Pérégrinations d'un crâne. La marque du bandit
Résumé
This article retraces the travels of a skull attributed to Cartouche, the famous parisian bandit, executed on the place de Grève at the start of the eighteenth century. Without pronouncing on the authenticity of this relic, the evolution of attention to this object in public exhibitions and scholarship is unfolded. Beyond the osteological uncertainty that will perhaps one day be lifted, the author shows how the successive statuses of this human remain are testimony to the history of anthropological thought and the evolution of sensibilities.
Le crâne du brigand Cartouche (1693-1721) a connu divers moments d'exposition publique et d'usages savants, de la phrénologie à l'anthropologie physique. On tente ici d'en reconstituer les aléas, qui témoignent d'une culturelle visuelle où l'exposition des crânes faisait sens.