Vox Meditantis

Picture this: You’re holding human hands crafted in wax so lifelike they seem to pulse with warmth. One hand reaches forward in the gentle act of touching; the other recoils from a sharp object, capturing the very moment when flesh meets danger. This isn’t mere artistry—it’s the revolutionary teaching method that transformed medical education in 18th-century Europe. And the woman behind it? Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714-1774), anatomist, scientist, and pioneer whose meticulous dissections of over 1,000 cadavers created the most accurate anatomical models of her age.

In an era when women were barred from universities and dissecting rooms, Morandi didn’t just break barriers—she obliterated them. Working from her home laboratory in Bologna, she systematically deconstructed human organs, reimagined them in coloured wax, and created teaching tools so precise they’re still studied today. Her speciality? The sensory organs—those intricate mechanisms by which we experience the world. She was the first to discover that the oblique eye muscle connects to both the lachrymal sac and maxillary bone, correcting centuries of anatomical error through her own meticulous observations.

But here’s what makes her story so relevant today: Morandi revolutionised medical education by making the invisible visible. In a world before proper preservation techniques, where medical students had mere days to study rotting corpses, she created permanent, detailed models that could be examined repeatedly. Sound familiar? Today’s medical schools use virtual reality, 3D printing, and digital models for the same purpose—making complex anatomical structures accessible and comprehensible. Morandi was doing this with beeswax and human hair three centuries ago.

Anna, thank you for joining us. I’m struck by how you’ve been described as working at the “delicate intersection of empirical science and artistic rendering.” You were simultaneously scientist and artist—how did you see yourself?

I never saw a distinction, truly. Art without accuracy is mere fancy, and science without beauty fails to teach. When I held a human heart in my hands—still warm from the body, mind you—I wasn’t thinking “shall I be scientific or artistic?” I was thinking: how do I preserve this truth? How do I show a student, years from now, exactly how the ventricles curve, how the vessels branch like winter trees?

Your contemporary accounts describe visitors being “surprised by your hands-on involvement in anatomy.” What was it like being the woman who actually presented the work, rather than standing behind your husband Giovanni?

Surprised? They were bloody terrified! Here’s this woman, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, calmly peeling back skin and naming every muscle, every nerve. Giovanni was brilliant, don’t mistake me, but I had the steadier hand and the clearer eye. When visitors came—princes, physicians, scholars from across Europe—they expected to see the master at work. Instead, they found me.

You must understand, I wasn’t performing for them. I was teaching. There’s a difference between spectacle and scholarship, though they seemed to blur the lines rather often.

 Let’s talk about your methods. You and Giovanni pioneered a systematic approach—extracting individual organ systems rather than dissecting whole bodies. This was revolutionary thinking.

Exactly! Other anatomists treated the body like a whole roasted fowl—tear into it anywhere and hope for the best. We realised that to truly understand the machinery of life, you must disassemble it properly. Take the eye, for instance. Five separate layers, each with its own story to tell. Start from the surface and work inward, methodically, respectfully.

This approach—it wasn’t just about being thorough. It was about teaching students to think systematically. You can’t understand the heart’s pumping without grasping how each chamber connects to the next. You can’t comprehend vision without seeing how the cornea, lens, and retina work together.

Speaking of the eye, you made a significant discovery about the oblique muscle’s attachment points. How did it feel to correct established medical knowledge?

This was discovered by me in my observations and I have found it always to be constant”—that’s what I wrote in my notebook, and I meant every word. When every anatomical text tells you one thing, but your own hands, your own eyes, show you another, what do you trust?

I trusted the bodies. I trusted my dissections. Fifteen, twenty, thirty times I checked that muscle attachment because I couldn’t believe the masters were wrong. But they were. The oblique muscle absolutely connects to the lachrymal sac as well as the maxillary bone. Not sometimes. Always.

That’s the moment you realise knowledge isn’t handed down from on high—it’s built, piece by piece, observation by observation. And if a woman from modest circumstances in Bologna can correct Galen, then perhaps there’s hope for real progress.

