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(18) The Anatomical Venus begins at the time and place of the creation of the Medici Venus—eighteenth-century Florence, Italy. Staunchly Catholic, with a long tra dition of realistic wax anatomies in the form of sacred ex-votos manufactured for the pilgrims trade, Florence was also the epicentre of the Renaissance, which ushered in a great flowering of naturalistic representation in the arts and an unprecedented popular interest in the study of human anatomy. Ruled and patronized by the Medici dynasty from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, in 1765 it came under the power of Leopold II (1747–92), a secular and humani tarian ruler from Habsburg, Vienna. Ten years later, led by his Enlightenment values, Leopold II—as Grand Duke of Tuscany—founded the first truly public science museum in Florence in 1775. Under the leadership of the court’s physi cian, natural philosopher Felice Fontana (1730–1805), the wax workshop at the fig. 2 Early-eighteenth century dissectible ivory miniature manikin of a pregnant female, Italy. fig. 2 fig. 3 fig. 3 Eighteenth century wooden and ivory miniature based on Rembrandt’s famous painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). The original subject—Aris Krindt, a man hanged for robbery on 16 June 1632 and dissected at the Surgeons’ Guild, Amsterdam—has been replaced by a dissectible female figure, similar to the ivory anatomical manikins of the period (see pp. 36, 52–53). museum’s core attempted to create an encyclopaedia of the human body in wax with which to teach and delight a popular audience. The finest and most iconic of these wax bodies—and the centrepiece of the museum—was the Medici Venus. This book examines the precursors of the Medici Venus—anatomized and dissectible female figures in both sacred and profane domains—along with the artistic and theological predecessors that provided an aesthetic and conceptual framework for these models of feminine beauty intended to beguile as well as instruct. It tells the story of the creation of the first anatomical museum in Bologna, equal parts church and pedagogical tool, founded by the scientifically minded Pope Benedict XIV (1675–1758). It also investigates the similar yet con flicting ways in which Catholicism and medicine seek to preserve and effigize the body, and delves into the history of wax itself, uncannily similar in appear ance to human flesh, and used since ancient times for a variety of death- and magic-related purposes. The book follows the journey of the Anatomical Venus to the fairground and the popular museum of the nineteenth century, where AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 18 12/01/2016 12:14 IntroductIon