Main description:

Based on a detailed study of rich archival sources, Model experts explores practices of model production and display, and reveals the often invisible labours of the co-operating artisans, anatomists, and administrators.

The book shows that the models were central to a remarkable political experiment: 'La Specola' opened in 1775 as the Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, one of the first public science museums in Europe. As a venue for public enlightenment, the museum displayed model anatomies to create the model citizen. The study also moves beyond the borders of Tuscany, following a set of Florentine waxes to Vienna to explore the diverse reactions of medical professionals and general audiences as the models travelled in enlightened Europe.

The book will be of interest to historians of medicine, science, art, and enlightenment, to scholars in museum studies and in science & technology studies interested in the historical emergence of expertise, public engagement with science, and the relationship between science and the state. -- .

Contents:

List of figures and plates
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction: Model practices and expertise in state service
Part I: Politics of nature and politics of the body
1. The politics of nature and the foundation of the Royal Museum
2. Bodies and the state in eighteenth-century Tuscany
Part II: Articulating expertise in everyday practice
3. Accuracy and authority in model production
4. Model reception and the display of expertise
Part III: Changing model contexts and interpretations
5. The rejection of the Florentine anatomical models in Vienna
6 Regime changes in Tuscany and at La Specola, 1790-1814
Conclusion
Bibliography -- .