Reflections of Bologna: A Carnival of Associations

On the Grapevine

19 08 2022, Museo di Palazzo Poggi

Do you have a plaster? My sandals are rubbing…

The app tells me the pizzeria is 3 minutes away!

Wow!

I don’t understand why we have to invite them too? 

Here you can see part of the brain, it’s all nerves?!

It’s like it’s been ripped out; everything around it is displayed; to represent the inner ear would need a separate model…

A masterpiece!

After the pandemic, the museum’s opening hours have changed, unfortunately…

I have to submit my thesis already in January…

I feel sick again, my tummy is tight…

Winter, Ears and The Ear

Anna sculpted models in the winter, 

The season was chilly and predictable, 

Suitable for autopsies and wax processes.

The weather didn’t trouble the hot carnival crowds:

January is the best month to study anatomy,

To work and go drinking:

Some rally around Apollo, patron of discipline and precision,

Others launch into the frenzy offered by Dionysus and celebrate chaos.

When dissecting bodies, the Manzolini couple worked side by side:

The young wife stood next to her husband – sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right –

Constantly glancing at one or other of his beautiful ears –

The channel through which all his knowledge of anatomical science had flowed.

Anna listened assiduously to Giovanni’s words,

All the professor’s wisdom travelled deep down the tunnel of her hearing and,

Reaching the brain, took root there.

No one knows for sure, but according to the extant information,

The year of The Ear’s appearance and the year of Giovanni Manzolini’s death coincide.

By this date Anna and Giovanni had four times buried their children.

This means:

Four pairs – eight single ears – heard the whispered grief of their parents.

(Of the six, only the two surviving Manzolini children got to see their mother Anna’s masterpiece. 

The children hated The Ear, because after its appearance their mother’s world began to change. 

Passion for work devoured Mum and spat out Professor Anna Morandi:

Always busy, immersed in universal attention, parts of dead bodies, wax and poverty.)

After her husband’s death, Anna acted quickly and precisely,

Borne by the energy of Apollo,

Without slipping on the potential wine bag of Bacchus,

Without giving time to grief. 

She ran to Benedict XIV

To ask permission to continue the winter and scalpel sessions alone in the studio,

Opening up bodies and digging in the peripeteias of blood vessels.

The Pope, after hearing Anna, didn’t hesitate to permit her,

A woman,

A talented artist and anatomist,

To continue.

His large, wise and scientifically sensitive ears

Because of his winter head cap – the camauro –

Anna couldn’t see,

But she had already studied dozens of other hearing organs,

Figuring out the nerve knots, muscles and bone structures holding them together.

The most important thing here:

Anna Morandi’s plea was heard. 

So The Ear appeared –

An object of art and science, 

Sculpted from the possibly autobiographical ear wax of 1755.

Silenus

19 08 2022, Museo Civico Medievale

The face of a child, and of an old man at the same time, a strange combination of childish chubbiness and middle-age lust. The face muscles suggest a plumpness originating from laziness, the prominent chin of a lover of fine food and pleasure. There is no neck, because those celebrating life don’t look to the side, they don’t burden themselves with unnecessary movements. The hedonism of the face is reinforced by conspicuous bags of fat on the breast. A supple motion permeates the whole bust – the wrinkled composition in Silenus’ arms is reminiscent of a dead horse’s head, a weary mane, but is in fact a half-empty – and hence misshapen – wine bag.* On the other hand, there is some logic in the vaguely discernible contours of the swift-footed animal – Silenus, as the chief companion in Dionysus’ retinue, is often portrayed with a horse’s tail. This probably helps him keep his balance, since this sage of wine is always drunk.

* All known information about the object: Rome (?), first half of 17th century, ‘Silenus with a Wine Bag’, marble.

WhatsApp Interlude

30 08 2022

17.38

Hi Erika, do you remember from your studies in Bologna that in January, now, these days, there would be some kind of carnival? I’ve found various hints of how autopsies at the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio coincided with the time of the carnival and attracted an even greater number of spectators. By the way, thank you for recommending that I visit it! There’s no way I’ll forget the sculpture of Apollo on the ceiling.

18.05

Haha – about the ceiling of the Anatomical Theatre. Hmmm, well, I’m not sure about the carnival… Hang on, I’ll ask my Italian friend.

18.05

Thank you!!!

23.56

Marco says that the Italians call 6 January ‘Befana’. We have the Three Kings, but they have a woman called Befana, who brings gifts to good children, and a lump of coal to those who’ve been bad all year. This is the only tradition of this sort in the whole of Italy, nothing else comes to mind.

Dionysia of Associations

I will make myself a carnival then.

When: on the last day of summer and the first day of autumn, as the chlorophyll slowly recedes from nature.

Where: on a Word.doc.page.

Silenus is climbing a staircase covered with a green carpet – similar to that we see recorded in Alessandra Tesi’s photo ‘Verde’ (1996). His uncoordinated body is coated with vine leaves, which fall on the green covering. After falling right here, they seem to disappear, because they, and the carpet, are the same shade of verde. As he’s climbing the stairs, Silenus holds onto the handrail, which here performs the function of the horse’s tail. There’s a lot of climbing, because he needs to cross a time band of several hundred years, to leap across the ages – the handrails are a real lifesaver. The softness exuding from the carpet makes the falling pleasant. Silenus hiccups, staggers, laughs, and is in no hurry. Finally, the destination is reached – the drunkard makes his way into the hall of the Museo di Palazzo Poggi – the Sala di Camilla, in which the models of the School of Obstetrics stand in line. Babies are curled up in the wrong positions, trying to crawl out of the wombs with their legs, or on their side – all kinds of flawed acrobatics, usually signifying the end of life for the owner of the womb or for the foetus which has not even begun. When Silenus sees these exhibits, he realises that he has lost his wine bag on the way – the wombs of clay, their form, arouse a sense of loss and distraction. A small worry:  as the old man, often referred to as Dionysus’ teacher, concentrates his power, the obstetric models are filled with wine – the foetuses are flooded with the red, intoxicating drink. The rocking of the babies in the rampaging wine is a visual illustration of Silenus’ famous dictum, that it is best not to be born, but if one is born, it is best to die early. As soon as this sentiment has been fulfilled, out of the second room, the Sala di Davide, the adjoining hall, swarm the corals lost in history in the classification of scientists – neither animals, nor plants, nor minerals. They have suffered so much from boredom, waiting to be correctly identified, that at last they have found an opportunity to celebrate their relatively newly acquired identity. They surround the staggering, clumsily dancing sage of Dionysus’ retinue, they begin to revel, to buzz with joy – the wombs which have turned into wine bags creak from the vibrations behind the glass.

These mutually opposing existences – the corals, planetary animals who are distinguished by possibly the longest length of life, and the foetuses who are never born, floating in the brew of grapes – stand exhibited here in different halls of the Museo di Palazzo Poggo, on opposite sides of Silenus’ thesis. 

Pope Benedict XIV raises his right hand** from the first room, the Ulisse Aldrovandi Hall – it was with this that, in the 18th century, scientific progress, and the path of Anna Morandi Manzolini, was blessed – now, in this small fantasy room of the Word.doc. (where I’m trying to give a logical spine to these connections, that is, to introduce some kind of Apollo to the overwhelming babble of information), let that mean a sign saying ‘stop’.

Stop!

** By the way, the Pope is not wearing his favourite winter headgear, the camauro, but a mitre – he probably posed for the portrait, now hanging in the centre of the hall, in the warm, green season. Around Benedict XIV’s ears are tufts of grey hair: a sign of the length of time which he has lived – longer than a foetus, and shorter than a coral.

***

The green carpet absorbs the uncoordinated steps of thoughts: the density of impressions is inversely proportionate to the length of the visit to Bologna – three days. Looking at the glazed documentation of Alessandra Tesi’s ‘Verde’ in the MAMbo Museum, I see my reflection.


Originally published by MAMbo – Bologna Museum of Modern Art on 2022 in English and Italian

Translated by Jeremy Hill