CENTRO PECCI

The third meeting of the prologue to the inaugural exhibition The End of the World, launched one month before the Grand Opening. An important framework of collaborations which presents some emblematic works from the collection in prestigious institutional centres of the region.

The work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, Uomo Nudo di Schiena [Nude Man from Behind] (1962/1987), will be on display at the historical site of the Museum of Zoology and Natural History (La Specola) in Florence. The work is a sample from the series which has marked Pistoletto’s entire artistic path and was acquired by the Pecci Centre for the exhibition/workshop created and curated by the artist, along with Bruno Corà Habitus, Abito, Abitare - Progetto Arte, 1996 which was linked to the 1st Biennale of Florence: Il Tempo e la Moda diretta da Germano Celant [The Time and the Fashion directly from Germano Celant].

The place
The Museum of Zoology and Natural History (La Specola) of Florence is the most important Italian naturalistic museum and one of the largest internationally. It was established in 1775 by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine and was one of the first museums in Europe to open to the public and to present nature in its entirety. At the end of the nineteenth century many collections moved to the historical site of the “Specola" (Observatory) which today displays, along with the bone collection (Hall of Skeletons) and the neoclassical Tribune of Galileo, the Zoological collection on the second floor, located in rooms from the most primitive invertebrates to the most evolved mammals. In the room dedicated to the monkeys the central display case contains copies of three (tailless) apes: gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans; the empty space is dedicated to the man, primate of the Primates.
On the same floor is the extraordinary collection of anatomical wax models: 1,400 pieces, created between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in order to gain a proper educational-scientific treatise which, without the need to resort to direct examination of a corpse, illustrated the anatomy of the human body.