Born: 21 January 1714, Italy
Died: 9 July 1774
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: Anna Morandi
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
Anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini was acclaimed (if severely underpaid) in her time, but she was written out of history. In 1700s Bologna, she and her husband dissected hundreds of corpses and created hundreds of anatomical wax sculptures. Unlike others at the time, they systematically removed organ systems for further study, enabling them to create detailed wax models of the organ system, perfect for teaching anatomy students. Unlike many husband-and-wife teams, Morandi was the public face of their partnership, and her skill and fame only grew after his 1755 death, after which the Institute of Bologna appointed her Lecturer in Anatomy in her own name.
Yet even her contemporaries sought to undermine her skills and achievements by emphasising her beauty, crediting her work as due to her devotion to her husband as “his wise and pious wife” or reducing her from his partner to a mere assistant—ignoring that her work continued after his death. Some, like anatomist Petronio Ignazio Zecchini, went much further. He actively attacked Morandi and other women intellectuals, whom he saw as interlopers who must be undermined. In his book Genial Days: On the Dialectic of Women Reduced to Its True Principle, he asserts that women are ruled by their uterus, not their brains and intellect like men, and tells women to “[w]illingly subject yourselves to men, who, by their counsel, can curb your instability and concupiscence.”
Morandi biographer Rebecca Messbarger observes that such accounts “have influenced her place in history to her detriment. She was essentially erased from history… Morandi had an international reputation. But even later biographical sketches represent [her husband] as the brains, and she was the gifted hand. In her lifetime, that wasn’t true.”
The following is excerpted from the Prospetto biografico delle donne italiane rinomate in letteratura dal secolo decimoquarto fino a’ giorni nostri di Ginevra Canonici Fachini (Biographical Survey of Italian Women Renowned in Literature from the Fourteenth Century to the Present Day by Ginevra Canonici Fachini), published in 1824 and made available by Project Gutenberg.
Menzolini – Morandi, Anna, di Bologna. N. 1717. M. 1774.
Fu Pittrice, Scultrice ed Anatomica, e per più anni copri nella Università di Bologna la cattedra d’ Anatomia, della quale intraprese Io studio difficile per giovare al marito con opportuni ajuti. Fu distintissima tra’ primi ne’ lavori anatomici in cera, e da se sola formò la dimostrazione delle grandi opere della natura, cominciando dall’aborto di un mese fin all’uomo pervenuto alla età di anni 50, oltre molte altre opere utilissime. Fu aggregata all’Accademia delle Scienze dell’ Istituto di Bologna, all’Accademia Clementina, alla Società Letteraria di Foligno, all’ Accademia di Disegno di Firenze. Fu invitata a Milano, a Londra, a Pietroburgo, ma ricusando sempre di abbandonare la patria si limitò a spedire molti saggi de’ suoi lavori in cera alle estere Corti.
Fantuzzi, Scritt. Bologn. T. VI.
Nuovo Dizion. Stor. T. XII. Bassano, 1796.
Menzolini – Morandi, Anna, of Bologna. B. 1717. D. 1774.
She was a painter, sculptor, and anatomist, and for many years held the chair of Anatomy at the University of Bologna, undertaking the arduous study to benefit her husband with timely assistance. She was among the first to excel in wax anatomical works, and single-handedly created demonstrations of the great works of nature, from a month’s abortion to a man at the age of 50, among many other very useful works. She was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Bologna Institute, the Clementine Academy, the Literary Society of Foligno, and the Academy of Drawing in Florence. She was invited to Milan, London, and St. Petersburg, but, always refusing to abandon her homeland, she limited herself to sending many samples of her wax works to foreign courts.
Fantuzzi, Scritt. Bologn. T. VI.
New Historical Dictionary T. XII. Bassano, 1796.