Time: 2 pm EDT
Admission: $8 - Tickets HERE

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The field of petrification was a branch of anatomy that flourished in Italy during the Nineteenth Century. The generalized term “petrification” (“turning into stone”) actually did not refer to a single specific technique, but to a whole series of different methods of anatomical preservation developed by many researchers, usually independently of each other.

The pioneer of these techniques was Girolamo Segato (1792–1836), but other anatomists soon followed in his footsteps, creating some of the most baffling preparations in the whole history of anatomy. Both praised and ostracized by their contemporaries, the “petrifiers” incarnated the romantic ideal of the solitary genius living on the fringes both of the scientific community and society in general; most often, they carried the secret of their method to the grave.

But the quest for a technique that could turn bodies into stone stretched beyond scientific purposes, as it was speculated that it might become a new way to memorialize the dead. In this sense, the fact that petrification was very much an Italian specialty is due to a series of cultural, social and political factors which will be addressed in this highly visual lecture.

Ivan Cenzi is an explorer of the uncanny and collector of curiosities. He is the author of The Eternal Vigil on the Palermo Catacombs, De Profundis on the Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples, Mors Pretiosa on Italy’s main religious ossuaries, His Anatomical Majesty on the Museum of Pathological Anatomy in Padua, and The Petrifier on the “Paolo Gorini” Anatomical Collection in Lodi. He also wrote Paris Mirabilia and London Mirabilia. A lecturer of Iconology of Death at the University of Padua, since 2009 Ivan Cenzi is the curator of Bizzarro Bazar, a blog centered on the concept of dark wonder and the study of the macabre; he writes and hosts a web series of the same name.