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Raffaele De Caro

Professore Ordinario di Anatomia Umana dell'Università di Padova e Direttore del Centro di Riferimento per la Regione del Veneto per la conservazione e l'utilizzo dei corpi donati

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Il teatro anatomico a Padova: da Acquapendente ad oggi

I Teatri Anatomici hanno rappresentato, fin dagli albori della disciplina, il luogo cardine per la trasmissione delle conoscenze e delle competenze morfologiche. In origine, il modello quodlibetario dell’Anatomia prevedeva il ruolo del Lector, deputato all’esposizione dei testi galenici, del Sector, colui che dissecava il corpo, e l’Obstensor, incaricato di indicare e presentare le strutture anatomiche al pubblico. Le dissezioni si svolgevano in appositi teatri anatomici temporanei, eretti durante i mesi invernali per permettere agli studenti di Medicina di assistere all’attività settoria. Tuttavia, durante il Secolo d’Oro della Medicina a Padova, l’insegnamento dell’anatomia fu profondamente revisionato, con conseguenti modifiche anche alla struttura e alle funzioni dei teatri anatomici. La prima rivoluzione venne introdotta da Andrea Vesalio, che unificò le tre figure del modello quodlibetario e sottopose a revisione critica gli insegnamenti quasi dogmatici dei testi galenici. La seconda rivoluzione fu invece introdotta da Girolamo Fabrici ab Aquapendente, che edificò a Padova il primo teatro anatomico stabile del mondo. Le rivoluzioni di Aquapendente e Vesalio si ripercuotono tutt’ora sull’insegnamento delle discipline morfologiche, nonché sull’organizzazione degli spazi e dei luoghi in cui le scienze anatomiche sono trasmesse ai discenti. In fine, con l'avvento dei moderni programmi di Donazione del Corpo e con l'innovazione della didattica, il teatro anatomico si è evoluto dalla tipica struttura verticale  con spettatori, verso uno spazio orizzontale condiviso con discenti protagonisti che lavorano in sinergia con il docente su più tavoli settori.

In questo intervento, si ripercorrerà la storia dell’architettura dei teatri anatomici, partendo dai teatri anatomici lignei del XVI secolo fino ad arrivare ai teatri attuali e alle dissezioni virtuali.

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Stefano Ratti

Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna

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Dissecting space and art in anatomy: analyses of the interdisciplinarity and of the ninth art in the anatomical field

Anatomical studies generate multiple spaces of research and education characterized by a profound interdisciplinarity. First, anatomy is a grounding space of medical training, and the study of cadavers still represents the gold standard for anatomical education. The ongoing development of medical techniques and biomedical technologies necessitates continuous training, testing and development to increase medical safety and precision medicine. Besides being a space to produce medical knowledge, anatomy generates a site of complex interaction with art, advancing a stable and alluring relationship between scientists and illustrators. The dialectic between anatomy and artistic works aims to communicate the human body, and its potentialities (cadaver dissection), through a vast production of scientific illustration. While artists over time have learned anatomy to capture the shape, proportion, and structure of the human body in their art works, to date a new artistic space, the so-called ninth art, is becoming the medium to scientifically illustrate contemporary body art: comics. An increasing number of projects are using comics to focus on the many nuances of the human body also for the purpose of raising public awareness of certain issues, such as the subjective experience of illness. Similarly, the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of anatomy connects morphology to the worlds of art and also social sciences, which can help convey important and complex messages regarding the significance of whole-body donation for proper medical education and effective scientific research. The news spaces of human anatomy become the intersection of different disciplines and pop arts like comics might help to reduce communicative barriers also in the anatomical field.

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Leslie Malland

Department of English and Philosophy, Southern University A&M

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Cultural Intersections in the Spaces of Anatomy Theatres

Malland’s work centers upon the human body, its place in time and space, and its significant cultural impacts not just as biomaterial, but also as cultural signifiers. The Spaces of Renaissance Anatomy Theatre locates cultural intersections from within the spaces of anatomical research, looking outward to spaces beyond the theatre to identify the cultural impacts of anatomical research in Europe throughout the sixteenth century. Her research continues to argue that the space of anatomical influence is not solely in the physical theatre. Rather, it encompasses every aspect of early modern culture, from its education systems, art, and writing to its concepts of identity, citizenship, and the natural world. She examines not just the power that anatomy itself swayed over society, but the power of the anatomist to codify terminology and establish societal norms, thus, discipling spaces beyond the anatomy theatre, beyond the public sphere, and into the private lives of citizens. Her current project reveals anatomical research’s impact on midwifery practices and education. In particular, she explores how patriarchal dominance made its way into one of the only spaces where women held power – reproductive health care — as evidenced by anatomy manuals and physicians’ guides.

