Nature and science

Inspired by the french and english scientific faculties, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, general of the pontifical troops -and scientist himself- submitted a reform proposal for the city’s university to the Bologna Senate in 1709. This failed attempt led Marsili to conceive a parallel institution. With Pope Clement XI’s approval he founded in 1711 the Istituto delle Scienze, a public entity. To convince the Pope to build an astronomy observatory in the Palazzo Poggi, where the Istituto and the Accademia Clementina were both set – forming the Istituto delle Arti e delle Scienze – he was gifted eight paintings by Donato Creti depicting the study of celestial bodies using the instruments donated by Marsili to the Istituto.

The first fruitful exchanges between science and the arts had taken place in the 16th century : artists had helped naturalist Aldrovandi illustrating the subjects of his studies while scientific breakthroughs stimulated artists’ imaginations and their will to represent reality in the most accurate way possible. This time period is evoked in Giuseppe Maria Crespi’s rigorous but enchanting depiction of The Agave. Something similar in the Age of Enlightenment inside the Istituto delle Arti e delle Scienze. The anatomy studies made of either wax or terracotta under the direction of Ercole Lelli were conceived as much for the medecine students as they were for the artists. Thus the Bologna school of anatomical modellers was born and renouned throughout Europe – here championed by the works of Anna Morandi Manzolini and Giovanni Battista Manfredini.

The Bibiena and theatre

Among the families carrying on a long tradition of artistic specialty – a frequent occurrence in the history of theatric architecture and scenography – the Galli-Bibiena dynasty poses as an exceptionnally important entity over four generations. The origins of their lineage date back to Giovanni Maria Galli the Elder (1618-1665) trained by Francesco Albani, the first to take on the name “Bibiena” (his hometown near Arezzo). That said the family mostly owes their success to his sons Ferdinando and Francesco who worked as architects and scenographers in the royal courts of Parma under the rule of Ranuccio II Farnese and later to that of the Habsbourg in Vienna. Ferdinando’s disciple, Francesco Orlandi, perpetuated this tradition with his dizzying imaginary architectures.