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. 
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.

The Lady Anatomist: The Life and Work of Anna Morandi Manzolini

Biographies & Memoirs

Messbarger, Rebecca

Community & Culture

University of Chicago Press

Eighteenth-century Italian playwright Pietro Chiari designated the age he lived in 'The Century of Women' - an age when women gained considerable power through education and admission to various academic positions and professions. Structured as an extended disputation, this book tells the tale of five paradigmatic and ideologically divergent eighteenth-century Italian texts by male and female authors whose leitmotif is woman. These include an academic debate, a scientific tract, an oration, an Enlightenment journal, and a fashion magazine. Analysis focuses on the specific ways in which the exigencies of the 'new science' and the burgeoning Enlightenment project founded on rational civil law, secular moral philosophy, and utilitarian social ethics forced a transformation in the formal controversy about women.
By uncovering the characteristics of the expansive dominant discourse about women among Italian Enlightenment thinkers and of the counter-discourse women authors produced to assert their own distinct authority over constructions of femininity and the public sphere, this study reconceives eighteenth-century Italian culture and rectifies misconceptions about Italy's position and influence within the literary republic of the European Enlightenment. Groundbreaking and original, this study is the first to examine the contribution of women to the Republic of Letters of the Settecento, and will revise prevailing notions of eighteenth-century Italian culture and academia.

The Century of Women: Representations of Women in Eighteenth-Century Italian Public Discourse (Toronto Italian Studies)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

University of Toronto Press

Signora Anna, Anatomin der Aufklärung: Eine Kulturgeschichte aus Bologna

AB Die Andere Bibliothek

L'obiettivo di questo volume e fare dialogare storiche americane e italiane riguardo alcuni temi della gender history relativamente alla prima eta moderna. Il confronto evidenzia l'importanza di mantenere sempre attivi i contatti fra le due storiografie: quella americana, caratterizzata dalla volonta di sintetizzare e contestualmente ampliare con nuovi indirizzi di interpretazione la storia della societa europea; e quella italiana, in grado di produrre sovente ricerche di grande spessore storiografico anche attraverso l'indagine sulle fonti, ma a volte manchevole nell'allargare il suo sguardo all'orizzonte extra-italiano, europeo e globale. Infine, pur senza alcuna pretesa di completezza, attraverso una decina di casi si propone un bilancio su molte delle piu importanti iniziative che hanno avviato e arricchito, con notevoli risultati, la gender history in Italia.

La Storia Di Genere in Italia in Eta Moderna: Un Confronto Tra Storiche Nordamericane E Italiane (I Libri Di Viella) (Italian Edition)

History

Caffiero, Marina

Valerio, Adriana

Baernstein, P. Renee

Dalton, Susan

Betri, Maria Luisa

Brambilla, Elena

Canella, Maria

Casanova, Cesarina

Cavazza, Marta

Corsi, Dinora

De Clementi, Andreina

Donato, Maria Clara

Filippini, Nadia Maria

Guidi, Laura

Plebani, Tiziana

Sama, Catherine M

Scattigno, Anna

Venzo, Manola Ida

Zancan, Marina

Zarri, Gabriella

Zocchi, Paola

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Viella

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