Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/18253911-02702004 brill.com/nun Changing the Dead to Statues of Stone: The Synthesis of Fossils, Petrifaction, Photography, and the Chemistry of the Gorgonean Arts* Irina Podgorny Museo de La Plata-CONICET, Argentina ipodgo@isis.unlp.edu.ar Abstract Taking the story of Efisio Marini as its starting point, this paper argues that embalming and photography are materially and historically connected due to their chemical nature. Photog raphy and modern embalming both originated in the “chemical complex” of the nineteenth century, i.e., the idea that nature and natural processes could be synthesized in the labora tory. As Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre have remarked, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century chemists experimented with materials, studied the possibilities for improving their production, examined their properties, explored their reactions, and analyzed their composition. Eighteenth-century chemistry, in their words, could be seen as the most authoritative science of materials. Marini’s story relates to this ontology of materials in that it refers to experiments with chemical substances and subsequent changes in their materiality and meaning. Keywords petrifaction, Efisio Marini, Heinrich Göppert Introduction When Pietro Martini, historian and antiquarian of Cagliari, died in February 1866, he left many writings about the inscriptions, monuments and * A first draft of this paper was presented and discussed at the colloquium “Immortal Bodies” held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science of Berlin (MPI-WG), Department 3, and organized thanks to the support of its former director Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and the help of Antje Radeck. This article owes much to the suggestions and comments of Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, Wolfgang Ernst, Máximo Farro, Silvia Marinozzi, Alejandro Martínez, Maribel Martínez Navarrete, Adriana Miranda, Dario Piombino- Mascali, and Wolfgang Schäffner. The author would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Interlibrary Loan Service of MPI-WG and PIP 0116 CONICET. 290 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 testimonies from Sardinia’s past, but not a single photograph of himself. For many years he had insisted that the exactitude of the mirror was better than that of the cartes-de-visite and – to the regret of his acquaintances – refused to be seated in front of a camera. This situation would be altered by means of applied chemistry: in early June 1866, the physician and naturalist Efisio Marini, the photographer Agostino Lay Rodríguez, and the writer Felice Uda met to go together to the Cagliari cemetery where Martini was buried.1 They shared a goal: to photo- graph the man who had died months before, write an account of that event, and witness Marini’s great achievement: he claimed that he had preserved the corpse in a fresh state for four months after death. Once in the cemetery, Marini took Martini’s corpse from the coffin, dressed it in black with the order of Commendatore around his neck, sat it in the sunshine, and opened its eyes to have a photograph taken. Uda described in detail the devices used, comparing Marini’s preparations with Lay’s photographic apparatuses and lenses. Furthermore, he spared no words in describing how Marini manipulated the corpse as if it were his own creation. Uda said: “The illusion was complete; it seemed to us that he [Martini] was still alive.”2 The photograph was so expressive that it delighted all those who had known Martini. It was only left to those who saw it to wonder whether the picture had been taken while Martini was alive. Uda underlined that Lay Rodríguez was portraying much more than a dead body; he was portraying the miracle of nineteenth-century chemistry as the corpse of Martini came to life again on the photographer’s plate.3 Media historians are familiar with French film critic André Bazin; in his article on the ontology of the photographic image, he proposed that there 1 On Marini, cf. Antonio Maccioni, “Efisio Marini e la conquista dell’eternità,” Studi Sardi, 1992-3, 30: 683-692; Corrado Zedda and Luigi Serra, Il pietrificatore. Efisio Marini: Cagliari 1835-Napoli 1900 (Elmas: Grafiche Sainas, 2004). On Lay Rodríguez, cf. Piero Becchetti, Fotografi e Fotografia in Italia 1839-1880 (Rome: Quasar, 1978), p. 59. On Felice Uda, see Karl M. Sauer, Geschichte der italienischen Literatur von ihren Anfängen bis auf die neueste Zeit (Leipzig: W. Friedrich, 1883), p. 577. 2 “Il cadavere era dinanzi a lui, pasta molle, duttile, elastica, arrendevole al tatto, quasi l’anima l’avesse allora abbandonato. Marini aveva un impero assoluto sopra di lui; egli poteva atteggiarlo a gravità di storico, comporlo alla fattizia animazione d’un amichevole colloquio, dare al suo labbro quella piega abituale di simpatica ironia eh’ era così famigliare al valentuomo.” Felice Uda, “Cronaca. I Miracoli della Scienza,” Il Libero pensiero: Giornale dei razionalisti, 1866, 1: 619-621, p. 621. 3 “Il fotografo aveva ritratto i miracoli del chimico. Il morto da quattro mesi riviveva sulla lastra del fotografo,” Uda, “Cronaca” (cit. note 1), p. 621. