Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Ghost in the Machine

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Ghost in the Machine · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There are parts of the
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  Speaker 1: world known for their cuisine. Travel to Austria and enjoy
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  Speaker 1: a savory Wiener Schnitzel, or take a trip to Canada
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  Speaker 1: for some delicious poutine. On a more local level, Philly
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  Speaker 1: is where to go for cheese steaks, and you can't
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  Speaker 1: beat Chicago for deep dish pizza. Then there's Denby Dale
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  Speaker 1: in West Yorkshire, England. Since the early nineteenth century, Denby
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  Speaker 1: Dale has been known for its meat pies. There are
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  Speaker 1: three things one must know about the pies, though. First
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  Speaker 1: is that they are only ever baked for special occasions.
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  Speaker 1: The first celebratory pie was made in seventeen eighty eight
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  Speaker 1: after King George the Third had recovered from about with
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  Speaker 1: mental illness. Another was made in eighteen forty six after
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  Speaker 1: a set of tariffs known as the Corn Laws were lifted,
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  Speaker 1: allowing imported corn and other grain to enter the country
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  Speaker 1: without heavy taxes placed on the buyers. In eighteen seventies seven,
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  Speaker 1: two pies were baked roughly a week apart. The first
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  Speaker 1: had been made as part of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee,
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  Speaker 1: a grand banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of her assuming
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  Speaker 1: the throne. It was cooked with all kinds of meat inside,
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  Speaker 1: including chicken, rabbit, veal and pork. It was also disgusting
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  Speaker 1: due to errors in timing. The pie had sat in
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  Speaker 1: the sun for too long and stunk too high heaven.
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  Speaker 1: No one could stomach more than a whiff of it,
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  Speaker 1: which was why it was quickly taken out in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of a field and buried in quicklime. One week
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  Speaker 1: later they attempted the pie again, this one called the
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  Speaker 1: Resurrection Pie, and it was good. Denby Dale also baked
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  Speaker 1: a pie for the turn of the New Millennium in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand, as well as one to celebrate the Queen
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  Speaker 1: Mother's one birthday that same year, which brings us to
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  Speaker 1: the second important fact about the pies. Only ten have
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  Speaker 1: been made over the past two hundred years. The village
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  Speaker 1: of denbie Dale population sixteen thousand, three hundred sixty five
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  Speaker 1: at the time I'm recording this, beasts on a single
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  Speaker 1: pie roughly once per generation. They don't cut it into
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  Speaker 1: paper thin slices. Though their process is the third reason
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  Speaker 1: why denbie Dale pies are so coveted. They're enormous. For example,
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  Speaker 1: the Millennium pie required two and a half tons of
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  Speaker 1: beef and potatoes, three and a half tons of pastry
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  Speaker 1: for the crust, and roughly eight to ten hours to
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  Speaker 1: cook on a forty ft wide metal pie dish, and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes the pies would serve double duty. During World War Two,
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  Speaker 1: when scrap metal was in high demand to make things
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  Speaker 1: like tanks and airplanes, denbie Dale's pie dish was donated
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  Speaker 1: to the war efforts and melted down. The villagers held
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  Speaker 1: a goodbye party for it as well, marchie it down
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  Speaker 1: the street for all to see, before holding a cricket
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  Speaker 1: match in its honor. In nineteen sixty four, a pie
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  Speaker 1: was baked to honor four royal births that had occurred
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  Speaker 1: that year, and the dish that was used was launched
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  Speaker 1: down a canal as a publicity stunt, and it worked.
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  Speaker 1: The event was written up in one major newspaper. However,
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  Speaker 1: not every pie went smoothly, aside from the inedible pie
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  Speaker 1: of eight seven, the one that was baked after the
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  Speaker 1: repeal of the corn laws claimed the life of one
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  Speaker 1: baker who had gotten trapped inside the crust after cutting
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  Speaker 1: into it. It also crushed the stage on which it
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  Speaker 1: was displayed, and the fifteen thousand villagers and attendants ended
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  Speaker 1: up eating pieces of it right off the ground. And
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  Speaker 1: in nine a pie baked for a fundraiser on behalf
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  Speaker 1: of the hudders Field Royal Infirmary got stuck in the oven.
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  Speaker 1: At least twenty men armed with crowbars worked at it
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  Speaker 1: for two hours to jimmy at loose. The next pie
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been announced yet, but if you'd like to taste
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  Speaker 1: one for yourself, individual Denbie Dale Highs are sold in
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  Speaker 1: grocery stores all over England. Don't worry, though, the only
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  Speaker 1: qualities these pie share with their giant predecessors is their name.
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  Speaker 1: They should fit just fine inside your car. In the
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  Speaker 1: city of Naples is a palace known as the Palazzo
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  Speaker 1: di Sangro. The brick building is surrounded by homes and shops.
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  Speaker 1: It faces the Church of San Domenico Majorre, and in
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  Speaker 1: a way it looks out of place, but this enormous
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  Speaker 1: mansion has been part of the city since the sixteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: And is home to some of the most beautiful and
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  Speaker 1: bizarre works of art. The palace was commissioned by the
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  Speaker 1: Duke of Torre Major. During construction, it became home to
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  Speaker 1: the Duke's family, as well as the composer Carlo Gesualde,
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  Speaker 1: who ended up murdering his wife there. One of the
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  Speaker 1: Duke's relatives, The first Prince of San Severo, felt the
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  Speaker 1: palace and its inhabitants needed a private place to pray.
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  Speaker 1: In fifteen ninety he had a family chapel built in
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  Speaker 1: the gardens on the property. The structure changed hands and
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  Speaker 1: forms over the years. It was converted from a regular
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  Speaker 1: chapel into a family burial chapel in sixteen There was
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  Speaker 1: also a tunnel between the main house and the chapel
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  Speaker 1: until the late nineteenth century. However, in the mid seventeen hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: this Palace of Death gained new life as a kind
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  Speaker 1: of museum. Sculptures by Antonio Cordini and Giuseppe San Martino
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  Speaker 1: were dedicated to the deceased family members intoured in the tombs.
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  Speaker 1: They depicted life size women draped in translucent cloth with soft,
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  Speaker 1: lifelike features, but were carved from solid stone. But it
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  Speaker 1: was the seventh Prince of San Severo, Roimando de Sangro,
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  Speaker 1: who helped guide the chapel's art collection. Raimondo was a
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  Speaker 1: man of many disciplines, including science, spiritualism, and of course,
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  Speaker 1: the fine arts, but he was also an inventor. During
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  Speaker 1: his life, he mixed chemicals together to concoct his own
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  Speaker 1: version of an eternal flame, and allegedly created a horse
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  Speaker 1: drawn carriage that used wooden horses instead of live ones.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and it could ride on water as well as
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  Speaker 1: on land. The prince's proclivities didn't exactly endear him to
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  Speaker 1: the townspeople, though he became quite the topic of conversation.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they're developed a kind of dark lore about him.
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  Speaker 1: The locals believed he killed people for his experiments and
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  Speaker 1: could conjure blood from nothing. Of course, two of his
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  Speaker 1: most famous creations didn't help matters for him. They're known
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  Speaker 1: as the Anatomical Machines, and they are comprised of the
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  Speaker 1: skeletons of a man and a pregnant woman pinned against
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  Speaker 1: the wall. Over their bones are red and blue vessels
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  Speaker 1: intricately weaved into complex formations, just as they would have
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  Speaker 1: been when the subjects were alive. Rumor had it that
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  Speaker 1: the Prince killed two of his servants in order to
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  Speaker 1: create them. Not only that, but there had also been
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  Speaker 1: a third machine, a child, complete with its preserved placenta. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: it was stolen from the museum in the nineteen nineties
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  Speaker 1: and it was never recovered. Over the years, stories circulated
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  Speaker 1: about their creation that the Prince had been experimenting with
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  Speaker 1: alchemy and had turned the servants blood into metal by
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  Speaker 1: injecting them with a special chemical. The good news is
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  Speaker 1: that the prince had almost nothing to do with the bodies.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't kill anyone himself, nor did he have anyone killed.
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  Speaker 1: He purchased the skeletons, presumably from a funeral home or
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  Speaker 1: a medical university, and then had anatomus Giuseppe Salerno turned
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  Speaker 1: them into works of art in seventeen sixty three. Using
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  Speaker 1: the two human forms supplied by the Prince, Salerno went
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  Speaker 1: about reconstructing their circulatory systems for display in the Chapel Museum,
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  Speaker 1: But the vessels were not original to the body. They
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  Speaker 1: were made of wire and beeswax. The only organic part
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  Speaker 1: of the anatomical machines were the bones them else Today,
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  Speaker 1: the skeletons are on display behind glass. Visitors can see
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  Speaker 1: how the skulls were cut apart and reassembled using metal hinges,
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  Speaker 1: conveying their purpose as either objects of medical study or
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  Speaker 1: more likely, sideshow curiosities. Prince de Sangro helped build his
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  Speaker 1: family's legacy by filling his home with unique sculptures, some
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  Speaker 1: of them beautiful and some of them strange. Beyond words.
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  Speaker 1: One thing for sure, though he certainly had an eye
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  Speaker 1: for art. No bones about it. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah h