The Culture of Anatomy: Material, Intellectual and Artistic Spaces in the Early Modern Age

International workshop

March 19–20 2026

On the occasion of the closing event of the SNSF Project The “Civilization of Anatomy”: the genre of Literary anatomies in Seventeenth-century Italy (April 2022–March 2026), we are organizing an international and interdisciplinary workshop devoted to exploring the concept of the material and meta- phorical spaces of anatomy. The event is conceived as the culmination of two previous international conferences: Seeing Anatomy in Literature and the Arts: Words, Images and Spaces since the Early Modern Age (Lugano 2023), which focused on the relationship between medical knowledge and its scientific and artistic forms of visualization; and The Body of the Text and its Parts: Anatomy, Language, and Academies in the Early Modern Age and Beyond (Lugano 2024), which addressed the historical, linguistic, and literary dimensions of the anatomical reception.

A distinctive feature of the workshop lies in its format, which fosters direct dialogue between early-career scholars and established researchers. This approach aims to support scholarly renewal while encouraging sustained exchange between research grounded in established disciplinary frameworks and the development of new lines of inquiry.
The structure of the meeting foregrounds specific conceptions of space, understood first and foremost as a crossroads for the circulation and exchange of knowledge. It therefore examines physical sites (such as medical institutions, scientific and artistic academies, cultural circles, museums, and public and private collections) as well as venues of transmission (for example, intellectual, medical, and literary correspondence) that have influenced particular artistic and literary production. Secondly, the workshop addresses the space of anatomical images, both visual and imaginative, investigating their epistemic value. Alongside images (didactic illustrations, whether scientific, artistic, philosophical-moral, or religious), the program also considers anatomical artifacts (specimens and preparations for scientific use, as well as relics, instruments, and ex-votos connected to the sacred sphere).

Organized by

Linda Bisello (Università della Svizzera italiana)
Sofia Bollini (Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” – Università della Svizzera italiana)
Imma Iaccarino (Università della Svizzera italiana)
Margherita Schellino (Università della Svizzera italiana – Università degli Studi di Torinoi)

Scientific board
Linda Bisello (USI, Istituto di studi italiani)
Marco Maggi (USI, Istituto di studi italiani)
Carla Mazzarelli (USI, Accademia di architettura)
Stefano Prandi (USI, Istituto di studi italiani)
Raffaella Scarpa (Università degli studi di Torino)