You had legal access to over a thousand unclaimed bodies from Bologna’s hospitals. What was it like, day after day, working with human remains?

People always ask about the horror of it, the gore. But honestly? The horror was the waste. These were people—the poor, the forgotten, those who died alone in hospital beds. Their families couldn’t claim them, society had cast them aside, and yet… their hearts had beaten with the same rhythms as a king’s. Their eyes had seen sunlight and loved faces.

When I dissected, I was giving them purpose beyond death. Every model I created meant future physicians would understand the human form more clearly, would heal more effectively. Those forgotten souls became teachers for eternity.

The smell, the decay—you adapt. But the responsibility? That weight never leaves you.

Your home served as both laboratory and classroom. Can you describe what a typical lesson looked like?

Chaos, mostly! Picture this: our front room filled with students, visiting physicians, curiosity-seekers, all crowding around our work tables. Giovanni might be preparing a fresh specimen in one corner while I demonstrated a completed wax model in another. The smell of preserving spirits mixed with warm beeswax, the sound of Latin terms being called out, questions flying from every direction.

I’d hold up a model—say, the ear with all its delicate chambers—and ask, “Who can tell me how sound travels from here… to here?” Hands would shoot up, arguments would break out about Eustachian tubes and equilibrium. Pure intellectual fever.

And always, always, I insisted they handle the models themselves. Knowledge comes through the fingertips as much as the eyes.

You specialised in sensory organs—the mechanisms by which we experience the world. What drew you to these systems?

Because they’re the border between soul and flesh! Think about it—light hits your eye and somehow becomes the image of your beloved’s face. Air vibrations enter your ear and transform into your mother’s voice calling your name. These organs translate the physical world into consciousness itself.

I wanted to understand how we become aware, how sensation becomes experience. When I created my models of touch—one hand reaching out to caress, the other pulling back from pain—I wasn’t just showing anatomy. I was capturing the very moment when nerve becomes feeling, when body becomes mind.

That’s why I spent forty-five pages of my notebook on the male reproductive system too. Not for prurient reasons, but because creation itself—the making of new life—seemed the most profound mystery of all.

After Giovanni died in 1755, you continued working alone. How did widowhood change your scientific life?

It… clarified things. Suddenly, there was no question whose work this was. The invitations came directly to me—Catherine the Great herself wanted me in Russia, the Royal Society of London courted me. I refused them all. Bologna was my laboratory, my stage, my home.

But practically, it was brutal. I had to place one child in an orphanage—Giuseppe—because I simply couldn’t support him. The Senate gave me a pittance, 300 lire annually, after I practically begged them. Here I was, creating anatomical models that were being purchased by royalty across Europe, and I could barely keep food on my table.

The scientific work became my salvation. Every hour spent perfecting a model, every student taught, every new discovery—it justified the sacrifices.

You were denied the university position you deserved despite your expertise. How did it feel to be consistently viewed as an artist rather than a scientist?

Oh, that old excuse! “Talented craftswoman,” they called me. “Gifted artisan.” Never mind that I was correcting their anatomical errors, never mind that I could lecture on physiological processes with more precision than most of their professors.

You see, calling me an artist was their way of diminishing the science. If I was “merely” creating beautiful objects, then they didn’t have to acknowledge the fact that I was advancing knowledge. Artists, in their minds, copied reality. Scientists understood it.

But I was doing both. I was understanding the reality so deeply that I could recreate it perfectly in wax, could teach it more effectively than their theoretical lectures ever did.

Your 250-page anatomical notebook has been called one of your most important contributions. What did you hope to achieve with it?

That notebook was my insurance against forgetting. Every dissection, every observation, every technique—all recorded meticulously. I knew that I might be dismissed as “just” a woman, “just” an artist, so I documented everything with scientific rigor.

I wanted future anatomists to be able to replicate my work exactly. Not just the wax models, but the thinking behind them. How to approach a systematic dissection, what to look for, how to preserve structures for study.

