Research Catalog
Pious postmortems : anatomy, sanctity, and the Catholic Church in early modern Europe
- Title
- Pious postmortems : anatomy, sanctity, and the Catholic Church in early modern Europe / Bradford A. Bouley.
- Author
- Bouley, Bradford
- Publication
- Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017]
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Book/Text | Use in library | JFE 17-9566 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 214 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- As part of the process of consideration for sainthood, the body of Filippo Neri, "the apostle of Rome," was dissected shortly after he died in 1595. The finest doctors of the papal court were brought in to ensure that the procedure was completed with the utmost care. These physicians found that Neri exhibited a most unusual anatomy. His fourth and fifth ribs had somehow been broken to make room for his strangely enormous and extraordinarily muscular heart. The physicians used this evidence to conclude that Neri had been touched by God, his enlarged heart a mark of his sanctity. Bradford A. Bouley considers the dozens of examinations performed on reputedly holy corpses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at the request of the Catholic Church. Contemporary theologians, physicians, and laymen believed that normal human bodies were anatomically different from those of both very holy and very sinful individuals. Attempting to demonstrate the reality of miracles in the bodies of its saints, the Church introduced expert testimony from medical practitioners and increased the role granted to university-trained physicians in the search for signs of sanctity such as incorruption. The practitioners and physicians engaged in these postmortem examinations to further their study of human anatomy and irregularity in nature, even if their judgments regarding the viability of the miraculous may have been compromised by political expediency.
- Subject
- Catholic Church > Europe > History > 16th century
- Catholic Church > Europe > History > 17th century
- Canonization > History > 16th century
- Canonization > History > 17th century
- Autopsy > Europe > History > 16th century
- Autopsy > Europe > History > 17th century
- Human body > Religious aspects > Catholic Church
- Religion and science > Europe > History > 16th century
- Religion and science > Europe > History > 17th century
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Call Number
- JFE 17-9566
- ISBN
- 9780812249576
- 0812249577
- LCCN
- 2017012494
- OCLC
- 980435414
- Author
- Bouley, Bradford, author.
- Title
- Pious postmortems : anatomy, sanctity, and the Catholic Church in early modern Europe / Bradford A. Bouley.
- Publisher
- Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017]
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 17-9566