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 291 was a “mummy-complex” in the historical origin of the arts.4 The practice of embalming the dead to artificially preserve the body and defeat the pas- sage of time appears here as a psychological force that drove the impulse to create representations. Art, following his interpretation, emerges when this ambition moves away from preserving the actual body in favour of creating a representation of the dead person.5 However, this powerful metaphor forgets that embalming, as the Marini– Martini story reveals, far from being a remote practice buried in the past, was being experimented with in new forms during the same years that pho- tography emerged. Embalming and photography are indeed materially and historically connected in their chemical nature. In fact, one could say that both photography and modern embalming originated in the “chemical complex” of the nineteenth century, i.e. the idea that nature and natural processes could be synthesized in the laboratory. As Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre have noted, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century chemists experimented with materials, studied the possibilities for improving their production, examined their properties, explored their reactions, and analyzed their composition. Eighteenth- century chemistry, in their words, can be seen as the most authoritative of the materials sciences.6 Marini’s story relates to this ontology of materials in that it refers to experiments with chemical substances and subsequent changes in their materiality and meaning. The Mummy and Heliography In the modern age, the term “mummy” was adopted in the European languages and implied softness, durability, and the power of preservation. The term was applied to the embalmed body, embalming substances, a liq- uid used to heal bruises, and a drug composed of several healing powders that was employed in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 4 André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” (translated by Hugh Gray), Film Quarterly, 1960, 13 (4): 4-9, p. 4; cf. David Brubaker, “André Bazin on Automatically Made Images,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1993, 51 (1): 59-67; Jonathan Friday, “André Bazin’s Ontology of Photographic and Film Imagery,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2005, 63 (4): 339-350. 5 Cf. Daniel Morgan, “Rethinking Bazin: Ontology and Realist Aesthetics,” Critical Inquiry, 2006, 32 (3): 443-481, p. 446. 6 Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre, Materials in Eighteenth-Century Science: A Historical Ontology (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007). 292 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 Arabian treatises from the twelfth century described “mummy” as a sub- stance that flowed down from the tops of mountains and, mixing with the waters that carried it, coagulated like mineral pitch and gave off an odour resembling that of white pitch and bitumen. Well into the late eighteenth century, it was believed that the ancient Egyptians preserved the bodies of their most important personages by means of this natural or mineral mummy, for which they later substituted an aromatic balsam compound using the same name. The resemblance and supposed identity of this natu- ral mummy to the bituminous preparation found in the embalmed bodies of the Egyptians contributed to maintain this definition throughout the centuries. “Mummy,” to paraphrase Klein and Spary, was a material closely linked to the artisanal practices of embalming and preparing medicinal remedies for sale that for many centuries stimulated new inquiries into nature.7 It was around 1800 that the European languages narrowed the term “mummy” to refer primarily to embalmed bodies coming from Egypt.8 As Silvia Marinozzi has explained, Egyptian mummies by then had lost their medicinal appli- cations, as well as their religious dimension. They became a commodity for trade and a medium for the analysis of the substances, instruments, and medicaments used in the embalming process.9 Experiments on the substances taken from embalmed bodies prolifer- ated in Europe. From the mid-eighteenth century onward, attempts were made to crystallize the acid liquor obtained from distillation in the same way as the liquid of amber. In England, when pieces of mummy were 7 Ursula Klein and Emma Spary, Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe. Between Market and Laboratory (Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 2010), p. 9. 8 Thomas Pettigrew, A History of Egyptian Mummies: And an Account of the Worship and Embalming of the Sacred Animals by the Egyptians: with Remarks on the Funeral Ceremonies of Different Nations, and Observations on the Mummies of the Canary Islands, of the Ancient Peruvians, Burman Priests, Etc. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1834), pp. 2-6; “Observations on the Practice of Embalming among the Ancient Egyptians, Illustrated by the Unrolling of a Mummy from Thebes, Presented to the Association by Joseph Arden, Esq., K.S.A. to the Worcester Congress,” The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 1849, 4: 337-348; cf. Nicholas Daly, Modernism, Romance, and the Fin de Siècle: Popular Fiction and British Culture, 1880-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 9 Silvia Marinozzi, and Gino Fornaciari, Le Mummie e l’arte Medica nell’evo Moderno: Per una Storia dell'imbalsamazione Artificiale dei Corpi Umani nell'evo Moderno (Rome: Università La Sapienza, 2005). See also S. Marinozzi, in this issue of Nuncius, for a discussion of the change in the meaning of embalming with regard to the procedures for preserving the human body in the Napoleonic period. