Rosenbaum believed that one could divine the source of a person’s genius by examining the size, shape, and bumps of the skull.
Jospeh The Gang’s All here Rosenbaum, the man behind the plan. Why’d he do it? To examine his friend’s genius-bumps, and frankly, to just have it, the skull,to keep in a pretty little display box he built for it. Johann Peter, Rosenbaum’s number two, a fellow phrenologist.Like any good second-in-command Brad-Pittto-George-Clooney heist buddy, Peter was at times all in on the plan,and at other times, paranoid.He did help Rosenbaum with the test head,in which they tried out the flesh-removing techniques they would later use on Haydn’s head.
Doctor Leopold Eckhart, Rosenbaum’s friend, confidant, and later his scapegoat. When Dr. Eckhart learned of Rosenbaum’s plan,he was happy to provide medical facilities and expertise in the secret methods to dissect and macerate Haydn’s head.Jakob Demuth, a gravedigger at Hundsthurmer Cemetery Where Haydn was buried. With a plan in place, all he had to do was wait for Haydn to die. And die he did on May 31st, 1809.Demuth passed off the head. Rosenbaum handed off the head to Dr. Eckhart, who got to work cleaning all soft tissue.
After almost a month, Haydn’s head was entirely bleached. All went well for the next 11 years. Rosenbaum, Peter, and Haydn’s head, settled into a well-to-do suburban bliss.That is, until Prince Nicholas Esterhazy got a case of the supposed-tos,as in; he was supposed to have given Haydn a proper funeral and burial. In order to move Haydn’s corpse to the Esterhazy family crypt, Haydn was exhumed. However, workers very quickly noticed that where Haydn’s head should have been, was only his wig.
A case of the Supposed-tos
