[this is a legacy page from the 2021 iteration of the Historiography Clinic]
The full proper and true bibliographic citation: Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley ; London: University of California Press, 1994).
Main field/subfields and interlocutors: History of collecting / History of Natural History
Periodization: Ca 1550 - 1650
Especially major people/places: Aldrovandi to Kircher; important also: Calzolari, Mercati, Ferrante Imperato
Mainly northern Italy (particularly Bologna, Milan, Florence), Rome, Naples; some excursions and comparisons with London/RS
Main sources/archives: Large number of mainly Latin and Italian language sources: Printed catalogues of collections, natural histories, naturalist correspondence
Main argument(s):
Structure of book:
I) situating the “museum in time as well as space” (15): Findlen aims to describe what early modern museums looked like, what the activity of collecting nature looked like, and what social rituals embedded museums in the urbane, humanistic, elite culture II) further examines the rituals attached to the act of collecting, the mobility of collectors and objects, and the experimental and medical activities in the museum space III) shows how the collector as an identity was formed and how this identity related to the early modern courtly patronage system
Useful book reviews (include link / DOI if possible) and key points from these:
Steven Shapin, Review of Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, by Paula Findlen, The American Historical Review 101, no. 1 (1996): 203–4, https://doi.org/10.2307/2169309.
Gigliola Fragnito, review of Review of Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, by Paula Findlen, Victoria E. Bonnell, and Lynn Hunt, The Journal of Modern History 68, no. 4 (1996): 1006–8. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2946749
Key points or interventions or sub-arguments by chapter:
Ch 1: - Museum catalogues from Aldrovandi to Kircher show the development “from simple list to scientific corpus to literary production” (37) Ch 2: - Attempts at a universal collection to encyclopaedic aims failed by the mid-17C when Kircher had become a divisive figure and the Italian Baroque collections were seen critically by members of the RS Ch 3: - The museum space became a controlled locus of sociable activity with clear rules for gentlemanly conduct; while the museum became rhetorically more public, it excluded women (143) Ch 4: - Museums were embedded in an EM scientific culture of collecting activities, travelling and excursions, as well as contributions of those outside the gentlemanly sphere Ch 5: - Once in the museum, objects were used to confirm (or deny) Aristotelian natural philosophy, and were used in experimental activities, and served as artifacts to further courtly patronage Ch 6: - The omnipresence of physicians and apothecaries among early modern collectors meant that many of the objects collected had medical uses, this changed by the late 17C “when classification rather than therapy became the principal issue of contention” (287) Ch 7: - The collector forged a scientific self which was based upon humanist ideals. Rhetorically this saw a merging of ancient and new learning Ch 8: - The museum was deeply embedded in the system of absolutist princely patronage (and became even more so). Jesuits
Epilogue: The more “professionally” defined naturalist (407) did not emerge until the mid-18C when institutional ties replaced ties to individual rulers