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 293 dissolved in water and the solution was filtered and evaporated, a true soda or mineral alkali (natrum) that exhibited very neat and regular crystals was obtained.10 These experiments and observations coincided with the trans- lation of ancient Arab, Greek, and Latin medical treatises into modern languages, and the circulation and fabrication of mummies and drugs. Antiquarians, philologists, and apothecaries strove to reduce Egyptian mummies into crystals of mummy, the basic element that would reveal the secrets of ancient embalming (Fig.  1). The crystals of mummy, one could say, were the result of the hybridization of several forms of knowledge and practice. Since “mummy” was a product long known in funerary practices and in apothecary’s shops as a substance taken from human corpses, and as a commodity produced, faked, and exported from abroad, its place and composition were difficult to ascertain. Even into the 1830s, scholars regretted being unable to detect the precise nature of the substances used in this ancient operation. The development of inorganic chemistry finally led to the abandonment of the search for the secrets of embalming in ancient drugs.11 Instead, scholars experimented with new substances obtained in the laboratory. This resulted in an explo- sion of mummifying chemical preparations and patents in France, England, and Italy that competed for a share of the market in the newly emerging funerary industry and in medical schools. The emergence of so-called “modern embalming,” which involved filling the arterial and vascular sys- tems with concentrated solutions of salts and acids, started in the 1830s and flourished in the 1850s and 1860s, when pharmacists and chemists experi- mented with different solutions and processes for the preservation of ana- tomical preparations and the embalming of bodies.12  10 Pettigrew, “Observations” (cit. note 8), p. 76; Anonym, “Des embaumens des Egyptiens,” Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres, 1756, 23: 119-139; “Des Grafen von Caylus Betrachtungen über dem Embalsamiren der Ägypter,” Das Neueste aus der Anmuthigen Gelehrsamkeit, 1759, 1: 762-765. 11 See Klein and Lefèvre, Materials (cit. note 6), on the changes taking place in the prac- tices of chemistry in the early nineteenth century.   12 Marinozzi and Fornaciari, Le Mummie (cit. note 9); Arthur Aufderheide, The Scientific Study of Mummies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Irina Podgorny, “Las momias de la patria: entre el culto laico, la historia de la química y la higiene pública,” L’Ordinaire Latinoaméricain, 2010, 212: 53-74; “Modern Embalming, Circulation of Fluids, and the Voyage Through the Human Arterial System: Carl L. Barnes and the Culture of Immortality in America,” Nuncius, 2011, 26 (1): 109-131; Christine Quigley, Modern Mummies: The Preservation of the Human Body in the Twentieth Century (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999). 294 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 The knowledge of and experimentation with ancient embalming sub- stances was not, however, forgotten. It was represented by an array of ancient natural elements that were transformed by the applications and virtues attributed to them in different contexts and circumstances. The emergence of modern chemistry would ignore the powers that these substances once had, but at the same time inserted them into a new con- stellation of experiments, such as the possibility of drawing by means of light. As Klein and Lefèvre noted with reference to other materials, “Trade and the arts and crafts constituted the space in which most of the objects of Figure 1. “Crystals of Mummy,” from “Observations on some Egyptian Mummies opened in London,” by John Frederick Blumenbach, M.D.F.R.S. addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. P.R.S. Read April 10, 1794, Philosophical Transactions (Royal Society), 1794; Tab. XVI, p. 194; Fig. 4. T.VII. Pl. 9. Fig. 1. Belonging to Mr Heyne, F.R.S. White Marble. Painted on the back of the coffin of Capt. Lethieullier's Mummy, in the British Museum. natural size In C. Caylus's Recueil. Bronze. Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 4. Fig 1 & 3 are Idols of Isis with little Horus on her knees. Fig. 3. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 295 inquiry of the eighteenth-century chemist came into being.”13 Chemists purchased substances from merchants, apothecaries, miners, and other practitioners, so that materials shuttled back and forth between academic institutions and the sites of production, consumption, and new experimen- tation. The same can be said to have taken place in the early nineteenth century. Then, as historians of photography know, in the 1810s Nicéphore Nièpce succeeded in perfecting a process by which pictures could be produced with the luminous image of the camera, and then fixed and rendered per- manent by chemical reagents: a process that Nièpce termed “heliography” or “sun-drawing”. To do this, Nièpce used particular resinous substances, first the resin of Guaiacum (resine de Gaïac), and later bitumen of Judea. The bitumen, when smeared over the surface of a metal plate and exposed to the luminous image, became soluble in certain liquids, but no effect was produced upon the shadowed parts of the plate. After treatment with a sol- vent made of a mixture of essential oils, the light areas in the image were represented by the metallic surface below and the shadows by the unal- tered resin still remaining on the plate.14 It was not by chance that Nièpce used these resins. During the years that he was experimenting, both substances were sold in Paris as drugs and as substances used by ancient embalmers. For centuries, bitumen of Judea was one of the materials analyzed in the hope of replicating the Egyptians’ method.15 Bitumen or balm of mummy was described in chemistry books published around 1800, when Nièpce was searching in the laboratory and in nature for substances that would react to solvents and to light. In these texts, he found accounts of their properties that condensed years of experi- ments by physicians, antiquaries, and chemists.16 13 Klein and Lefèvre, Materials (cit. note 6), pp. 16-17. 14 T. Frederick Hardwich, A Manual of Photographic Chemistry (New York: Humphrey, 1858), p. 10. 15 Cf. Pierre Boitard, Nouveau Manuel Complet du Naturaliste Préparateur suivi d’un Traité des Embaumements (Paris: Roret, 1852). Later studies discarded the theory that natural bitu- men was used by the Egyptians as an embalming substance. According to Lucas, the error was due to the fact that much of the material, especially in the later mummies, is black and looks quite like bitumen. Cf. Alfred Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries (London, 1948), pp. 348-352. Guaiacum, a genus native to the Americas, was introduced in Europe as an embalming compound in the sixteenth century. 