But, as it stops this column, which is above a tomb
it arises straight, of a deceased man, of a deceased woman,
firm they stood, motionless holding the beautiful chariot,
sticking their heads to the ground; and they ran to the ground
warm tears, with eyelashes: out of lust for their lord
they weeped; and he smeared his thick mane on the ground,
down from the effused collar, on one side and on the other side of the yoke.
Some of the brief moments that illuminate the desertified landscape of the Homeric epic also involve horses, particularly in the seventeenth Book Xanthus and Balius, given by their father Peleus to Achilles, Immortal Animals with the gift of speech and foresight.
Upon the death of Patroclus, who led them in the clash with Hector, the two horses petrified by grief decide not to fight anymore. By mourning the death of their human companion, they escape the horror of war and the imperative of violence.
The sensitive knowledge of the Animal is a form of knowledge to inspire our contemporary feeling, and it is this thought that permeates CAVALLI, a process of transfiguration in twelve anatomical preparations, chosen from those present in the Veterinary Anatomy Collection of the University of Parma, to give substance to an ethical and poetic vision in which the “non-human” animal is considered as unique and unrepeatable as the human.
TRANSFIGURATION IN 12 PREPARATIONS
Gathered in the ossifications of the descendants of the two Immortals, we will return fluids and beats to the dry preparations kept in the cases of the Zoo Museum and pierced by the violence of the hierarchy against Nature, we will be able to know about their suffering, their wounds, their tears and ours.
Not them for us – exploited, swallowed, brutalized, sacrificed – but we in them converted, fertilized, hybridized, refounded, recreated.
Anatomical Veterinary Collection A. Lemoigne
CHAMBER
TRANSFIGURATION SPACE: BED
MATTER: SALT
ACTION: OBSERVATION
Zootomy Cabinet
GALLERIES
TRANSFIGURATION SPACE: TABLE
MATTER: GELATIN
ACTION: CONJUNCTION
Sectoral Hall
SALON
TRANSFIGURATION SPACE: ARMCHAIRS
MATTER: BLOOD
ACTION: CONVERSION
The Zootomy Cabinet was founded together with the Veterinary School in 1845. The first director of the School entrusts the task of setting up anatomical preparations, for educational purposes, to the anatomist Alessio Lemoigne. In 1857, the Zootomy Cabinet had as many as 191 preparations of various mammals; the anatomist enriched the collection with unique pieces and trained students who emulated him in the art of dissection. Currently the Anatomical Veterinary Collection preserves 685 anatomical, normal and teratological preparations, produced in the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibition is made up of natural and artificial dry preparations, pieces set up for corrosion after injection with vinyl acetate and papier-mâché models.
ACHILLES' HORSES
Costantino Kavafis
How they saw him dead,
he so good so strong so tender,
achilles' horses began to cry Patroclus –
it was the indignation of their immortal self
who trembled at that tragic breakdown.
They bent their heads, shook their long manes
and with their fingernails they were scouring the earth, lamenting
together with feeling it there lifeless, the spirit
lost, helpless, breathless;
from life returned to Great Nothingness.
Zeus saw the crying, he took pity on the divine
coursers. And he said: “At the wedding of Pèleo I should have
act more cautiously. Better,
o my horses, that I had never given in to you!
Which you were looking for down there among mortals, among the miserable
toys of fate? Now, here you are distressed
from ephemeral evils, you who I have done
free from old age and death, and yes
share in the troubles of humans”. – Not therefore
the two noble beasts always cried
the irrevocable misfortune of death.
