Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-02-06
CHASTITY FURNITURE.
A HIoeoUS TABLE CONSTRUCTED
BY AN ITALIAN SAvANT.
Giuseppe ssgatti's Experiments In Per-
fecting . system of Human Petri-
faction-Cabinet Material from
Hundred Corpses-Re.uIts.

A table, the most horrible ard ghnstly
piece of furniture ever conceived in the
mind Of man, will be shown in next
years exhibition of the Franklin insti-
tute If Dr. Mark l.. Nardyz, of this city,
is successful in obtaining the loan of it
from Palazzo Pitt, Florence, for that pur-
pose. The table is the work of Giuseppe
Sagatti, who was several years in max.
ing it, The material was drawn from
perhaps a hundred human corpses IL
consists of a circular top resting upon a
pedestal with four supports representing
claws. The face of the table is about
three feet in diameter To the uniniti-
ated spectator it would appear a fantastic
but artistic work in marble, for it is
highly polished and looks like stone, but
when he is told that the hearts, livers,
muscles. and intestines of the human
body form the entire composition of the
grewsome object the visitor sbudders.
ITS ATTRACTIVE GHASTLINEss.
But there is an attractiveness in its
very ghastliness which leads him TO ex-
anime it the more closely. The Pitti
palace contains, without exception, the
finest collection Of paintings in Italy, in
cluding some of the best works of Ra-
phael, Michael Angelo, Murillo, Corregio
and others. Its art treasures comprise
only a small portion of its riches, but it
must be confessed that no chamber of
horrors contains anything approaching
Sagatti's table in its capacity to make
flesh creep. The weird craftsman Is dead
these many years. The table, by which
he will always be remembered, was COM
pleted half a century ago, and after pass
ing through the hands of three individual
owners the last of whom committed sui
eide over il, il was secured for the Pa
lazzo
Sagatti spent several years in perfect
ing a system of petrifaction, and succeed
in discovering process whereby the
natural animal reaction in a corpse after
death could be changed to mineral reac-
tion by first securing immunity from de-
cay by well known embalming process,
and afterward immersing the body in a
bath where it absorbed siiicic particles.
PROCESS OF ITS CONSTRUCTION.
For the purpose of apractical nlustrs-
ton of the method and its results he set
about making the table. The eorpses
necessary for the purpose were obtained
from one of the hospitals. The intestines
were used in the construction of the or
namental pedestal, and, having been
pressed into shape. were petrified. The
claws Of the tatIe were formed from the
hearts, livers aid lungs, which still re-
tain the appearance of live flesh. The
leaf OF the table was composed Of the
larger muscles of the body artistically ar
ranged together 10 form the desired ef-
feet. The table was intended to be highly
ornamental, and, though nothing was to
be used in its construction but parts Of
the human body, the mind that first con-
ceived il was not at a loss to find means
Of ornamentation.
A hundred pairs of eyes or more and Is
many pairs of ears were petrifed and
artistically arranged around the edges.
The effect was the most blood-curdiing
that could be imagined. The process
succeeded in preserving the eyeballs in
their natural state, so that after polish
ing they retained their color and general
ante-mortem appearance with an inten-
sified brilliance. This completed the
task of the savant. He was proud of the
results of his labors. The test of his pro-
cess Of petrifaction was eminenuy sue
cessful He communicated his method
to the medical world, but naturally it
never became generally adopted, though
it was well understood by surgeons and
phys.cisns.-PhiladelphiaCor. New York
Herald