Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. People who strive for success often juggle multiple
Speaker 1: jobs and hobbies, hoping for their big break. For Claude,
Speaker 1: keeping multiple balls in the air was what brought him
Speaker 1: that success in the first place. Claude was born in Darby, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: In His father had served in the Civil War before
Speaker 1: settling down to manage a hotel part time and to
Speaker 1: sell produce. He also had a short fuse, especially when
Speaker 1: it came to his son. It got so bad between
Speaker 1: the two of them that Claude often ran away to
Speaker 1: live with relatives, but he always came back. When he
Speaker 1: was twelve, Claude started working odd jobs around Pennsylvania. However,
Speaker 1: he didn't find his true calling until he discovered juggling.
Speaker 1: After watching a juggler perform at a theater near his home,
Speaker 1: Claude discovered what he wanted to do for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. He devoted the next several years to
Speaker 1: perfecting his talent juggling for churchgoers and local audiences. Before
Speaker 1: leaving home for the last time. At the age of eighteen,
Speaker 1: he played vaudeville, adopting the persona of a tramp juggler
Speaker 1: based on a similar character created by fellow performer at
Speaker 1: James Edward Harrigan. Claude soon moved on to bigger stages
Speaker 1: and brighter lights all over the world. He eventually joined
Speaker 1: Zigfield Follies and enhanced his juggling act with comedy. He
Speaker 1: juggled everything too, from balls and cigarette boxes hats. If
Speaker 1: a ball didn't land exactly the right way, he would
Speaker 1: scold it in front of a laughing crowd. If his
Speaker 1: cigar missed his mouth, he'd curse it under his breath
Speaker 1: to hilarious effect. After a few years of working as
Speaker 1: a comic juggler, Claude branched out. He exchanged his hats
Speaker 1: and cigar boxes for a script in the Broadway musical
Speaker 1: The ham Tree. He never acted before, but it suited
Speaker 1: him well and it only led to bigger and better bills.
Speaker 1: He even performed for King George the Fifth and Queen
Speaker 1: Mary of England. Claude never slowed down, and he didn't
Speaker 1: rest his laurels either. He was always looking to make
Speaker 1: his act bigger and better. In nineteen fifteen, he went
Speaker 1: on Broadway with a new kind of show, involving a
Speaker 1: specially made pool table and cues of various shapes, which
Speaker 1: he used to make impossible shots. It was in the
Speaker 1: same year when Claude made the jump from the stage
Speaker 1: to the silver screen. He started in two silent films
Speaker 1: before taking another stage role, where he adopted his iconic
Speaker 1: part of a smarmie kan man in a top hat
Speaker 1: and a coat. Once he made the jump to the
Speaker 1: screwing though, the ladder of success only took Claude higher
Speaker 1: and higher. His silent work carried over into the talkies
Speaker 1: and he became a full fledged movie star. His greatest performance, however,
Speaker 1: never took place on stage or screen. Claude made waves,
Speaker 1: so to speak. During the summer of the eighteen year
Speaker 1: old was recommended for a gig in Atlantic City by
Speaker 1: a friend with a connection there. The pay was ten
Speaker 1: dollars a week and all he had to do was juggle,
Speaker 1: oh and drown. When he wasn't tossing balls and hats
Speaker 1: into the air. Claude would swim out into the ocean
Speaker 1: and start drowning. A co conspirator would jump into save him,
Speaker 1: drawing a crowd. Once he was saved. Onlookers who had
Speaker 1: worked up a hunger watching the daring rescue would buy
Speaker 1: themselves a hot dog at the nearby vendor who just
Speaker 1: happened to be in on the whole thing. Many years
Speaker 1: later in life, he bought a house in Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: it came with a pool out back, and one day
Speaker 1: he was entertaining some friends who asked him why he
Speaker 1: never swam in it. It said that he replied, would
Speaker 1: you like to swim if you had drowned? One? Sixty
Speaker 1: eight times? That drowning routine had brought in big business
Speaker 1: for the eateries on the pier, but it wasn't what
Speaker 1: made a celebrity out of William Claude Ducinfield. We have
Speaker 1: his over at the top antics on stage and on
Speaker 1: screen to thank for that. By then, though the world
Speaker 1: didn't know him as William Claude Ducinfield. No, the juggler,
Speaker 1: pool hustler and professional drowner was better known by his
Speaker 1: stage name legendary performer W. C. Fields. Beauty is fleeting
Speaker 1: when we visit museums and galleries. We don't think about
Speaker 1: the inevitable that the paintings and sculptures we love now
Speaker 1: will one day disappear. Time will eventually take the from us,
Speaker 1: which is probably for the best. They're beautiful because they're temporary.
