Limewood models of the ear by G. Mastiani 1743. Engraving, 1749.

According to Buffon (pp. 238-242), these limewood models of the organs of hearing were made four times the size of life by Mastiani, a Sicilian physician who had been sent to Paris by the Senate of Palermo to gather information on the latest advances in surgery. He also made a set of models of the eye, twice the size of life

Buffon became the "intendant" of the Jardin du Roi in 1736 and his Histoire naturelle has, as its base, his descriptive catalogue of the specimens of the "cabinet du roi". The third volume is concerned with the Natural History of Man. In the introduction to the work, he remarks that, even more than the most exact descriptions and the best illustrations, "Nothing contributes more to the advancement of Natural History, than the continual observation of the objects of which it comprises."

[Paris] : [Imprimerie royale], [1749]

1 print : engraving ; platemark 20.1 x 16.4 cm

Bears no.: Tom. III. ; Pl. XII pag 242

Histoire de l'académie royale des sciences, 1743 (Paris 1746), p. 85

Lucia Dacome, Malleable anatomies: models, makers, and material culture in eighteenth-century Italy, Oxford 2017, pp. 217-220

Wellcome Collection 34223i