THEATRUM ET IMAGO MUNDI: FIGURE E FIGURI DEL BAROCCO

In contrast to the Renaissance, the Baroque Age discovers in nature the anomaly, the exception, a constantly evolving metamorphic reality: the thought turns to research, experimentation, free and open forms in a climate of growing disquiet. This giant cultural operation also participates in the courtier universe, where get passionate about everything that is strange, curious and bizarre. In this exaltation of the defect, amusing, but at the same time restless, alternate Morgante, the favorite dwarf of Cosimo I de’ Medici, “hairy Arrigo” and his sister Antonietta, suffering from hypertrichosis universalis congenita, and Maddalena Ventura, the bearded woman portrayed in 1631 by Jusepe de Ribera.