The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-20
THE MILAN NOSE CONTEST.
| Twenty-Three SmeIIers in Line-ItaI-
ian Respect for Big Noses.
From the Lancet.

From the Lancet.
The nose has a all periods of their his
tory possessed a peculiar significance for
Italians. AS a symbol of intelligence it fig
ures in familiar speech ancient and mod
ern, homo nasuussimus being Seneca s
equivalent for a very clever man and Naso
a name held in honor by the Otacilian, Oc-
tavian Ovidian and Voconian gems, while
Nasica was a cognomeh of the Scipios, one
OF whom, Publius Scipio Nasica. was, as
the most Virtuous man in the stale, chosen
to accompany the image of the Mater Id
aea to Rome. In the Italy of to-day aver
naso and esser di naso to have nose, to
be of good nose) are the first of series
of phrases all turning on that feature in
the symbolic sense and giving rise to prov
cribs infinite in the variety of their april
cation. Such horror have Italians of any
lesion costing the face its nose or robbing
the latter of its due proportions that rhin-
cplasty among them has long been one
of the surgical fine arts" and the great
Bolognese anatomist Tagliacozzi Q546-99)
has for all time given his name to an in
genious method of replacing the feature
when lost Quite in keeping, therefore,
with all precent as well as with the fit
ness of things, it is in Italy that we find
insomuch that within the last seven years
she has had two Concorsi di Nasi Cor nose
competitons), in which the owners of all
the features received prizes according az
they could present 1t In its greatest per-
lection as regards type, size, beauty and
olfactory power. The former on these con
corsi was held in 1891 at Padua on the
initiative of the students were invited by
universal suffrage and secret voting. to
name the possessors of / nasi piu svilup-
patti rispettabil moses of the most pro
nounced and respectable Of the ancient
Venetian town. The prizes, consisting OF
pocket handkerchefs and snuff boxes.
were in due course awarded by plurality
of votes.
At Milan, and quite recently. a much
better ordered and more conclusive com
petition of the same kind has just come
off. the whole proceedings being controSsed
by committeeman the examinations"
conducted in a Nasoteca furnished with
drawings and water colors of head well
provided with noses, such as would have
gladdened the artistic sense of William
Hogarth. The competitors numbered
thirty-six, but not more than twenty
three appeared before the examiners. The
first prize gold medal was won by
Venetian, Fortunate Michelutti by name.
a vender of lucifers, whose nose was found
10 be Of formidable proportions long well
pronounced. aggressive, trenchant like
knife glade" The second prize fell to
one Antonio Pozzi, possessed of a nose
"domineering, assuming, with nostrils
wide and cavernous.' The award for this
was a medal in enamel, while the third
prize, silver medal of the first order, was
adjudged to Carlo Ascani, for the refined
symmetrical proportions OF his nasal feat
ure. The last two prizes, silver medals of
the second and third orders, respectively,
were given for nose without pretension,
ingenious, but solid and we'll planted"
and for one considerable, regular and
worthy of respect" The candidates who
are unsuccessful-perhaps "ploughed"
would be more suggestive word-shared
the festivities with which the committee
concluded its labors, and so the Concorso
di Nasa became a thing Of the past, till
the Buon-temponi (merry makers) Of the
future year or another city think fit to re-
viVe the harmless competition.