ABSTRACT
In the woodcuts, the women display themselves in luxurious architectural settings. As the dissection progresses, the body becomes increasingly precarious, with the skin stitched to close previously opened areas and the body propped up by natural or architectural fragments whose state of ruin mirrors that of the body. The settings were changed from the mythical to the mortal realm, exchanging putties and divine allegorical symbols for more human, architectural surroundings. According to architectural historians Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier, the Dominican philosopher Giordano Bruno, likewise, found an erotically tangible vision in the sight of the magus, who had to both seduce and fall in love with his subject in order for his magic to take effect. The ancients named those Geniales who were much concerned with external appearance and pleasure.
