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(42) in 1791, police invaded his cabinet and destroyed a number of models intended for private collectors, ‘the sight of which’, according to Joseph Richter’s satirical novel Die Eipeldauer-Briefe (1785–1797) ‘would in most Christian contemporaries have overturned the good teachings of their preachers’. Human anatomy had first become of great interest to artists, natural phi losophers, and the general public during the Renaissance. It was particularly fig. 23 fig. 23 Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical sketches in pen and ink over chalk (1490–c. 1511). From top left to bottom right: vulva and anus; cardiovascular system and principal organs of a woman; fetus in the womb; the act of coitus; male and female reproductive systems; a fetus, and the muscles attached to the pelvis. important to visual artists to understand the underlying structures of the body in order to depict human subjects more realistically. To this end, artists con ducted their own dissections—more, some say, than the anatomists of the era. Artists also often used wax in their representations, especially in the crafting of three-dimensional écorchés—skinless figures demonstrating musculature—as studies for finished works. Among the best-known écorchés is Ludovico Cardi’s, known as La bella notomia (The Beautiful Anatomy) or Lo scorticato (The Flayed), made around 1600 in Florence. Its immense popularity has led to numerous casts being made from his prototype in bronze and plaster ever since. Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–88) offlorence was the first known artist to make practical use of wax écorchés for study in art schools. AV_00966_pre-pdf layout_001_215.indd 42 12/01/2016 12:14 chapter one[1]