Skin and the Search for the Interior: The Representation of Flaying in the Art and Anatomy of the Cinquecento

• Published in: Bodily Extremities pp. 20 - 57
• Main Authors: Egmond, Florike, Zwijnenberg, Robert
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2003; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700; Federico Zuccari; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung; Titian’s Painting; Felix Platter; Flayed Bodies; Del Disegno; Florentine Accademia Del Disegno; Andreas Vesalius; De Historia De La Medicina; Ascanio Condivi; Capital Punishment; Archiepiscopal Palace; Titian’s Flaying; Baccio Bandinelli; Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana; Rembrandt’s Anatomy; Esaias Van De Velde; Vincenzo Danti; Bayerisches Nationalmuseum; Florike Egmond; Paola Barocchi; Marco Boschini
• ISBN: 0754607267; 9780754607267
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315261447-8

Few people in the sixteenth century would have seen a living, skinned body. The instance of Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadin being flayed by Turkish troops was an isolated case, which provoked horror2 – but pictures of what such a thing looked like came to be widely disseminated. From the mid-sixteenth century, pictorial art featured more and more representations of flayed bodies. These were usually either the silen Marsyas flayed by Apollo, or St Bartholomew, but many* Parts of this text were presented at the conference ‘Körpermarken – Bildermarken’ under the auspices of the VW-Nachwuchsgruppe ‘Kulturgeschichte und Theologie des Bildes im Christentum’. The subsequent discussion was very stimulating for which I am thankful, in particular I would like to thank Mechthild Fend for our continuous exchange on the subject of skin. I am also grateful to Marianne Koos and Daniela Hacke for reading earlier versions of the article and their pertinent contribution discussing the question of the historical conception of identity.