School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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Soft and Mechanical: Communicating theory and practice of puericulture through Giovanni Antonio Galli’s Supellex obstetricia

Benini, Giorgia ( 2023)

In 1746, Bolognese obstetrician Giovanni Antonio Galli commissioned the Suppellex obstetricia, a collection comprising approximately two hundred clay and wax models representing various conditions of pregnancy and childbirth. The collection was employed to teach midwives and surgeons in training at the School of Obstetrics in the University of Bologna, the first public school of obstetrics in Italy. This thesis examines the collection from a material culture perspective, arguing that the models convey powerful religious, philosophical and cultural ideas about the female body and the role of the midwife in eighteenth-century Italy. However, the thesis also considers the models as objects 'in motion,' arguing that their meanings and affective power changed as obstetrical discourses likewise changed towards the end of the eighteenth century. The final chapter therefore posits the value of a comparative approach in analysing eighteenth-century Italian obstetrical collections. By examining drastically different depictions of 'monstrous births' across obstetrical collections, the third chapter argues for the possibility of tracing changing medical and cultural discourses of the female body by analysing the material dimension of these objects.