The midland journal., 1898-07-29
MILAN NOSE CONTEST.
At Which There Were Tyenty-Three
Smellers in Line-Italians Have
Respect for Big Noses.

The nose has at all periods of their
history possessed a peculiar signifi-
canoe for Italians. AS a symbol of in
telligence it figures in familiar speech,
ancient and modern, q homo nasutis-
sinus being Senecas equivalent for
very clever man and Naso name held
in honor by the Otacilian, Octavian,
Ovidian and Voconian gems, while
Nasica was a cognomen of the Scipios,
one of whom, Publius Scipio Nasica,
was, as the most virtuous man in the
state, chosen to accompany the image
of the Mater Idaea to Rome. In the
Italy, of to-day aver naso and. esser di
buon naso Ito have nose, to be of good
nose), are the first of series of phrases
all turning on that feature in its SYM
bolic sense and giving rise to proverbs
infinite in the variety of their applica-
ton. The great Napoleon was true to
his Italian origin in his preference for
big nose" and the late Lord Bea-
consfield, described from Venetian
Jews, never concealed his scorn for the
''fat-nosed Frank" He held, in fact,
that to be sinus was the first step to-
ward being simia or ape-a "retroces-
sion in evolution" admitted by some
among the facts for Darwin" Such a
horror have Italians of any lesion cost
ing the face its nose or robbing the lat
ter of its due proportions that rhino-
plasty 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 ingenious method of replacing
the feature when lost. Quite in keep
ing, therefore, with all precedent, as
well as with the fitness of things, it is
in Italy that we find the cult of the
nose" as vital as ever, insomuch that
within the last seven years she has had
two Concorsi di Nasi (or nose competi-
tions), in which the owners of the fea-
ture received prizes according as they
could present it in greater perfection
rs regards type, size, beauty and olfac-
tory power. The former of these con-
corsi was held In 1891 at Padua On the
initiative of the students of that medi-
cal school, and the citizens were in
vited, by universal suffrage and secret
voting, to name the possessors of nasi
piu sviluppati rispettabili (noses of
the most pronounced and respectable)
of the ancient Venetian town. The
prizes, consisting of pocket handller-
chiefs and snuff boxes, were in due
course awarded by plurality Of votes.
At Milan, and quite recently, a much
better ordered and more conclusive
competition of the same kind has just
come off, the whole proceedings being
| controlled by committee and the Eek
aminations" conducted in Nasoteca
furnished with drawings and water
colors of heads well provided with
noses, such as would have gladdened the
artistic sense of William Hogarth. The
| competitors numbered SO, but not more
than % appeared before the examiners.
The first prize (gold medaN was won by
a Venetian, Fortunate Michielutti by
name, vender of lucifers, whose nose
was found to be of formidable pro-
portions, long, well pronounced, ag-
gressive, trenchant like knife blade"
The second prize fell to one Antonio
Pozzi, possessed of a nose "domineer-
ing, assuming, with nostrils wide and
| cavernous." The award for this was
medal In enamel, while the third
| prize, a silver medal of the first order,
was adjudged to Carlo Ascani, for the
refined, symmetrical proportions of his
nasal feature. The last two prizes, sill
yer medals of the second and third Or
ders, respectively, were given for a
nose without pretension, ingenious,
but solid and well planted" and for one
! considerable, regular and worthy of
respect" The candidates who were
unsuccessful - perhaps ''ploughed"
would be a more suggestive word
shared the festivities with which the
committee concluded its labors, and so
| the Concorso di Nasi became thing of
the past, till the Buontemponi (merry-
makers) of future year or another
| city think fit to revive the harmless
mpetition.-London Lancet.