 

 

Chiara Mascardi

Independent Researcher

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Anatomical theatres and Theatre: an interdisciplinary history

Anatomical theatres shared not only nomenclature but also a confluence of origins, architectural configurations, sociocultural values and urban integration with their theatrical counterparts. Both the early spaces used for dissection and the ones for performances drew inspiration from Greek and Latin texts and vestiges of antiquity. Over successive epochs, a commensurate trajectory was observed in their evolutionary paradigms, transitioning from provisional edifices to permanent buildings representing royal courts, academic citadels, or erudite enclaves. The public dissemination of anatomical knowledge coalesced with the revelry of Carnival, thereby converging didactic exposition with festal conviviality. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries delineates a divergence in theatre's trajectory, marked by increasingly ostentatious mise en scène, nevertheless, an undercurrent of cross-pollination persisted, witnessed in the reciprocal exchange of skilled artisans, architects, and artists. It is imperative to note the transmutation of anatomical pedagogy from the festive sphere to an enclave of didactic sequestration, confined exclusively to erudite acolytes and conducted within a milieu of antiseptic precision. In the modern context, anatomical theatres assume a mantle of inspiration for theatrical narratives and scenographic tableaux, marshalled to accentuate the corporeal centrality within performative praxis or to instantiate innovative modalities of experimentation. My intervention offers an exploration of the historical interweave binding anatomical theatres and the dramatic arts, affording particular attention to their developmental convergences within the urban context of Bologna.

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Lucas Evers

Waag's Open Wetlab and Make programme (FabLab, TextileLab and Open Wetlab)

 

The dissecting dissected

In 1632 Rembrandt van Rijn painted The Anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. In 1691 the surgeons’ guild of which Tulp had been a member, received approval to build the Theatrum Anatomicum in the Waag building, that would function as dissection theatre for medical-scientific observation, experimentation and education, a practice that would remain in the building for about 200 years. In the beginning an academic activity, later a more general audience was admitted to the than public dissection performances.

What effort was needed to establish such a space; what power permitted it to be?

Nowadays Waag Futurelab, an organization researching public values of quotidian and emerging technologies within society uses the Theatrum Anatomicum for events. Many of those can be understood as the metaphorical dissection of technology to create a value oriented public understanding of these technologies. Events reflecting on gene editing techniques such as CRISPR Cas9 and IPSC, but also AI, blockchain and the internet of things, to the excluding effects of the digital transition of society at large.

If technology can be perceived as culture, what than in is it that is dissected in the contemporary use of the Theatrum Anatomicum? And, in the light of that question, but also in the historical context of this performative space, who is dissecting and who is dissected? 

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Chiara Ianeselli
Independent Researcher

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Past, Present and Future of Anatomy Theatres

What activities presently define the life and functions of anatomical theatres, and how might their forthcoming prospects unfold, through their governing bodies?

This preliminary inquiry delves into the potential evolutionary trajectories of anatomical theatres beyond their conventional roles, raising the fundamental question of whether these spaces are destined to be relegated to museum status or if they can be revitalized through interdisciplinary engagements.

Anatomical theatres, renowned for their historical prominence as pedagogical venues for medical instruction, have undergone transformations over time. This study delves into the intersections of social, cultural, educational shifts that have shaped these theatre’s present status and potential futures. What are the current uses and functions attributed to anatomy theatres? Is their role in society only of a vestige of the past? As repositories and safe harbours for the crossing of disciplines, what kind of subjects can contribute to enhancing their history? By scrutinizing the past and present functions of anatomical theatres, this abstract seeks to provoke discussions about their evolving role, ensuring that their significance is contextualized and optimized for the demands of the current society. A selection of exhibitions projects, performative actions and lectures will be presented as examples of contemporary re-inventions of the theatres. This preliminary investigation underscores the transformative potential of anatomical theatres, casting aside conventional notions of their destiny as static museum artifacts. By envisioning these spaces as dynamic hubs of cross-disciplinary exploration, this study sets the stage for an examination of the multifaceted roles that anatomical theatres can assume in shaping the future of education and knowledge dissemination.

