The “Little Venus,” or Venerina, of Palazzo Poggi lies at the very end of a series of galleries displaying the museum’s extensive collection of wax and clay anatomical models. Although she alone can claim a room to herself, the space she occupies is narrow and claustrophobic; entering the chamber feels invasive. Both all-too-visible and completely untouchable in her display-case-cum-casket, the Venus is highlighted among, but also isolated from, the rest of of her kind. She appears as a shared secret between the museum and the visitor, a presentation that makes for a tense, even repellant, viewing experience that builds on the intrinsic tension already existent in the contrast between the hyper-idealized, hyper-realistic woman and the horror of her dismantled body.