16 Simon Morelot, Histoire naturelle appliquée à la chimie, aux arts, aux différents genres de l’industrie et aux besoins personnels de la vie (Paris: Nicolle, 1809). Cf. also Marta Caraïon, Pour fixer la trace: Photographie, littérature et voyage au milieu du XIXe siècle (Genève: Droz, 2003). 296 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 When in 1822 the French chemist Nicolas Jean-Baptiste Gaston Guibourt listed the drugs used in contemporary pharmacology, he classified bitumen of Judea, also known as asphalt or solid bitumen, among the non-metallic compound combustibles. Guibourt remarked that asphalt could have been used for embalming in Egypt, given that the indestructibility of famous mummies was partially due to the dissolution of the asphalt in which they were covered, and which through time impregnated and solidified the bones.17 Although Guibourt declared in the 1820s that bitumen of Judea was of little use to the pharmacist, it nonetheless formed a treasured part of his drug collection.18 We are not arguing here that Nièpce used bitumen of Judea because of its embalming properties. Rather, we propose that bitumen’s supposed embalming virtues gained it visibility, and it would have been easily obtain- able in Paris when Nièpce was searching for a substance to use in his exper- iments with light. Included in the materia medica that was then being imported to Europe, studied as part of the natural history of minerals, and analyzed and described in detail for their potential medical and funerary applications, these resins abounded in collections and were also frequently mentioned in treatises. Thus, Nièpce’s use of mummy balm not only took place where several fields of experimentation overlapped, but it also con- densed and melded different traditions of experimental knowledge. Thanks to its reputation, bitumen of Judea appeared to be a substance suitable for being written on indelibly by the sun. Petrifaction In addition to chemical embalming, inorganic chemistry procedures were applied to another type of experiment relating to the preservation of 17 Nicolas Jean-Baptiste G. Guibourt, Histoire abrégée des drogues simples, 1 (Paris: Colas, 1820), pp. 30-32. 18 Cf. Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, Oeuvres completes, 2 (Paris: Furne, 1838), p. 169. In 1857, Nièpce de Saint-Victor, Nicéphore’s nephew, was experimenting with bitumen of Judea on the basis of samples provided by Guibourt, then a professor at the School of Pharmacy of Paris. Nièpce de Saint-Victor mentioned the three kinds of bitumen that could be acquired in the pharmacies of Paris, with Guibourt’s sample being the most sensitive to air and light, the most suitable for the darkroom, and also the only kind that, once burnt, smelled like “bitumen or balm of mummy.” Cf. Nièpce de Saint-Victor, “Note sur la gravure héliographique sur marbre et sur Pierre litographique,” Bulletin du Musée de l’Industrie, 1857, 31: 316-321. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 297 organic tissues: the replication of the natural process that led to petrifac- tion. In a context where substances were reproduced, analyzed, and applied as useful materials, chemists and researchers, as Klein and Lefèvre wrote, invested materials “with new meanings, and sometimes even transformed their boundaries by splitting them into different kinds of substances.”19 By studying the process of petrifaction, they brought together natural history, technology, and experimental philosophy in what Klein and Lefèvre call the realm of “experimental history,” the long tradition where the classical domains of natural history were extended to a laboratory science. Petrifactions were defined as the remains of plants and animals in which the original structure was converted into stone or, in other words, petri- fied.20 Such petrifactions had attracted the interest of natural historians for many centuries. In the eighteenth century petrifactions were consid- ered to be “accidental fossils” and were classified as “phytolites” or “zoolites” depending on the kind of organism of which they were the remains (or that they resembled). In contrast, “natural fossils” (rocks and minerals) were classified according to the kinds of materials of which they were com- posed.21 However, by the early nineteenth century accidental petrifactions were being used as a firm basis for a historical interpretation of the earth. Although there had been earlier attempts to explain the phenomenon of petrifaction, at that time exactly how this transmutation was produced was still a mystery.22 Some authors thought that it took place via a liquid con- taining stony matter – a kind of natural mummy – penetrating the spaces of vegetable and animal bodies, and gradually giving them a stony nature. Later, mineralogists agreed that when a body is either petrified or converted into metal it must first exhale certain particles, leaving space for earthy or metallic particles to replace them, and thus convert the body into stone or metal.23 According to this theory, exhalation took place in animals through calcination and in plants through a reduction to earth. The study of the 19 Klein and Lefèvre, Materials (cit. note 6), p. 19. See also their discussion on the history of experimentation, pp. 22-28. 20 Gideon A. Mantell, Petrifactions and Their Teachings, or, a Hand-Book to the Gallery of Organic Remains of the British Museum (London: H.G. Bohn, 1851). 21 Martin J. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 2007), pp. 196-7; see also Élie Bertrand, Dictionnaire Universel des Fossiles Propres, et des Fossiles Accidentels (La Hate: Pierre Gosse, 1763). 