Sensations of the Shallow Body: Surgery, Dissections, and Technologies of Touch in Renaissance Italy

My contribution is part of a new work in progress exploring the sense of touch in Italian Renaissance anatomy. Through regular experiences of surgery and dissections, anatomists/surgeons refined their sense of touch and developed a particularly acute ability to feel and act upon bodily parts and substances. By looking at the dissecting body—the hand, fingers, and skin of anatomists/surgeons—this paper will examine the body dissected—especially its bones, muscles, and surfaces—highlighting the multiple layers of the sense of touch in the Renaissance.