Plan de l’ouvrage consacré à Charles de L’Ecluse, actuellement sous presse.
Il s’agit des actes d’un colloque qui s’est tenu à Leyde. Tela Botanica vous informera de la date à laquelle le livre sera effectivement disponible.
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Edita : about the Clusius volume – (31 October 2005; Florike Egmond)
Provisional title : Carolus Clusius in a new context: cultural histories of Renaissance
natural science
What kind of book is it ?
– It is a volume in English, comprising an introduction and 12 essays +
illustrations, a general bibliography and an index of persons. [Please
see the detailed list of contents below.]
– The approximate length of the essays is circa 112.000 words, including
footnotes, but not counting the introduction.
– NB This estimate is probably slightly too high; the final, edited text
will be a little shorter.
By whom? The contributions to this volume have been written by
specialists from various European countries (Spain, Italy, France, the
UK, Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands and Germany) and many different
disciplines (historians of science, cultural historians, specialists in
the history of pharmacy and botany, garden architects and specialists in
early modern manuscript and book history).
They have joined forces to throw light on the person and work of one of
the most eminent botanists of the European Renaissance: Carolus Clusius
(1526-1609) – a man who, as a typical Renaissance scholar, should not be
studied from one disciplinary perspective alone.
For whom? It is a volume written mainly for scholars with an interest
in the history of science, the history of natural history, the history
of collections, intellectual history, and Renaissance culture.
Perspective:
Although each of the contributors writes from his/her own disciplinary
perspective, the fact that their essays have been brought together in
this volume is the consequence of our attempt to study Clusius from the
perspective of the new cultural history of science. The latter
relinquishes an internalist approach to the history of science, and
regards social and cultural contexts as constitutive elements in the
formation of ideas and knowledge. That perspective is at the core of the
recently started Clusius Project (see below) of which this volume is the
first, preliminary result.
Origins of the volume & Clusius Project
State of research: During recent years the main focus in the new
cultural history of science has been on the seventeenth, eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, learned societies and academies, medicine and the
‘hard’ sciences and their most famous representatives (e.g. Galileo,
Newton), while the history of collections has emerged as a new, related
field. In the field of early-modern natural history, attention has
focused on Italy, while some Inspiring collections of essays discussed
European natural history from the Renaissance to the twentieth century.
During the past 30-40 years hardly any major studies have been devoted,
however, to the innovative naturalists from Central- and (North-)Western
Europe – such as Clusius, Dodonaeus, Belon, Rondelet.
Clusius ended up as a professor at Leiden university, where he had been
one of the creators of the hortus botanicus. In his course of his life
he corresponded in six languages with more than 300 correspondents from
eleven European countries, ranging from Norway to Portugal, and from
Greece, Spain and Italy to Poland and Hungary. His extremely valuable
correspondence – which comprises at least 1300 letters from all over
Europe addressed to Clusius as well as several hundreds of letters from
Clusius – is held in Leiden University Library and forms a source of
major importance for the history of European science, but has been
explored only to a limited extent.
The principal aims of the Clusius Project: 1) digitization of the unique
collections of letters between Clusius and circa 300 naturalists from
all over Europe, which is held in Leiden University library, and
worldwide access to this collections for via Internet [digitization is
already completed]; 2) research: a research project has recently been
approved by NWO: from 2005 to 2009 two Ph.D. students and one postdoc
will be engaged in writing two dissertations and one synthetic study
concerning Clusius and Renaissance botany from the perspective of the
new cultural history of science; 3) bringing together scholars with
relevant expertise from all over Europe, to replicate Clusius’ own wide
flung network, and join forces in the analysis of his work, network and
significance in the history of science.
The present volume is the result of a first meeting or workshop by
members of this international network, in September 2004 in Leiden,
during which nearly all of the authors presented papers.
Provisional list of Contents
– 1. Rob Visser and Paul Hoftijzer (Leiden/Utrecht)
Introduction
Introducing this volume and the context of the Clusius Project.