22 “On Silicified Fossils,” Records of General Science, 1836, 3: 155-6. 23 Heinrich R. Göppert, “On the Condition of Fossil Plants, and the Process of Petrifaction,” The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1837, 23: 73-82. 298 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 petrifaction process therefore found itself returning to a path of inquiry into the materiality of, and the materials of which, “accidental fossils” were composed. During the second half of the 1830s, new experiments were being con- ducted in areas where paleontology, chemistry, electricity, mineralogy, and optics intersected, in an attempt to replicate the phenomena of silicifica- tion and petrifaction in the laboratory. At the same time new models were being developed to understand the process that led to the formation of crystals. In 1836, during his assistantship at Yale’s chemistry laboratory, the American chemist and geologist James Dana published his views on crystallogeny and on the changes taking place in molecules at the time of crystallization.24 Dana elaborated the idea of “crystallogenic attraction,” that is, the attraction exerted during solidification which, acting in every direction from the centre of a particle, caused an accumulation of particles in no fixed direction and invariably produced a spherical solid. However, Dana’s work was mostly theoretical, based on optical models of refraction and the geometry of light.25 Other experimentation was linked to the production of petrified wood, attempting to examine the way that nature solidified liquid substances. The German pharmacist, physician, and botanist Heinrich Robert Göppert (1800-1884) conducted a series of experiments in Breslau in 1837, introduc- ing plants into a moderately concentrated solution of iron sulphate and leaving them until the separation of the salt on the outer portions of the plants showed sufficient saturation.26 He then dried and heated the solu- tion until the plants reached a fixed volume or until every trace of organic matter had disappeared. He found that the oxides produced in this manner, when cooled, adopted the form of the plant. Similar results were obtained with most of the other earths and metals, such as the combinations whose acids were easily decomposed by heat. 24 James D. Dana, “On the Formation of Compound or Twin Crystals,” American Journal of Science, 1836, 30: 275-300. 25 James D. Dana, A System of Mineralogy: Comprising the Most Recent Discoveries: Including Full Description of Species and Their Localities, Chemical Analyses and Formulas, Tables for the Determination of Minerals, and a Treatise on Mathematical Crystallography and the Drawing of Figures of Crystals (London and New York: Putman, 1837), p. 112. 26 H. Göppert, “Über den Zustand, in welchem sich die fossilen Pflanzen befinden, und über den Versteinerungsprocess insbesondere,” Annalen der Pharmacie, 1837, 21-22: 48-62. On Göppert, cf. Meyers Konversationslexikon, 7, 4th ed. (Leipzig und Wien: Bibliographisches Institut, 1885-1892), p. 517. www.retrobibliothek.de/retrobib/seite.html?id=107004#Göppert (accessed 23 December 2011). I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 299 The results improved proportionally with the increasing number of vessels in a plant; the greater the number of vessels, which meant less cellular tissue, the more perfect the final outcome. In very delicate samples a few days of immersion were sufficient, whereas larger pieces required a longer period of time. To ascertain the change undergone by the plant’s organs, Göppert placed the above-mentioned products in water. The potash skeleton, which can be distinctly seen in most plants, was dissolved. He remarked that only the vessels were filled or injected with metallic or earthy matter, and that their sides were destroyed when exposed to heat. In contrast, when he experi- mented in the same way on several plants that contained less alkali, he observed that the walls of their specialized cells were actually converted into iron. Therefore, the richer a plant was in potash and cellular tissue – a characteristic of herbaceous plants – the less successful these experiments turned out to be. However, this method could not be translated into the animal world. Animal material such as dry fibrous muscle tissue could be altered in this manner, but whether they could be converted into another substance Göppert did not venture to argue. The experiment succeeded with insects (such as flies and gnats), with the muscles of crabs, and with infusory ani- mals. Göppert observed quite clearly how a species of water flea, when placed in an iron solution, was converted into iron after being exposed to red heat for half an hour, even down to its feet. He concluded that the num- ber of the animal’s organs that consisted of solid, water-insoluble materials was crucial to the success of the experiment. In other body parts, fat was an insurmountable obstacle to the preservation of the form, as it would swell during the heating process and change the whole into a formless mass. Göppert considered this circumstance to be the reason why animals of a higher class could not be petrified. The aim of these experiments was not only to shed light on the taxonomy of fossil entities, but also to replicate natural processes for industrial appli- cations, and his results led Göppert to propose the production of artificially abrasive powders such as Bergmehl (diatomaceous earth), tripoli, and pol- ishing slate (Polierschiefer), whose composition had been recently discov- ered to be loricated infusoria.27 This conjunction of paleontology and the 27 C.G. Ehrenberg, “Farther preliminary notices regarding Fossil Infusoria,” The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1836-7, 22: 84-90. 