Urn with presumed phalanx of the poet

The phalanx preserved inside the urn is supposed to be that of Ludovico Ariosto’s right hand and was found by anatomy professor Pietro Folchi in 1801 at the tomb of San Benedetto. The occasion of the discovery was the translation of the poet’s ashes from the church of San Benedetto, where they had been lying since 1612, to the Public Library, which, in 1933 was dedicated to him. This operation, ordered by General Sexstius Alexandre François Miollis, had been designed precisely to consolidate Napoleonic power within the places designated for culture, which had been taken away from the secular administration of the Church and transformed into secular institutions. The festivities for the translation took place in a lavish manner and with great employment of means precisely because of the symbolic significance it had: taking Ariosto’s remains away from the Church and arranging for his burial in the University of Ferrara was tantamount to spreading the idea that the places of culture ceased to be those where obscurantism and superstition reigned, and became centers of science and secular knowledge.