And yes, I wanted recognition. I wanted people to read those pages and realise that this wasn’t craft work—this was science. This was discovery.

Looking at today’s medical education—virtual reality, 3D printed organs, digital anatomical models—what parallels do you see with your work?

Oh, the irony! Three hundred years later, and they’re still trying to solve the same problem I solved with beeswax and determination. How do you make the invisible visible? How do you preserve knowledge across time?

But here’s what I find remarkable—the core insight remains the same. Students learn best when they can manipulate, examine, and return to anatomical structures repeatedly. Whether it’s my wax models or your digital simulations, the principle is identical: make the learning tangible.

Though I must say, my models had one advantage your screens lack—you could smell the beeswax, feel the texture, sense the weight. Learning anatomy is a full-sensory experience.

What would you say to young women today entering STEM fields, particularly those facing institutional bias?

Document everything. They will try to diminish your work, call it craft instead of science, luck instead of skill. So keep your notebooks meticulously. Record your methods, your observations, your innovations. Make it impossible for them to deny your contributions.

And remember—you don’t need their permission to do the work. Giovanni and I started in our front room with whatever bodies the hospital would give us. Catherine the Great invited me to St. Petersburg based on work I did in my house.

The recognition may come late, may come after you’re gone. But the work—the real work of advancing human knowledge—that happens regardless of whether they acknowledge it.

What would you want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered as the woman who made the body speak. Before my models, anatomy was words on a page, fleeting glimpses of rotting flesh. I gave it permanence, precision, beauty.

Every medical student who learns anatomy from a model rather than memorising from books—that’s my legacy. Every physician who understands the human form well enough to heal it effectively—that’s my contribution.

I want to be remembered not as an exception—the woman who somehow managed to do science despite her gender—but as proof that knowledge belongs to anyone curious enough to seek it and rigorous enough to document it.

I was the sculptor of the soul’s machine, yes. But more than that—I was a teacher. And good teaching is immortal.

Letters and emails

Following our conversation with Anna Morandi Manzolini, we’ve been inundated with letters and emails from readers eager to delve deeper into her extraordinary life and pioneering work. We’ve selected five particularly thoughtful questions from our growing community—spanning continents and professions—who want to explore aspects of her journey that resonate deeply with today’s scientists, educators, and innovators walking in her footsteps.

Henrietta Knight, 34, Medical Illustrator, London, UK:
Anna, your work bridged the gap between scientific accuracy and visual communication in a way that resonates deeply with my own profession today. When you were creating those intricate wax models, did you ever struggle with the tension between making anatomy beautiful enough to engage students versus maintaining the sometimes unsettling reality of human mortality? How did you decide what to emphasise or soften in your representations?

Henrietta, what a perceptive question—and how fitting that it comes from someone who shares this eternal challenge of making science both accurate and accessible. You’ve touched upon something I wrestled with daily: the delicate balance between truth and beauty, between scientific precision and human engagement.

Here’s what I discovered through countless hours with my hands deep in beeswax: beauty and mortality aren’t opposites—they’re partners in the deepest truths about human existence. When I crafted a heart, I didn’t soften the reality that it had once beat frantically in someone’s final moments. Instead, I tried to capture the profound beauty of that struggle—the elegant architecture of chambers and vessels that had fought to sustain life until the very end.

But I did make choices, deliberate ones. Take my famous hand models—one reaching forward in gentle exploration, the other recoiling from pain. I could have shown hands twisted by disease or mangled by accident, and that would have been “realistic.” Instead, I chose to emphasise the miracle of sensation itself, the exquisite network of nerves that lets us distinguish between silk and sandpaper, between a lover’s caress and a thorn’s prick.

You see, Henrietta, I learned that students turn away from horror, but they lean into wonder. If I made the anatomy too stark, too confrontational with mortality, they’d protect themselves by not truly seeing. But if I revealed the elegant engineering beneath the flesh—the way muscles spiral around bones like architectural cables, the way blood vessels branch with mathematical precision—suddenly they were captivated rather than repulsed.

