December 19, 2019 • 9 mins
Today's tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities might make you hungry, or it might turn your stomach. We'll let you decide.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There are parts of the
(00:28):
world known for their cuisine. Travel to Austria and enjoy
a savory Wiener Schnitzel, or take a trip to Canada
for some delicious poutine. On a more local level, Philly
is where to go for cheese steaks, and you can't
beat Chicago for deep dish pizza. Then there's Denby Dale
in West Yorkshire, England. Since the early nineteenth century, Denby
(00:50):
Dale has been known for its meat pies. There are
three things one must know about the pies, though. First
is that they are only ever baked for special occasions.
The first celebratory pie was made in seventeen eighty eight
after King George the Third had recovered from about with
mental illness. Another was made in eighteen forty six after
a set of tariffs known as the Corn Laws were lifted,
(01:11):
allowing imported corn and other grain to enter the country
without heavy taxes placed on the buyers. In eighteen seventies seven,
two pies were baked roughly a week apart. The first
had been made as part of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee,
a grand banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of her assuming
the throne. It was cooked with all kinds of meat inside,
(01:32):
including chicken, rabbit, veal and pork. It was also disgusting
due to errors in timing. The pie had sat in
the sun for too long and stunk too high heaven.
No one could stomach more than a whiff of it,
which was why it was quickly taken out in the
middle of a field and buried in quicklime. One week
later they attempted the pie again, this one called the
(01:53):
Resurrection Pie, and it was good. Denby Dale also baked
a pie for the turn of the New Millennium in
two thousand, as well as one to celebrate the Queen
Mother's one birthday that same year, which brings us to
the second important fact about the pies. Only ten have
been made over the past two hundred years. The village
(02:13):
of denbie Dale population sixteen thousand, three hundred sixty five
at the time I'm recording this, beasts on a single
pie roughly once per generation. They don't cut it into
paper thin slices. Though their process is the third reason
why denbie Dale pies are so coveted. They're enormous. For example,
the Millennium pie required two and a half tons of
(02:35):
beef and potatoes, three and a half tons of pastry
for the crust, and roughly eight to ten hours to
cook on a forty ft wide metal pie dish, and
sometimes the pies would serve double duty. During World War Two,
when scrap metal was in high demand to make things
like tanks and airplanes, denbie Dale's pie dish was donated
to the war efforts and melted down. The villagers held
(02:57):
a goodbye party for it as well, marchie it down
the street for all to see, before holding a cricket
match in its honor. In nineteen sixty four, a pie
was baked to honor four royal births that had occurred
that year, and the dish that was used was launched
down a canal as a publicity stunt, and it worked.
The event was written up in one major newspaper. However,
(03:18):
not every pie went smoothly, aside from the inedible pie
of eight seven, the one that was baked after the
repeal of the corn laws claimed the life of one
baker who had gotten trapped inside the crust after cutting
into it. It also crushed the stage on which it
was displayed, and the fifteen thousand villagers and attendants ended
up eating pieces of it right off the ground. And
(03:40):
in nine a pie baked for a fundraiser on behalf
of the hudders Field Royal Infirmary got stuck in the oven.
At least twenty men armed with crowbars worked at it
for two hours to jimmy at loose. The next pie
hasn't been announced yet, but if you'd like to taste
one for yourself, individual Denbie Dale Highs are sold in
(04:01):
grocery stores all over England. Don't worry, though, the only
qualities these pie share with their giant predecessors is their name.
They should fit just fine inside your car. In the
(04:25):
city of Naples is a palace known as the Palazzo
di Sangro. The brick building is surrounded by homes and shops.
It faces the Church of San Domenico Majorre, and in
a way it looks out of place, but this enormous
mansion has been part of the city since the sixteenth century.
And is home to some of the most beautiful and
(04:45):
bizarre works of art. The palace was commissioned by the
Duke of Torre Major. During construction, it became home to
the Duke's family, as well as the composer Carlo Gesualde,
who ended up murdering his wife there. One of the
Duke's relatives, The first Prince of San Severo, felt the
palace and its inhabitants needed a private place to pray.
(05:07):
In fifteen ninety he had a family chapel built in
the gardens on the property. The structure changed hands and
forms over the years. It was converted from a regular
chapel into a family burial chapel in sixteen There was
also a tunnel between the main house and the chapel
until the late nineteenth century. However, in the mid seventeen hundreds,
(05:28):
this Palace of Death gained new life as a kind
of museum. Sculptures by Antonio Cordini and Giuseppe San Martino
were dedicated to the deceased family members intoured in the tombs.
