Corrado Tumiati, Luigi Castaldi and their reappraisal of the role of Clemente Susini (1754-1814) in the accomplishment of the anatomical wax models of La Specola and of those now in Cagliari

Corrado Tumiati (1885-1967) the youngest among the four brothers to whom the city of Ferrara dedicated a memorial tablet on the front of their house, was a psychiatrist who, at the age of 47, for disagreement with the authorities (he had refused to become a member of the fascist party) left the medical profession to devote himself to literary activities. As stated by Giuseppina Bock–Berti (2005), there is much to be said of him as writer, poet, translator and editor of famous literary magazines. In between the two wars, his prestige was so high that, despite his political credo, he was given responsibility for the editorship of the literary page of the Corriere della Sera, a job he maintained till 1946. Just in this capacity, on 18/01/1939 he published the article: “Le cere della Specola” that he extended and repeated in two essays published in 1941 and in 1942, by which he vindicated to Susini the authorship of the waxes produced in La Specola in a time when, outside from Sardinia, they were known in all Europe under the name of Fontana, the founder of the museum. Tumiati, who gives a vivid description of the artistic value of the models, even challenges the reader to find the name of Clemente Susini in any encyclopedia worldwide. A few years later, possibly inspired by Tumiati, Luigi Castaldi (1890-1945) the then anatomist of Cagliari, as appear from the news published in L’Unione Sarda on 03/12/1942, started his seminal work on the collections of Cagliari and Florence. Moreover, he reports on F.A. Boi, the Sardinian anatomist who performed the dissection then reproduced by Susini (Riva and Conti, 2015). Boi was unknown to Tumiati who does not mention him. Castaldi’s masterly essay: “Francesco Antonio Boi primo cattedratico di Anatomia a Cagliari e le cere fiorentine di Clemente Susini” (Olschki, Firenze), gives an unprecedented description of La Specola Museum and of the persons responsible for its establishment. The book published posthumously in Florence (1947) through the good offices of his friends, was instrumental in reinstating the fame of Clemente Susini.