The exhibition A Body of Signs. Symbols, sacredness, knowledge will open on Thursday 25 July at noon., which proposes an evocative journey through the multiple interpretations and representations of the human body made for cognitive, scientific, religious, philosophical and medical purposes. Models, preparations, books, atlases, prints, sculptures and other precious visual testimonies will trace this evocative and spectacular path through the centuries, from Egyptian culture to contemporary times.
The exhibition is divided into three sections: the sacred body, the symbolic body, the described body.
The sacred body. The religious interpretation of the body that takes the form of the preservation of corpses (as occurs, for example, in some Egyptian and Columbian mummies and their present trousseaus) also opens up interesting perspectives for contemporary times. In the Middle Ages, the sacred body, preserved and venerated in often very precious caskets, was that of saints, called upon to animate the religious spirit of the faithful. However, there are also secular mummies and attempts to preserve the body that society has sometimes reserved for ‘illustrious men’, scientists, artists, musicians, writers, politicians. This is the case of Galileo's finger preserved today in the Museo Galileo in Florence, removed from the scientist's body and conserved as a sacred relic; of Mazzini's funerary mask, whose mummy was exhibited to the public in 1946 on the occasion of the birth of the Italian Republic; of Raphael's skull, venerated by artists as an inspirational relic. In all these cases, albeit in different ways, the practice of memory preservation crosses over into veneration and secular worship. The theme suggests interesting reflections on the social significance of contemporary phenomena, such as the ‘relics’ of pop artists or sports champions.
The symbolic body. Since ancient times, the body has been charged with magical and symbolic values that were codified in the Renaissance, giving rise to veritable manuals in which the human figure became an essential element of a universal and translinguistic sign language. Interesting in this sense is the analysis of the symbolic treatises dedicated to the meanings of the body and its parts (limbs, hands, feet, forehead, eyes, mouth) starting from the first sixteenth-century allegorical manual (Cesare Ripa's Iconologia). Here the body, especially the female body, becomes the instrument to express concepts in an unambiguous way: the nakedness of Truth, the disfigured body of Sin, the wings of Speed, the open heart of Sincerity communicate clear and immediate messages without mediation. In such a search for meanings and physical signs, great importance was given to physiognomy, the ancient science that sought to grasp the interiority and character impulses of men from their facial features. Linked to it are the divinatory doctrines that became widespread from the 17th century onwards: metoposcopy, which sought to predict a person's future from the signs and wrinkles on their forehead, palmistry, which investigated hand traits, or nevology, the science of moles.
The described body. This session investigates the study of the body for scientific and descriptive purposes and is linked in particular to the excellence of the Pisan school of medicine, in a tradition that from the Medici age reached modernity with Paolo Mascagni and, during the 19th century, with Filippo Civinini and Filippo Pacini. Memories, traces and documents remain of this extraordinary laboratory of studies and research conducted on the human body. It is enough to think of the extraordinary book heritage preserved in the University Library and in the departmental libraries of the University, with ancient, richly illustrated volumes, most of which are the result of septic investigations conducted in and around Pisa, as well as the series of preparations, both dry and in vitro, preserved in the collections of the University Museum System.
The itinerary is made even more fascinating by the works of famous contemporary artists that invite further reflection with looks of surprising and unexpected originality.
Exhibition curated by Sonia Maffei, Gianfranco Natale and Alessandro Tosi, with the participation of Alberto Ambrosini and Flora Silvano.
The exhibition is realised with the patronage and collaboration of: Biblioteca Universitaria di Pisa, Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere dell’Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Ricerca Traslazionale dell’Università di Pisa, Limes (Laboratorio di metodologie informatiche per la storia dell’arte), Sistema Museale d’Ateneo – Università di Pisa, Sistema Bibliotecario d’Ateneo – Università di Pisa, Regione Toscana, Accademia Raffaello di Urbino.
It will be open until 6 October 2024.
The Museo della Grafica will be open with these hours:
- until 30 September, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m;
- from 1 October, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m;
