Morbid Anatomy Museum

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It—or, better, she—was conceived as a means to teach human anatomy without the need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught, and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman...