Court Dwarfs: Curiosity & the Tiny Caretaker.

Dwarfs, throughout the ages, have aroused curiosity. Some, like the American circus artist General Tom Thumb, even achieved great wealth by cleverly turning smallness into a spectacle. Certainly one of the most remarkable stories in this category is that of the Italian dwarf Sebastiano Biavati. Biavati was both curiosity and curator of Ferdinando Cospi‘s famous curiosity cabinet Museo Cospiano, in Bologna in the 17th century. It was his duty to take care of Cospi’s fabulous (in both meanings of the word) collection as well as display himself to its curious visitors. Do we regard small people as things? Or as in-betweens?