300 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 artificial synthesis of fossils would reappear in different contexts connected with the preservation of human remains, and physicians interested in com- parative anatomy or paleontology switched to the study of the artificial pro- cess of solidification of the human body. Whether as a procedure for new measures regarding inhumation in cemeteries or as a method to supply bodies for dissection in medical schools, the preservation of human flesh was transformed into a promising enterprise and a new field for experi- mentation, above all on the Italian peninsula, where a series of entrepre- neur-pharmacists, naturalists, and physicians made claims to have invented procedures for petrifying human flesh. Human Petrifactions In the same years that Göppert synthesized vegetable fossils and French and Italian pharmacists were experimenting with chemical embalming,28 the Italians Gerolamo Segato, Andrea Cozzi, Domenico Longo, Raddi, Comi, Giovan Battista Rini, Tossoletto, Dop, Paolo Gorini, and Bartolomeo Zanon, among others, were experimenting with the induration and inalter- ability of animal tissues.29 Segato´s success in attaining the artificial con- version of animals to a state of stony induration and indestructibility attracted growing attention in the medical and chemical circles of Europe 28 Cf. Marinozzi and Fornaciari, Le Mummie (cit. note 9). 29 Paolo Gorini, “Intorno la conservazione delle sostanze animali,” Il Politecnico, 1865, 24 (104): 120; R. Bernabeo, “Evoluzione delle conoscenze sulla mummificazione e pietrificazi- one dei cadaveri e dei pezzi anatomici a scopo conservativo e dimostrativo," Atti del XVI Congresso Nazionale dell Società Italiana della Medicina, Bologna-Ravenna, 1959 (Bologna: Società editrice Bolognese, 1960), pp. 131-137; Alberto Carli (ed.), Storia di uno Scienzato. La Collezione anatomica “Paolo Gorini” (Azzano San Paolo: Bolis, 2005); Luigi Messedaglia, “La ‘pietrificazione’ dei tessuti animali ed un emulo veronese di Girolamo Segato,” Atti e memo- ria dell’Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze e Lettera di Verona, 1933: 1-33; Giovanni Orlandini, R. Tempestino, D. Lippi, F. Paternostro, S. Zecchi-Orlandini, and N. Villari, “Bodies of Stone: Girolamo Segato (1792-1836),” Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology, 2007, 112 (1): 13-18; S. Panzer, A. Carli, A. Zink, and D. Piombino-Mascali, “The Anatomical Collection of Giovan Battista Rini (1795-1856): a Paleoradiological Investigation,” Clinical Anatomy, 2011, doi: 10.1002/ca.21240, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ca.21240/full (accessed 14 September 2011); Bartolommeo Zanon, Della solidificazione dei corpi animali. Memoria (Belluno: Stamperia Deliberali, 1839); see also Dario Piombino-Mascali, “Oreste Maggio, un ‘Pietrificatore’ Palermitano,” Medicina & Storia, 2008, 8 (16): 169-177; Il Maestro del Sonno Eterno (Palermo: La Zisa, 2009). I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 301 and the Americas, especially as a repercussion of his discoveries being reported posthumously in several journals and newspapers.30 Frigemelica has pointed out that the term “petrifaction”, as applied to the induration of animal tissue, was first used in an encomium to Segato that compared his work to natural petrifactions or fossils.31 Since then the term petrifaction or pietrificazione or Versteinerung has been used to refer to both the artificial and the natural processes and to the objects resulting from the total mineralization of organic bodies that have preserved their structure and morphological characteristics, such as volume, shape, and colour.32 Thus, at the same time that antiquarians were trying to isolate the crystals of embalming substances, these experiments attempted to synthe- size crystals in order to produce objects with the physical characteristics of fossils to be used in the arts and industries of the near future. Not surpris- ingly, Göppert found himself investigating the origin of diamonds and the processes that linked vegetable structures with this precious gem. Experimenters accelerated the process of natural petrifaction by means of chemical reactions, in hopes of obtaining artificial petrifactions modelled after extinct animals and plants. Furthermore, these experiments were connected with a novel mode of classifying organic substances and an ontological shift around 1830 which, according to Klein and Lefèvre, assimi- lated the classification of organic substances into the classification of inor- ganic ones.33 In the 1860s experiments with petrifaction and “crystallogenic forces” proliferated in Europe and in America.34 Chroniclers of these forces stated 30 In a context of increasing conflicts of interest, making corpses resistant to putrefac- tion was seen as a solution to the problem of the diminishing number of corpses available on the market for anatomists and others. See, for example, Michael Sappol, Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Helen MacDonald, Possessing the Dead: The Artful Science of Anatomy (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2010); Nélia Dias, “La société d’autopsie mutuelle, ou le dévouement absolu aux progres de 1’anthropologie," Gradhiva 1991, 10: 26-35; cf. the current situation as described by Knoblauch, in this issue of Nuncius. 31 Giuseppe Pellegrini, Della artificiale Riduzione a Solidità Lapidea e Inalterabilità degli Animali, scoperta da Girolamo Segato (Padua: Cartallier, 1835); cf. Carlo Frigemelica, “La pietrificazione dei tessuti animali,” L’Illustrazione Scientifica, 1954, 53: 22-23. 32 Oreste Nuzzi, “Pietrificazione artificiale dei corpi organici,” Atti della Società Italiana per il Progresso delle Scienze, 21st Meeting (Rome, 1932), 2 (Rome, 1933), p. 371. 33 Klein and Lefèvre, Materials (cit. note 6), p. 285. 34 Frédéric Kuhlmann, “Force cristallogénique. Formation du spath calcaire, du sel gemme, du glaciers, etc.,” Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sci- ences, 1864, 58: 1036. The chemist F. Kuhlmann was the founder of one of the leading French 302 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 that there was a remote connection between the subject of crystallization and the process of artificial petrifaction announced as having been (re)dis- covered by Professor Efisio Marini (1835-1900), the embalmer of Martini. Marini, a surgeon and naturalist from Sardinia, after studying in Pisa, worked for some time at the Natural History Museum of Cagliari. There he devoted himself to paleontology and in 1861 published a short pamphlet on the topic.35 In the space of thirty pages he summarized the existing classifi- cation of fossils, devoting a fourth of the booklet to the fossilization pro- cess. None of Marini’s ideas were particularly original; in the pamphlet he reiterated the commonly accepted doctrine that “petrifaction” was the result of the substitution by inorganic molecules of organic molecules that were eliminated from the animal or vegetable body during putrefaction. He paraphrased Göppert’s experiments and observations regarding the struc- ture of petrified tissues. Marini underscored that the process or reaction of substitution occurred very slowly, at such a gradual pace that the inorganic molecules could occupy exactly the same place as the vanished organic ele- ments. The result was an exact replica of the former organic body, with the same shape and structure. This natural process of “molecular penetration” led to Marini’s experiments with artificial petrifaction. Exploring the pro- cess of fossilization, he began working on human flesh and corpses, obtain- ing – or creating – the pieces mentioned in his catalogues. Marini claimed to have discovered a process applicable to both fragments and the com- plete human body, which blocked and could even reverse putrefaction. As we have seen, he was not the first. The announcement not only proclaimed that Marini’s discovery repre- sented the triumph of science over the prevailing religious ideas about death; it also stated that Marini petrified the animal substances most easily by simple immersion. The bodies and their parts retained their colour and were rendered absolutely indestructible. The invention was presented as a breakthrough, as an ingenious imitation of processes that were constantly going on in nature and which it served to explain. Accounts of Marini’s dis- coveries would appear in the scientific and popular news for the next thirty years. In fact, between 1867 and 1898 the press in several European languages continued to report on the objects and anatomical specimens that Marini chemical enterprises. His experiments with crystals were connected with the application of chemistry to the production of synthetic dyes. 35 Efisio Marini, Idee di Paleontologia Generale (Cagliari: Tipografia Nazionale, 1861). I am indebted to Silvia Marinozzi for a copy of this pamphlet. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 303 presented at the industrial exhibitions in Paris, Philadelphia, Vienna, and Milan. In the late 1860s, French and Italian newspapers abounded with descriptions of Marini's discoveries of the processes of mummification and petrifaction, and his methods for restoring mummified bodies to their orig- inal appearance. English papers derided these accounts, deeming them a priori to be exaggerated, but they nonetheless propagated news of the invention. All of these reports describe the same series of objects and events and have been examined extensively in the historiographic studies dealing with Marini, the self-proclaimed inventor of a way to turn the human body or any of its parts into stone, a method that – according to these articles – won the approbation of the emperor of France and the curators of the Orfila Museum in Paris. Using his unique skills, Marini made – as Segato had before him – a table out of pieces of the human body – brain, muscles, liver – that had been turned into stone and resembled marble. According to the newspaper reports Marini had three methods of preservation: drying, petrifaction, and immersion in a fluid which rendered the tissues elastic, soft and of normal colour. In fact, after being immersed in Marini's fluid, mummified speci- mens regained their former contour, pliability, colour – literally all the characteristics of a body during the first few hours after death. Through petrifaction, the body was made to assume a marble-like appearance. Marini received many prizes for his process of petrifaction at fairs held in Turin and Milan, where he exhibited specimens in a special cabinet that demonstrated his various skills (Fig.  2). Some of these specimens were solid, perfect petrifactions; others were partial and could be returned to their original freshness, but all retained the semblance of life and some readily assumed a wrinkled appearance. By his method of petrifaction, Marini made a medal out of some of the blood shed by Garibaldi on the battlefield of Aspromonte, inscribing on it the words: “The blood of Garibaldi is forever red.”36 Celebrated as a victory of science over death, some anatomists retained that Marini had reached the pinnacle of anatomical preparation, preserv- ing animal tissues in excellent, life-like condition. All of the organs – skin, tissue, nerve, muscle, etc. – maintained the size, colour, consistency, and 36 “Metodo di conservare i cadaveri inventato dal Prof. Efisio Marini,” Supplemento 13 della Nuova Liguria Medica, also in Il Morgagni: Rivista settimanale, 1871, 13: 206-215; “Embalming by Superior Power,” The British Medical Journal, 1873, 2 (662): 292; I. Minis Hays, “International Exhibition, 1876, Official Catalogue. 4 vol., Philadelphia: John R. Nagle, 1876,” The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1876, 72: 556-7. 304 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 Figure  2a and 2b. “Feet and hands embalmed by Marini,” taken from Luigi Ferrara, “La survivance du corps. Transformation du corps humain en marbre,” Revue des revues, 1898. I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 305 306 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 suppleness of a fresh, not yet rigid corpse. “La sopravvivenza del corpo” – the revival of the dead body – was the title of the article that promoted Marini’s triumph.37 Thus, by 1900 – the year of Marini’s death – both partial and total petri- faction of the human body had been observed in nature and artificially effected by man. Marini’s daughter inherited the cabinet and formulae. She petrified her father’s hand as a testimony for future generations of this Gorgonean art. However, posterity was not entirely convinced of the posi- tive aspects of transforming the dead into stone statues. Questions such as those quoted below display one of the reactions to this prospect: I suppose, but do not know, that the cost of the process would be considerably greater than that of cremation, or of the sums usually spent on our funeral obsequies. But if not, or if the expense of it could be rendered less than these latter, Signor Marini’s discovery would open to the imagination vistas of the most startling kind. What would be the result of so turning into marble all the individuals of all the future generations of men? How should we live in a world peopled by marble statues infinitely exceeding in number its living inhabitants?38 Unlike the advances in photography and the petrifaction of plants and uni- cellular organisms, the underlying chemistry and the cost of petrifying human flesh remained a secret. Despite the efforts to publicize his method, and prizes won at international exhibitions, no government or chemical firm purchased Marini’s formula and it died with his daughter. This was probably due in part to doubts such as those expressed above, doubts that reflected the point of view of those promoting cremation as the most hygienic way of dealing with the dead. Whereas cremation associations proliferated in Italy, petrifaction did not expand beyond the limited circle of persons directly involved in this activity. At the same time, modern chemical embalming expanded in the United States, linked to the Civil War, the expansion of the railways, and the production of formaldehyde by the chemical industry.39 Historiography had no doubt that Marini belonged to the series of Italian petrifiers who were active after Segato’s death. However, one of the most striking aspects of Marini’s work has remained unexplored. Marini not only set up a laboratory in the cemetery of Cagliari, as we mentioned in 37 E. Koller, “Die Versteinerung des Körpers. Bericht über eine merkwürdige Erfindung,” Bibliothek des Unterhaltung und des Wissens, 1900, 4: 96-111; Luigi Ferrara, “La survivance du corps. Transformation du corps humain en marbre,” Revue des revues, 1898: 237-256. 38 Thomas A. Trollope, What I Remember, vol. 3 (London: Bentley, 1887), p. 106. 39 Cf. Podgorny, “Carl Barnes,” (cit. note 12). I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 307 the opening paragraphs of this paper; he worked in direct association with a local photographer. To paraphrase Felice Uda, the chemistry of both pho- tography and petrifaction created the modern miracle of the conservation of the dead body for eternity. The main articles promulgating Marini’s invention displayed the photographs of a small child who had died, but whose mother wanted to keep her as if she were simply asleep (Fig. 3). The prospect of keeping the dead body in a crystal case at home was indeed highlighted in all of the enterprises that promoted the democratization of embalming by petrifaction or chemical treatment. Photography gained acceptance around the world by appealing to the same desire: the proliferation of photographs of the dead unfolded in the same years as the development of the artificial petrifaction of human corpses. In the same way that itinerant embalmers could always be found on the front line during the Civil War, itinerant photographers with their cameras, chemicals, and plates visited the most remote corners of the world in order to offer the possibility of creating an image of the dead person – before putrefaction began – as if he or she were still alive.40 40 Cf. Jay Ruby, Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1999); Stanley Burns, Sleeping Beauty II: Grief, Bereavement, and the Family in Memorial Photography. American & European Traditions (New York: Burns Archive Press, 2002); Mirko Orlando, Ripartire dagli Addii. Uno studio sulla fotografia post-mortem (Meda: MJM, 2010). Figure  3. Petrif ied body of a girl, taken from Luigi Ferrara, “La survivance du corps. Transformation du corps humain en marbre,” Revue des revues, 1898. 308 I. Podgorny / Nuncius 27 (2012) 289–308 While questions of space limitations when it came to storing the remains could have played a role, future research should analyze the nuances and contingencies that led to people to prefer photography over petrifaction. When Marini was proposing his invention, this choice had not yet been made and photography and petrifaction were seen as similar undertakings. This association, we argue, provides a clue to understanding what we would call the “chemical constellation of immortality.” Long before Bazin proposed his aesthetic theory, the relationship between embalming and photography was explicitly formulated by those experimenting with artifi- cial fossilization. In this sense, Bazin’s “mummy-complex” is more than a metaphor; it refers, in fact, to the chemical nature – and hence to the materiality – of both photography and modern techniques for the preserva- tion of the flesh, two pursuits that show how materials continue to be embedded in the long tradition of experimental history. 2012-11-20T13:55:19+0530 Preflight Ticket Signature