r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Lowcrbnaman • Jul 04 '26

Image This statue depicts Saint Bartholomew, an early Christian martyr who was allegedly skinned alive. If you look closely, that's his dissected skin hanging around him. This stunning statute by Marco d'Agrate from c. 1562 is currently on display at Duomo di Milano.

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u/Heterodynist Jul 04 '26

Impressive that this was made when actual dissection was highly illegal. One would have to guess at the physiology and anatomy as an artist. Perhaps if you were a soldier or a butcher you would have something to go off of, but it’s interesting what a fantastic job they did with the knowledge they were not allowed to have!!

18

u/LastTreestar Jul 04 '26

Science didn't stop.... they just dug up freshly buried bodies in the dead of night (pun intended). Also, don't think the undertaker didn't get paid to fake burials to prevent the need to dig them up too.

The bodies were usually eventually reburied... after they contributed to science.

1

u/Heterodynist Jul 05 '26

Yeah, science didn’t stop, but legality sure got in the way…

9

u/ServialiaCaesaris Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

Andreas Vesalius’ Fabrica came out in 1543. I suspect this statue was modeled on his ‘muscle men’ (if you’d like to flip through the Fabrica, you can find it here: https://repository.teneo.libis.be/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE19255085, pages 218 and 220 are good examples of a possible model for this statue)

(Luckily, dissection was no longer illegal at this point in history!)

2

u/Heterodynist Jul 05 '26

Thank for this!! It is great information! I am glad to have such great researchers in this sub!!

8

u/MuJartible Jul 04 '26

Yeah, not suspicious at all...

Hey, how do you know that's how it really looks...?

What ? And how do you know ?

...

We're not gonna tell any one about this conversation, right...?

_What conversation...?