Speaker 1: Naturalist and cartographer Girolamo Sagato didn't believe that beauty should
Speaker 1: be temporary. Born in the tiny village of Sasaparolo, Italy,
Speaker 1: in seventeen ninety two, Sagato grew up interested in a
Speaker 1: variety of subjects, including mathematics, chemistry, and exploration. On a
Speaker 1: trip to Egypt in his mid twenties, Sagato was captivated
Speaker 1: by the ancient mummies. He wanted to practice his own
Speaker 1: kind of preservation, so he and his partner wrote a
Speaker 1: book about what they discovered during their travels. They made
Speaker 1: some money from their work and were on their way
Speaker 1: to real success, but the good times wouldn't last for long.
Speaker 1: Sagato's partner ran off to Paris with everything, all the money,
Speaker 1: the notes, and the research they had collected. Crushed by
Speaker 1: the loss of his life's work and his friendship, Sigado
Speaker 1: retreated into cartography. It was time to move on, and
Speaker 1: so he carved a new path in life. He made
Speaker 1: maps for roughly a decade before finding his true calling
Speaker 1: and making art. In fact, that two of his finest
Speaker 1: pieces were a set of tables. The first table was simple,
Speaker 1: but pristine and well made. The second was a true
Speaker 1: work of art. It was decorated on top with a
Speaker 1: marble mosaic inlay of different shapes diamonds, circles, squares, and rectangles,
Speaker 1: all adorned with colored stones of varying sizes. The lines
Speaker 1: of each section were crisp, as though they were crafted
Speaker 1: by a machine, but every part embedded within the table
Speaker 1: top had been crafted by hand, his hand. After he
Speaker 1: made those tables, Saggato moved on to sculpture. His first
Speaker 1: piece was that of a young woman. Her proportions were exact,
Speaker 1: and he managed to make her look alive, as though
Speaker 1: her skin might react to the slightest touch. Another work
Speaker 1: was that of a woman's head with long flowing hair.
Speaker 1: It garnered him widespread acclaim in popular magazines like Harper's.
Speaker 1: His sculptures were compared to those of famous artists like
Speaker 1: Hiram powers, as well as the iconic Grecian Venus to
Speaker 1: Edgy statue. But he didn't produce a lot during his
Speaker 1: short life, and he passed away at the young age
Speaker 1: of forty four, and very few of his pieces still
Speaker 1: exist today. Sagato had come up with a specialized technique
Speaker 1: for working with his preferred materials. After a break in
Speaker 1: and attempted theft of his research, he destroyed every last
Speaker 1: scrap of paper that he had. Because of his secrecy,
Speaker 1: no one has ever been able to replicate his methods,
Speaker 1: not that they would want to. The world probably isn't
Speaker 1: ready for more furniture made from corpses. You see, Girolamo
Speaker 1: Sgado didn't stick to only using wood for his tables.
Speaker 1: He didn't make his master works out of marble either.
Speaker 1: Utilizing knowledge from his archaeological digs in Egypt and his
Speaker 1: research on ancient mummies, the former cartographer had developed a
Speaker 1: brand new way to preserve the human body. It wasn't mummification, though,
Speaker 1: it was called mineralization or petrification. He took a body
Speaker 1: that was very recently deceased and injected a special substance
Speaker 1: into a to preserve its flesh and organs. Everything would
Speaker 1: harden to stone, and Sigato would then manipulate it like
Speaker 1: a material for his own purposes. Sometimes he would leave
Speaker 1: the bodies as is. Other times he would slice and
Speaker 1: carve the skin, spleen, liver, and other organs into different shapes,
Speaker 1: as he did with his famous table. The result was
Speaker 1: a maccab checkerboard pattern inlaid against a wooden backdrop. His
Speaker 1: pieces were more artistic than morbid, but many who witnessed
Speaker 1: the creations were still dismayed. They didn't understand the science
Speaker 1: behind his petrification methods. Instead, they claimed that Sigato had
Speaker 1: learned Egyptian magic. So, in a fit of anger and
Speaker 1: self doubt, the unconventional artist destroyed all traces of his formula.
Speaker 1: His surviving pieces now reside in the Museum of the
Speaker 1: Department of Anatomy in Florence. The table we described can
Speaker 1: be found at the Royal Palace of Caserta in southern Italy.
Speaker 1: Others throughout history have tried to create his formula for
Speaker 1: human mineralization, and some have come close, but so far
Speaker 1: no one has been able to match it exactly. Giro
Speaker 1: Lamo Sagato was one of a kind, and by taking
Speaker 1: his secret to the grave. He made sure he would
Speaker 1: stay that way. With the formula gone, his remains never
Speaker 1: had the chance at longevity he offered to the rest
Speaker 1: of his subjects. Ironic absolutely, but more than that, it
Speaker 1: sure was curious. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay cure sarious um.