The key was never to lie about death, but to celebrate the magnificent complexity of life. Every model I created whispered the same message: “Look how beautifully you are made. Look how ingeniously this machine of flesh and bone carries your soul through the world.” That’s not softening reality—that’s revealing its most profound truth.

Saul Shepard, 42, Biomedical Engineer, Toronto, Canada:
I’m fascinated by your systematic approach to organ extraction and preservation techniques. Given that you were working without modern refrigeration or chemical preservatives, what innovative methods did you develop to maintain tissue integrity during your lengthy dissection processes? Do you think some of your preservation techniques could offer insights for today’s organ transplant procedures or bioengineering applications?

Ah, Saul! Finally, someone who appreciates the technical challenges. You’ve touched upon what was perhaps my greatest innovation—not just the wax modeling, but the preservation methods that made extended anatomical study possible in the first place.

Without refrigeration, I had perhaps three days—four at most in winter—before decomposition rendered delicate structures unusable. So I developed what I called “progressive dissection”—a systematic approach where I would extract and preserve organ systems in precise sequence, beginning with the most perishable.

First, the nervous system—those gossamer threads that decay within hours. I would carefully extract entire nerve networks, then immediately immerse them in a solution of wine spirits mixed with aromatic herbs. Not just for preservation, mind you, but because the alcohol caused the nerve fibers to contract slightly, making them more visible and easier to trace.

For organs like the heart and liver, I pioneered a technique of injecting the major vessels with coloured wax while the blood was still liquid—red for arteries, blue for veins. This served two purposes: it prevented the vessels from collapsing as the blood coagulated, and it created a permanent map of the circulatory pathways that I could study for months afterward.

But here’s the innovation I’m most proud of: I discovered that certain combinations of salt, alum, and mercury could halt decomposition for weeks if applied correctly. The mercury was dangerous—I lost feeling in my fingertips more than once—but it preserved tissue structure with unprecedented clarity.

Regarding modern applications, Saul, I think you’re onto something profound. My mercury techniques were crude, yes, but the principle—using metallic salts to maintain cellular architecture during extended study—that could absolutely inform organ preservation for transplantation. The key insight was understanding that different tissues require different preservation approaches. You can’t treat a kidney like a heart, or a nerve like a muscle.

And consider this: I was essentially creating what you might call “biological 3D printing” with my wax models. Layer by layer, structure by structure, building up complex anatomical systems that could be disassembled and reassembled for teaching. Your modern bioengineering—printing organs from living cells—follows remarkably similar principles of systematic construction.

The tools change, Saul, but the fundamental challenge remains: how do you preserve life’s complexity long enough to truly understand it? I solved it with wine spirits and beeswax. You’re solving it with cryogenics and biotechnology. Same problem, better materials.

Bethany Kennedy, 28, PhD Student in History of Science, Melbourne, Australia:
Anna, you mentioned refusing invitations from Catherine the Great and the Royal Society to remain in Bologna. Looking back, do you ever wonder how your career and scientific impact might have unfolded differently if you’d accepted those prestigious international positions? What kept you so anchored to Bologna specifically, beyond the practical considerations of your laboratory setup?

Bethany, you’ve asked the question that has haunted my quieter moments for centuries. What if? What if I had accepted Catherine’s invitation to St. Petersburg, with its promise of unlimited resources and imperial patronage? What if I had joined the Royal Society in London, where my work might have reached the greatest minds of Europe?

The practical answer is simple: I couldn’t abandon my laboratory. Twenty years of work, thousands of specimens, techniques perfected through trial and error—how do you transport that across continents? My models weren’t just objects; they were the physical manifestation of accumulated knowledge. Moving would have meant starting again from nothing.