They depicted life size women draped in translucent cloth with soft,
lifelike features, but were carved from solid stone. But it
(05:48):
was the seventh Prince of San Severo, Roimando de Sangro,
who helped guide the chapel's art collection. Raimondo was a
man of many disciplines, including science, spiritualism, and of course,
the fine arts, but he was also an inventor. During
his life, he mixed chemicals together to concoct his own
version of an eternal flame, and allegedly created a horse
(06:10):
drawn carriage that used wooden horses instead of live ones.
Oh and it could ride on water as well as
on land. The prince's proclivities didn't exactly endear him to
the townspeople, though he became quite the topic of conversation.
In fact, they're developed a kind of dark lore about him.
The locals believed he killed people for his experiments and
(06:31):
could conjure blood from nothing. Of course, two of his
most famous creations didn't help matters for him. They're known
as the Anatomical Machines, and they are comprised of the
skeletons of a man and a pregnant woman pinned against
the wall. Over their bones are red and blue vessels
intricately weaved into complex formations, just as they would have
(06:52):
been when the subjects were alive. Rumor had it that
the Prince killed two of his servants in order to
create them. Not only that, but there had also been
a third machine, a child, complete with its preserved placenta. Unfortunately,
it was stolen from the museum in the nineteen nineties
and it was never recovered. Over the years, stories circulated
(07:15):
about their creation that the Prince had been experimenting with
alchemy and had turned the servants blood into metal by
injecting them with a special chemical. The good news is
that the prince had almost nothing to do with the bodies.
He didn't kill anyone himself, nor did he have anyone killed.
He purchased the skeletons, presumably from a funeral home or
a medical university, and then had anatomus Giuseppe Salerno turned
(07:39):
them into works of art in seventeen sixty three. Using
the two human forms supplied by the Prince, Salerno went
about reconstructing their circulatory systems for display in the Chapel Museum,
But the vessels were not original to the body. They
were made of wire and beeswax. The only organic part
of the anatomical machines were the bones them else Today,
(08:02):
the skeletons are on display behind glass. Visitors can see
how the skulls were cut apart and reassembled using metal hinges,
conveying their purpose as either objects of medical study or
more likely, sideshow curiosities. Prince de Sangro helped build his
family's legacy by filling his home with unique sculptures, some
(08:22):
of them beautiful and some of them strange. Beyond words.
One thing for sure, though he certainly had an eye
for art. No bones about it. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
(08:43):
by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at the World of Lore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah h
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There are parts of the
(00:28):
world known for their cuisine. Travel to Austria and enjoy
a savory Wiener Schnitzel, or take a trip to Canada
for some delicious poutine. On a more local level, Philly
is where to go for cheese steaks, and you can't
beat Chicago for deep dish pizza. Then there's Denby Dale
in West Yorkshire, England. Since the early nineteenth century, Denby
(00:50):
Dale has been known for its meat pies. There are
three things one must know about the pies, though. First
is that they are only ever baked for special occasions.
The first celebratory pie was made in seventeen eighty eight
after King George the Third had recovered from about with
mental illness. Another was made in eighteen forty six after
a set of tariffs known as the Corn Laws were lifted,
(01:11):
allowing imported corn and other grain to enter the country
without heavy taxes placed on the buyers. In eighteen seventies seven,
two pies were baked roughly a week apart. The first
had been made as part of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee,
a grand banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of her assuming
the throne. It was cooked with all kinds of meat inside,
(01:32):
including chicken, rabbit, veal and pork. It was also disgusting
due to errors in timing. The pie had sat in
the sun for too long and stunk too high heaven.
No one could stomach more than a whiff of it,
which was why it was quickly taken out in the
middle of a field and buried in quicklime. One week
later they attempted the pie again, this one called the
(01:53):
Resurrection Pie, and it was good. Denby Dale also baked
a pie for the turn of the New Millennium in
two thousand, as well as one to celebrate the Queen
Mother's one birthday that same year, which brings us to
the second important fact about the pies. Only ten have
been made over the past two hundred years. The village
(02:13):
of denbie Dale population sixteen thousand, three hundred sixty five
at the time I'm recording this, beasts on a single
pie roughly once per generation. They don't cut it into
paper thin slices. Though their process is the third reason
why denbie Dale pies are so coveted. They're enormous. For example,
the Millennium pie required two and a half tons of
(02:35):
beef and potatoes, three and a half tons of pastry
for the crust, and roughly eight to ten hours to
cook on a forty ft wide metal pie dish, and
sometimes the pies would serve double duty. During World War Two,
when scrap metal was in high demand to make things
like tanks and airplanes, denbie Dale's pie dish was donated
to the war efforts and melted down. The villagers held
(02:57):
a goodbye party for it as well, marchie it down
the street for all to see, before holding a cricket
match in its honor. In nineteen sixty four, a pie
was baked to honor four royal births that had occurred
that year, and the dish that was used was launched
down a canal as a publicity stunt, and it worked.
The event was written up in one major newspaper. However,
(03:18):
not every pie went smoothly, aside from the inedible pie
of eight seven, the one that was baked after the
repeal of the corn laws claimed the life of one
baker who had gotten trapped inside the crust after cutting
into it. It also crushed the stage on which it
was displayed, and the fifteen thousand villagers and attendants ended
up eating pieces of it right off the ground. And
(03:40):
in nine a pie baked for a fundraiser on behalf
of the hudders Field Royal Infirmary got stuck in the oven.
At least twenty men armed with crowbars worked at it
for two hours to jimmy at loose. The next pie
hasn't been announced yet, but if you'd like to taste
one for yourself, individual Denbie Dale Highs are sold in
(04:01):
grocery stores all over England. Don't worry, though, the only
qualities these pie share with their giant predecessors is their name.
They should fit just fine inside your car. In the
(04:25):
city of Naples is a palace known as the Palazzo
di Sangro. The brick building is surrounded by homes and shops.
It faces the Church of San Domenico Majorre, and in
a way it looks out of place, but this enormous
mansion has been part of the city since the sixteenth century.
And is home to some of the most beautiful and
(04:45):
bizarre works of art. The palace was commissioned by the
Duke of Torre Major. During construction, it became home to
the Duke's family, as well as the composer Carlo Gesualde,
who ended up murdering his wife there. One of the
Duke's relatives, The first Prince of San Severo, felt the
palace and its inhabitants needed a private place to pray.
(05:07):
In fifteen ninety he had a family chapel built in
the gardens on the property. The structure changed hands and
forms over the years. It was converted from a regular
chapel into a family burial chapel in sixteen There was
also a tunnel between the main house and the chapel
until the late nineteenth century. However, in the mid seventeen hundreds,
(05:28):
this Palace of Death gained new life as a kind
of museum. Sculptures by Antonio Cordini and Giuseppe San Martino
were dedicated to the deceased family members intoured in the tombs.
They depicted life size women draped in translucent cloth with soft,
lifelike features, but were carved from solid stone. But it
(05:48):
was the seventh Prince of San Severo, Roimando de Sangro,
who helped guide the chapel's art collection. Raimondo was a
man of many disciplines, including science, spiritualism, and of course,
the fine arts, but he was also an inventor. During
his life, he mixed chemicals together to concoct his own
version of an eternal flame, and allegedly created a horse
(06:10):
drawn carriage that used wooden horses instead of live ones.
Oh and it could ride on water as well as
on land. The prince's proclivities didn't exactly endear him to
the townspeople, though he became quite the topic of conversation.
In fact, they're developed a kind of dark lore about him.
The locals believed he killed people for his experiments and
(06:31):
could conjure blood from nothing. Of course, two of his
most famous creations didn't help matters for him. They're known
as the Anatomical Machines, and they are comprised of the
skeletons of a man and a pregnant woman pinned against
the wall. Over their bones are red and blue vessels
intricately weaved into complex formations, just as they would have
(06:52):
been when the subjects were alive. Rumor had it that
the Prince killed two of his servants in order to
create them. Not only that, but there had also been
a third machine, a child, complete with its preserved placenta. Unfortunately,
it was stolen from the museum in the nineteen nineties
and it was never recovered. Over the years, stories circulated
(07:15):
about their creation that the Prince had been experimenting with
alchemy and had turned the servants blood into metal by
injecting them with a special chemical. The good news is
that the prince had almost nothing to do with the bodies.
He didn't kill anyone himself, nor did he have anyone killed.
He purchased the skeletons, presumably from a funeral home or
a medical university, and then had anatomus Giuseppe Salerno turned
(07:39):
them into works of art in seventeen sixty three. Using
the two human forms supplied by the Prince, Salerno went
about reconstructing their circulatory systems for display in the Chapel Museum,
But the vessels were not original to the body. They
were made of wire and beeswax. The only organic part
of the anatomical machines were the bones them else Today,
(08:02):
the skeletons are on display behind glass. Visitors can see
how the skulls were cut apart and reassembled using metal hinges,
conveying their purpose as either objects of medical study or
more likely, sideshow curiosities. Prince de Sangro helped build his
family's legacy by filling his home with unique sculptures, some
(08:22):
of them beautiful and some of them strange. Beyond words.
One thing for sure, though he certainly had an eye
for art. No bones about it. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
(08:43):
by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at the World of Lore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah h
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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