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Thomas Schnalke

Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité, Berlin

 

Directing Views. The anatomical theatre and the depiction of the human body

When the anatomical theatre was conceptualized in northern Italy as an eminent medical space to study anatomy in the late 15th century, it opened new perspectives into the human body. Moreover, it directed the views of the viewers explicitly and implicitly onto certain structures, organs, and functional units of the human organism. Mainly for the purpose of teaching anatomy, the studies in the anatomical theatre resulted in anatomical images which gained iconic status, beginning most prominently with the illustrated textbook of Andreas Vesalius. In my talk I want to follow the approaches of directing the anatomical view in the anatomical theatre by delving into a selection of anatomical theatres in different settings. I will question core motifs of anatomical imagery derived from them and consider how, in the 18th century, public medical displays in northern Italy adapted the spatial concept of the anatomical theatre to create a fully integrated representation of the human anatomy in the heyday of enlightened medicine. 

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Frank IJpma

University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands

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Attending an anatomy lesson of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons

In 1632, Rembrandt painted his masterpiece known as ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Nicolaes Tulp’. The painting should be placed in the series of nine ‘anatomy lessons’, paintings created for the Guild in the 17th and 18th centuries. The purpose of the paintings was to commemorate the lecturers and board members of the Surgeons’ Guild. At that time, all anatomy lessons were on display on the walls of the Surgeons’ Guild room in the

Weigh house (Waag) at the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam, and should be considered the unique art collection of the Guild. It was no coincidence that the painters and the surgeons

chose to use the theme ‘anatomy lesson’ in the group portraits. The anatomical demonstrations, annually organized by the guild, were of course major events for the surgeons. Yet, to what extent are these paintings true representations of the anatomical dissections that were actually performed in the Theatrum Anatomicum of the surgeons? The original guild records of the surgeons have been preserved for centuries and provide firsthand accounts of what really happened at the dissection table. By revisiting the original guild regulations, dissection reports, and examination books, we can get a glimpse of what it was like ‘to attend a Dutch anatomy lesson’ during the Golden Age.

 

 

Andrea Carlino

University of Geneva

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Andrea Vesalio, Daniele Barbaro and the Architects

At the core of my presentation is Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. I will look into the broad cultural context and the thick network of personal and professional relationships in which Vesalius conceived and produced his work, precisely in Padua between 1537 and 1543. This hopefully allows to think at the anatomy/architecture dyad, no longer as a two-ways relationship between the two disciplines, but rather as a wider triangulation that also includes rhetoric, a pivotal knowledge of the studia humanitatis that studies the organization of discourse and its parts. This triangulation could provide the opportunity to go beyond the material and formal aspects of the anatomy-architecture relationship in the Cinquecento and shows how, in the intellectual circles in which Vesalius operated, this relationship was considerably more profound and possibly more substantial. 

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Jens Oliver Kempf

Independent reseracher

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Built to learn about life  

The Amphitheaters of Enlightenment in Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen symbolizes the power and dissemination of concepts in European architecture and the emergence of a European building culture. 

The term "amphitheater" initially had negative associations with the cruel games of ancient Rome. The Inscription above the entrance of the Académie Royale de Chirurgie, a latin couplet by french author Santeuil, changed its perception by juxtaposing antiquity and modernity, death and life: the new amphitheaters are not built for homicide but to learn about life. The couplet celebrated the pursuit of knowledge and life, reinterpreting the word positively and aligning it with the values of the Enlightenment.

Anatomy theaters originated in Italy during the 16th century but flourished in 18th century France. Paris, with its competing surgical and craft-trained brotherhoods, saw the establishment of significant lecture halls, including the amphitheaters designed by Joubert and Gondoin. These amphitheaters became architectural expressions of the Enlightenment's self-confidence and understanding.

The French Amphithéâtre influenced anatomy theaters throughout Europe, leaving a lasting impact. Buildings in Copenhagen, Berlin, Salamanca, and even in Italy were shaped by the architectural and narrative ideas born in Paris. The intertwining of literature and architecture led to the development of a cross-border European building tradition, which should be cherished as a shared cultural heritage.