Durante la chiusura al pubblico dell’Istituto, in questa pagina vi proponiamo testi e riflessioni di amici e scrittori, talvolta scritti per l’occasione, scelti ogni giorno per voi. Oggi, Martina Mazzotta.
‘Unicorns, bezoar stones and vipers’
Nature and art: the two concepts are particularly evident when environmental (and medical) emergencies become more urgent. In the case of encyclopaedic collections that flourished in Italy in the late Renaissance, commonly understood as part of the multifaceted and varied phaenomenon of the Wunderkammern, we can assess rich interconnections between nature, art, philosophy, science and magic – within a new aesthetic.
From being the subject of scholarly and museological interest, the Wunderkammer has turned today to a kind of icon of popular culture and is widely used in the world of contemporary art, fashion, design (sometimes with results that could be called Wunderkitsch). The presence of certain naturalia that constitute the ‘aura’ of collections of this sort – unicorn’s horns, corals, bezoar or serpent’s stones – is inextricably linked to the virulent outbreak of plagues that occurred in Italy between the 1570s and the 1650s.
At the time, famous naturalists such as Aldrovandi in Bologna, or apothecaries like Imperato in Naples and Calzolari in Verona, were committed to collect in their own museums simples for ‘theriac’, the ‘royal antidote of antidotes’ whose central ingredient were vipers. As medical compounds dating back to the ancient and Islamic world, theriac medicines were supposed to literally pull the disease from the body. In mid XVI century they became popular as ‘mirrors’ of the human physiological complexity: each costly ingredient had to correspond to parts and functions of the human body, in a micro/macro-cosmic game, typical of that anima mundi that early modern Wunderkammern aimed to possess. Rare ingredients such as spices, exotic animals and precious minerals (in short: the very items contained in encyclopaedic museums) became widely consumed during plagues. They were also catalogued and reproduced in scientific illustrations, often by wonderful artists such as Ligozzi. He was active in the court of Francesco I de’ Medici, the melancholic Prince and collector, but also in the museum of Aldrovandi, hosted today in the University Museum of Palazzo Poggi. If encyclopaedic collections can be considered at the very origins of museums, then the catalogues and scientific illustrations that accompany them lie at the origins of art books.
Collecting habits of early modern naturalists certainly contributed to the impact of humanistic culture in the medical profession. Wunderkammern were used by academicians, alongside with classrooms, to create medical compounds. When the Health Boards forbade the traffic of medicines between different regions (especially in times of plague), botanical gardens were opened to assure a steady supply of medicinal simples. The first one was conceived in 1543 by Cosimo I de’ Medici, in Pisa. In the 1650s, with the disappearance of the epidemic from Italy, naturalia did not vanish from museums, but instead were given different meanings. Indeed, through the Enlightenment and its urge to classify natural specimens within a proper scientific frame, unicorn’s horns, bezoar and serpent stones entered different contexts, such as in the ‘cabinets of curiosities’ in Britain, or in later literature. Wherever these iconic objects can be admired, their power to evoke magical-alchemical wonders and miracles of nature resounds in multiple echoes, which are still relevant today.
Martina Mazzotta, Art Historian.
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