Giovanni Manzolini to become a figure painter, Manzolini joined Ercole Lelli's studio at the age of 40 to learn the art of anatomical sculpture. He was made Lelli's assistant in 1743. Under Lelli, Manzolini was made chief assistant on the papal commission to make wax models for the Anatomy Museum of the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute, holding this position for three years. He resigned in late 1746. He felt bitterly that Lelli had deprived him of recognition for his greater knowledge of anatomy and anatomical sculpture. After leaving Lelli, Manzolini opened his own studio for wax modelling and launched a
Anatomical theatre theatre; in Leiden, 17th-century depictions show that the living observers were actually accompanied in the rows by a large number of animal and human skeletons, some of which held banners with inscriptions such as "Memento mori", or, freely translated, "Remember, you will die". The first anatomical theatre was built at the University of Padua in 1594 and is still preserved. Other early examples include the Theatrum Anatomicum of Leiden University, built in 1596 and reconstructed in 1988, and the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio in Bologna (whose building dates from 1563 and the anatomical theatre from 1637). The anatomical theatre