Thirty‐five years after the 1630–31 plague outbreak in Venice, Antonio Zanchi created ‘The Virgin Appears to the Plague‐Stricken’, a monumental painting in the stairway of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco that memorialized this public crisis. Beyond satisfying expectations for commemorative art and asserting the continued importance of the cult of the plague saint Roch, the artist sought to design something provocative – a work capable of evoking an embodied experience for viewers. From his incorporation of the stairway's built environment, to his use of techniques popularized by seicento operas in which spectators became implicated in performances, Zanchi's plague retrospective is an exercise in active viewing. This article explores the variety of sources tapped by the artist, including traditional plague iconography developed in the city over the previous two centuries, and the Venetian tradition of spectacle and civic ritual. While the seventeenth century in Venice is often considered a period of artistic stagnation, bracketed between the vitality of the sixteenth century and the decadence of the eighteenth, this article demonstrates the creativity and innovation in Venetian painting in the aftermath of the 1630–31 plague.

Surface anatomy is an important skill for students in preparation for patient care, and peer examination is often used to teach musculoskeletal and surface anatomy. An alternative pedagogical approach is to use bodies represented in artworks. Represented bodies display fictive anatomy, providing students with the opportunity to apply their musculoskeletal knowledge and to think critically when evaluating the anatomical fidelity of a represented body. An elective course at the University of Michigan enabled undergraduate students to analyze the musculoskeletal and surface anatomy depicted in Renaissance artworks. Students traveled to Italy in 2018 (n = 14) and 2022 (n = 15) to analyze the fictive anatomy portrayed in artistic sculptures and musculoskeletal structures depicted in wax anatomy models and sculpted skeletons. In assignments, students were asked to identify musculoskeletal structures as portrayed in the context of represented anatomy created by Italian Renaissance artists and to assess the fidelity of the depicted anatomy. The students also applied their knowledge of musculoskeletal anatomy to describe body position and evaluate muscle function in their assessments of the accuracy or inaccuracy of the fictive anatomy. The students reported that evaluating the anatomical fidelity of represented bodies in artworks supported their learning of musculoskeletal and surface anatomy, and that their critical thinking skills improved in the course. Evaluation of the anatomical fidelity of represented bodies in artworks is an effective pedagogical approach that can be implemented in art museums as an adjunctive learning experience to deepen students' musculoskeletal and surface anatomy knowledge and further develop their critical thinking skills.