PHILADELPHIA, PA – Kevin Petti, Ph.D., professor in the departments of science and health at San Diego Miramar College will present the lecture, “Anatomy Italiana: From the Renaissance Dissection Theater to the Sistine Chapel,” at the 21st Annual Biomedical Lecture Series on Wednesday, February 12, at 3 p.m. in the East Parlor, St. Joseph Hall.
Petti will discuss how Italy’s medieval universities established the study of human anatomy for physicians. To heighten their art, Renaissance masters clandestinely examined anatomy through human dissection. The profound nexus between art and science is best demonstrated by the genius of Michelangelo. Indeed, the wooden crucifix he carved in gratitude for secret access to corpses from a convent’s hospital still hangs in the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Florence. Michelangelo’s anatomical knowledge explains why many believe human organs are depicted in the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Petti’s lecture will describe the thousand-year story of anatomy as an academic discipline. From its inclusion into the curriculum of the earliest universities, to the construction of the first permanent dissection theaters, to its influence on the Renaissance masters, the history of anatomy is an interdisciplinary saga that evolved along the Italian peninsula.
Kevin Petti, Ph.D. has been teaching in the departments of science and health at San Diego Miramar College since 1991. He teaches courses in human anatomy and physiology, human dissection, and health science. He is a contributing author to three anatomy and physiology texts, and is president-emeritus of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society. An innovative science educator, he employs interdisciplinary teaching strategies that connect anatomy with art, culture and history. He tells his students the story of how anatomy as a science developed in medieval and Renaissance Italy, and asks them to critically evaluate how this saga contributed to our current understanding of the structure and function of the human body.
As a citizen of both the U.S. and Italy, Petti has lived this history with both students and colleagues as he annually leads trips to Italy visiting the very lecture halls and dissection theaters where both anatomists and Renaissance masters discovered the secrets of anatomy. Dr. Petti is often invited to lecture about his interdisciplinary and multicultural approach to science education at universities and Italian-American community groups. In the last year, he has spoken at the University of Utah, Penn State, the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, and the House of Italy in Balboa Park.
Dr. Petti earned his Ph.D. from the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. The themes of his talks served as the underpinnings of his dissertation.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Lakshmi Atchison, Ph.D., professor of biology and director of the biomedical lecture series at latchiso@chc.edu or call 215.248.7159.