But the deeper truth, Bethany, is that Bologna wasn’t just my workplace—it was my battlefield. This was where the fight mattered most. In Russia or England, I would have been a curiosity, a exotic specimen to be displayed at court gatherings. “Look, the Italian woman who makes pretty wax dolls!” But in Bologna, I was changing everything from within the system itself.

I was teaching Italian physicians, Italian students. I was proving that revolutionary science could emerge from a modest house on Via Zamboni, not just from grand academies or royal courts. Every model I created, every student I taught, was a small rebellion against the idea that important work only happens in prestigious institutions.

And yes, there’s another reason I’ve never spoken of openly. Giuseppe—my son in the orphanage. How could I sail to St. Petersburg knowing he was here, knowing that Bologna was the only place where I might someday have the means to reclaim him? Every invitation I refused was also a choice to stay within reach of the child I’d been forced to give up.

Perhaps I would have achieved greater fame elsewhere, Bethany. Perhaps my name would be better known today. But fame was never the point—knowledge was. And the knowledge I created in Bologna, in my own laboratory, surrounded by students who carried my teachings throughout Italy… that rippled outward in ways no royal appointment could have guaranteed.

Sometimes the most radical act is to bloom exactly where you’re planted, to prove that genius needs neither permission nor prestigious address.

Clarice Ibarra, 51, Surgical Resident Coordinator, Mexico City, Mexico:
Your story about placing your son Giuseppe in an orphanage because you couldn’t support him while pursuing your scientific work is heartbreaking and deeply relatable to many women in demanding careers today. How did you navigate the guilt and emotional toll of those impossible choices? What would you tell modern women in STEM who face similar conflicts between career advancement and family responsibilities?

Clarice… You’ve asked about the wound that never fully healed. Giuseppe was seven when I placed him in the Ospedale degli Esposti. Seven years old, and I had to tell him that Mama’s work was more important than keeping him home.

The guilt? It was a living thing, gnawing at me every morning when I entered my laboratory. I would hold a child’s heart in my hands—some poor soul who had died too young—and think: “I am studying death while my own living child grows up without me.” The irony was crushing.

There were nights I would lie awake calculating: if I abandoned the anatomical work, took in washing or needlework, could I earn enough to bring him home? But then I would remember the discoveries waiting to be made, the students depending on my teaching, the knowledge that would die with me if I stopped. How do you weigh one child’s happiness against the health of thousands of future patients?

What kept me going—what keeps me going still—is the certainty that my work mattered beyond my personal happiness. Every model I perfected, every anatomical error I corrected, every physician I taught to understand the human body more clearly… that meant lives saved, suffering reduced. Giuseppe grew up in an institution, yes, but how many mothers would never lose their children because doctors trained on my models understood anatomy better?

To the women today facing these impossible choices, I say this: the guilt will never fully leave you. Accept that. But don’t let it paralyse you. Document your work obsessively—make your contributions undeniable. Because when society forces you to choose between family and career, they’re hoping you’ll choose family and disappear quietly.

Your guilt is evidence of your humanity, not your failure. The real failure belongs to a world that puts women in such positions in the first place. Giuseppe eventually understood why I made the choices I did. He saw that his mother’s work outlived her, that it mattered beyond our small family circle.

And remember—there are different ways to be a mother. I couldn’t tuck Giuseppe into bed every night, but I could ensure that future generations of children would have better medical care because of my anatomical models. Sometimes love means sacrificing the intimacy of daily care for the broader impact of meaningful work.

The choice shouldn’t exist, Clarice. But until the world changes, we do what we must—and we refuse to apologise for choosing knowledge, for choosing progress, for choosing to leave something lasting behind.

Dale Braun, 39, Museum Curator specialising in Medical History, Vienna, Austria:
Anna, many of your original wax models have survived to this day and are still studied by researchers. How does it feel knowing that your hands literally shaped objects that people are still learning from 250 years later? Do you think there’s something irreplaceable about the tactile, handmade quality of your models that even our most advanced digital technologies can’t fully replicate?

