De Affectibus Cordis et Palpitatione: Secrets of the Heart in Counter-Reformation Italy

  • Catrien Santing
Chapter

Abstract

‘Where your treasure is, there will be your heart’ (Luke, 12: 34). This text was cited by St Anthony of Padua while performing the funeral rites for a man notorious for his stinginess. Afterwards a surgeon received the order to perform a post-mortem examination, which revealed the disappearance of the heart. It goes without saying that St Anthony knew where it could be found: in the casket where all the other precious objects of the defunct were stored. Pietro Damini (1592–1632) represented the scene on a large panel for the Paduan church of St Canciano. On this, an anatomist is shown opening up the chest surrounded by various onlookers. These include noblemen, saints and monks, but also solemnly clad men in black, who may be doctors of Padua’s medical faculty. Although Damini faithfully followed the story of one of Anthony’s most famous miracles, in his representation he combined saintly veneration with contemporary interest in anatomy. The dead body does not, for example, rest on a bier but on an anatomical table.1 The scene cannot have been uncommon in Padua, where illustrious anatomists such as Fabrizio d’ Acquapendente and Giulio Casseri performed sections in the anatomical theatre at the Palazzo del Bo.

Keywords

Sixteenth Century Cultural Approach Papal Physician Divine Intervention Funeral Rite 
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Notes

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© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2004

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  • Catrien Santing

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