Girolamo Segato, Petrifier Extraordinaire
Why be embalmed when your body can be turned to stone?
Warning: pictures of petrified body parts ahead
From painters Giotto, Caravaggio, and Botticelli to sculptors Donatello, Bernini, and Canova, Italian history has its fair share of artists. Italian museums and churches are littered with their masterpieces: frescoes, oil paintings, Greek gods carved in white Carrara marble.
But sticking to the classical arts was not for Girolamo Segato: RIP to Raphael and Titian, but he was different.
Ante Litteram Indiana Jones
Girolamo Segato (13 June 1792–3 February 1836) was born in an Italian monastery in Northern Italy — the third of thirteen children — and there he started learning the elementary principles of botany, chemistry, and mineralogy. He would eventually become an accomplished naturalist and anatomist.
He tried to continue his studies, but his parents — who were by no means wealthy — accused him of being an ungrateful parasite and urged him to get a job. To extend his knowledge without having…
