Ercole Lelli Ercole Lelli Ercole Lelli (14 September 1702 – 7 March 1766) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque, active mainly in Northern Italy, including his native city of Bologna, as well as Padua and Piacenza. Lelli was a pupil of the painter Giovanni Pietro Zanotti, but he also gravitated towards sculptural work. He excelled in the study of the anatomy of the human body as well as painting. Starting in 1742 he helped prepare artistic anatomical wax displays at the University of Bologna. The wax modeler and anatomist Giovanni Manzolini worked as his assistant from 1743. Manzolini resigned in late
Anatomical machines with metal wires and nails, and some of them are out of place. At the woman skeleton's feet it was placed a fetus which, according to di Sangro, died together with her mother during birth. It was preserved with exceptional care, complete with placenta and umbilical cord, and it was stolen in the 1990s. Anatomical machines The anatomical machines (Italian: "macchine anatomiche") are a couple of anatomical models reproducing the human circulatory system, exposed in the Cappella Sansevero in Naples. Realised in the second half of the 18th century, they are built on top of a couple of human skeletons,