings to light a previously hidden scientific personality."
Rob Hardy, The Dispatch