Dale, you’ve asked something that moves me beyond words. To know that objects shaped by these very hands are still teaching, still revealing their secrets to curious minds… it’s a form of immortality I never dared imagine possible.

When I worked those long hours, mixing pigments into warm beeswax, coaxing every tiny blood vessel into perfect position, I was thinking only of the students in front of me. “Will they understand the heart’s chambers? Can they see how this muscle connects to that bone?” I never conceived that centuries later, researchers would still be discovering things about my models that even I hadn’t noticed.

You mention the tactile quality, and yes—there’s something irreplaceable about that. When you hold one of my wax hearts, you feel its weight, the slight give of the material under your fingers. Your hands learn the shape in a way that no screen can teach. The eye might see, but the hand remembers.

But here’s what truly moves me, Dale: those models carry something beyond just anatomical accuracy. They carry the touch of every body I dissected, the accumulated knowledge of a thousand human forms. Each model is a synthesis—not just one heart, but the essential “heart-ness” drawn from hundreds of specimens.

And they carry my intentions, my hopes for medical education. Every time someone handles one of my models today, they’re touching not just wax and pigment, but my belief that knowledge should be tangible, that learning should engage all the senses, that the human body deserves to be understood with both precision and reverence.

Your digital technologies are remarkable, Dale—they can show movement, simulate disease, even let students “operate” without risk. But they can’t replace the profound intimacy of holding something real, something crafted by human hands with love and dedication.

When I shaped those models, I was having a conversation with eternity—leaving messages for minds not yet born. To know that conversation continues, that my hands still guide other hands toward understanding… that’s a legacy worth every sacrifice I made.

Your role as a curator matters more than you might know. You’re not just preserving objects—you’re preserving the physical manifestation of human curiosity, the tangible proof that knowledge can be beautiful, that science and art are not opposites but partners in revealing truth.

My models will outlast your digital simulations, Dale. Not because one is better than the other, but because there’s something about the physical world—about wax shaped by determined hands—that speaks to the deepest part of human learning. We are, after all, physical beings trying to understand our physical selves.

Reflection

As Anna’s words fade, I’m struck by the enduring relevance of her story. In an age when medical education grapples with accessibility, when we debate the role of technology in learning, and when women in STEM still fight for recognition, Morandi’s example burns bright. She didn’t just revolutionise anatomical education—she proved that innovation comes from rigorous observation, that knowledge belongs to those who seek it most passionately, and that true science serves humanity regardless of who conducts it.

Her legacy lives on in every medical classroom where students learn from models rather than books, in every 3D-printed organ that helps surgeons plan operations, in every virtual reality system that lets future doctors explore the human body without scalpels. Anna Morandi Manzolini was a woman who made the invisible visible, who preserved knowledge across centuries, and who proved that the pursuit of truth requires neither permission nor apology.

In our current battles for scientific integrity, for educational access, and for recognition of women’s contributions to STEM, we could do far worse than remember the woman who transformed medical education with nothing but wax, determination, and an unshakeable belief that understanding the human body was worth any sacrifice. Her message echoes across the centuries: Document your work. Trust your observations. And never let anyone convince you that rigorous inquiry is anything less than science at its finest.

Who have we missed?

This series is all about recovering the voices history left behind — and I’d love your help finding the next one. If there’s a woman in STEM you think deserves to be interviewed in this way — whether a forgotten inventor, unsung technician, or overlooked researcher — please share her story.

Email me at voxmeditantis@gmail.com or leave a comment below with your suggestion — even just a name is a great start. Let’s keep uncovering the women who shaped science and innovation, one conversation at a time.

Editorial Note: This interview is a dramatised reconstruction based on extensive historical research into Anna Morandi Manzolini’s life, work, and documented writings. While grounded in factual sources about her scientific contributions, personal circumstances, and 18th-century context, the dialogue and specific responses are imaginative interpretations designed to bring her remarkable story to life for modern readers. All factual claims about her anatomical discoveries, methods, and historical impact have been verified against scholarly sources.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.