Part I Clusius’ network and exchanges
– 2. Florike Egmond (Leiden/Rome)
Clusius and Friends: cultures of exchange in the circles of European
naturalists
Concerning Clusius’ European network, the role of correspondence,
styles of exchange and their relevance for the construction of the new
scientific discipline of natural history.
[circa 17,000 words]
– 3. Marie-Elisabeth Boutroue (Paris)
Clusius’ correspondence in French collections
About the letters, annotation and autographs by Clusius that can be
found in French libraries and manuscript collections, and their
relevance for research concerning his network.
[circa 8,000 words]
– 4. Gillian Lewis (Oxford)
Clusius’ early years in France
About Clusius’ stay in Montpellier and his travels in other parts of
Languedoc/Provence. A formative phase in his life in the light of
current scholarly enquiries.
[circa 7,000 words]
– 5. José Luis Barona (Valencia)
Clusius’ Spanish journey and his exchange of botanical information with
Spanish scholars
About Clusius contacts with the Spanish scholars in the context of the
Spanish scientific community of the 16th century.
[circa 8,500 words]
Part II Clusius and individual correspondents: two case studies
– 6. Dóra Bobory (Budapest)
Qui me unice amabat. Carolus Clusius and Boldizsár Batthyány
About the exchanges between Clusius and his patron, friend and
correspondent, the Hungarian aristocrat Boldizsár Batthyány, who was an
‘amateur’ naturalist and scientist himself and a patron of various
scientists, artists and alchemists.
[circa 10,500 words]
– 7. Kjell Lundquist (Lund)
Lilies to Norway and cloudberry jam to The Netherlands **‑** on the
correspondence and naturalia exchange between Clusius and Henrik Höjer
*1597-1604*
About the letters from Henrik Höjer in Bergen, Norway, to Clusius,
which deal with Scandinavian botany, zoology and ethnography, with a
focus on their botanical information.
[circa 8.500 words]
Part III Clusius’ translations and illustrations: processing information
– 8. José Pardo Tomás (Barcelona)
Two glimpses of America from a distance: Carolus Clusius and Nicolás
Monardes
How two authors who never had been in America wrote about American
plants in very different styles.
[circa 7,000 words]
– 9. Peter Mason (Rome/Madrid)
Americana in the Exoticorum Libri Decem of Charles de l’Écluse*
About the illustrations of American objects in Clusius’ Exoticorum
Libri Decem and how, when and from whom he obtained them.
[circa 7,000 words]
– 10. Sachiko Kusukawa (Cambridge)
Uses of pictures in printed books: the case of Clusius’ Exoticorum
Libri Decem
About visual traditions and the use of illustrations in early modern
publications and about nature, and about Clusius’ specific use of
illustrations in his Exoticorum.
[circa 10,000 words]
Part IV Ideas and influence of Clusius
– 11. Irene Baldriga (Rome)
Clusius’ influence in Italy. Federico Cesi and the Accademia dei Lincei
What can Clusius’ refusal to become a member of the Accademia dei
Lincei tell us about the divergent intellectual traditions to which
they belonged, and about Clusius’ stature in the République des
Lettres by the end of his life.
[circa 8,500 words]
– 12. Andrea Ubrizsy Savoia (Rome),
The ‘Clusius Codex’ and its influence; some aspects of Clusius’
Hungarian and Italian relations
[About Clusius’ contributions to botanical knowledge and his connectiosn
with Hungarian and Italian natural history.]_
[circa 11,000 words]
– 13. Sabine Anagnostou (Marburg)
International transfer of medicinal drugs by the Society of Jesus
(sixteenth to eighteenth centuries) and connections with the work of
Carolus Clusius
About Clusius’ influence on and relevance to the botanical research and
world wide transfer of medicinal drugs by the Jesuits in the course of
the 16th to 18th centuries.
[circa 8,500 words]
– General Bibliography
– Index of Persons
– List of Illustrations
– About the Contributors