The anatomical sculpture in the second half of XVIIth century: the artistic career of Giovan Battista Manfredini

Some researches have been started within a collaboration project between the University of Modena and the University of Padua and about the anatomist Antonio Scarpa (at the conference of UNIVERSEUM - June 2011 http://www.musei.unipd.it/eventi/doc/universeum/Book_Abstracts.pdf), who graduated at the University of Padua and had his first teaching appointment in Anatomy and surgery in 1772 at the University of Modena, to provide an in-depth overview on how in the second half of XVIIIth century the progress of the study and of the teaching of Obstetrics determined the realization of a considerable \u201csuppellex obstetricia\u201d, that is to say obstetric models in wax or clay for educational purposes. It was fundamental the activity of Giovan Battista Manfredini (1742-1789), a bolognese sculptor who had been very active in the production of anatomical models: his activity as a sculptor was recognized by his contemporaries who in 1785 appointed him effective member of the Accademia Clementina, in the Class of Anatomical Sculptors, not less important than his Bolognese forerunners, Giovanni Manzolini and Anna Maria Morandi Manzolini.The researches aim at first at comparing the documentation on Manfredini with the works that have been attributed to him also according to stylistic comparisons, starting from colored wax and clay anatomical models that have been attributed to him, with specific in-depth researches for those that at present are preserved at the University of Padua (Department of Woman and Child Health \u2013 Obstetrical Clinic) and at the University of Modena (Anatomical Museums) in comparison with those preserved in Bologna (Museum of Palazzo Poggi) and Rome (National Museum of Medical History of Art), trying to define those stylistic and fabrication peculiar features that characterize his anatomical production.At second to re-discover and recognize other models created by Manfredini, not only for other Italian towns, like those of Mantua, but also for other European countries, like Poland or Russia, for which it is necessary to deepen the researches and, however, testify the close connection of the expertise of Manfredini with the progress of the studies of Obstetrics in Europ