Tonight the XLVI Agosto Corcianese begins. We got a sneak preview of one of the art installations - one of the more eccentric residents has turned a small living room into an antique pharmacy. He says "I wanted to create a nightmare" with bottles of arsenic, vials of liquids, anatomical dissections, medical books on various deformities, diseases and disabilities, instruments of experimentation (surgical and otherwise) and random collections of dusty insects, childrens' toys, water pipes and mustache waxes.
One of the students in the painting classes is a medical illustrator - she will probably be fascinated by the brittle, yellowed drawings in this curious context. Carrie Ann Plank and Macy Chadwick - who were brought to their knees by La Madonna della Gamba in Cortona - are living around the corner from Corciano's modern Farmacia. It seems only fitting that they, wearing proper printing apron vestments, offer up an "anatomical salute."
As in an Italian chapel, upon exiting, we paused and glanced at various pamphlets. Francesco, the artist, gave Carrie Ann a token of appreciation - a 18th century illustration of animal magnetism: an amorous Thomas Jefferson with a huge ram's head seducing a ewe-headed who knows who.
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