The Body Inside-Out: who called: Anatomical Memory at Maubuisson Abbey

The now destroyed Abbey of Maubuisson, situated just northwest of Paris, was a religious foundation that over the centuries crafted a uniquely visceral visual culture. By charting a long history of the institution from its medieval foundation to its early modern demise, this essay looks to Maubuisson's bodies - figures formed of painted wood, marble, gilded copper, and raw preserved flesh - in order to unearth a long-standing proclivity at the abbey for flipping the human form inside-out. Maubuisson brings to light a new context with which we might begin to read medieval and early modern objects: a case study in the folding together of medicine, religious ritual, and sculpture into a distinctive form of institutional, anatomical memory.