A Rediscovered Friendship in the Republic of Letters: The Unpublished Correspondence of Arcangela Tarabotti and Ismaël Boulliau*

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-134
Author(s):  
Lynn Lara Westwater
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Letter Exchange ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Arcangela Tarabotti ◽  
Social Views ◽  
First Time

AbstractThe correspondence between the radical Venetian pro-female polemicist and nun Arcangela Tarabotti (1604–52) and the Copernican French astronomer Ismaël Boulliau (1605–94) — here published for the first time — shows how one of Tarabotti's most controversial works made it to press. She had long and unsuccessfully sought in Italy and in France to print the work, which was, puzzlingly, published two years after her death in Holland. It was subsequently placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Charting the explosive work's journey to France and its later arrival and reception in Holland, the Tarabotti-Boulliau correspondence provides a case study in the circulation of unorthodox ideas in seventeenth-century Europe. By showing Tarabotti's firm inscription in the well-connected scientist's intellectual circle, the letter exchange furthermore contributes to our expanding notions of women's participation in the Republic of Letters, while also suggesting a confluence of radical scientific and social views.

scholarly journals Batalia „szklanej rury”. Współzawodnictwo „starego” i „nowego” w debacie wokół doświadczeń z próżnią z 1647 roku

1970 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Anna Kołos
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Blaise Pascal ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Knowledge Formation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

The article addresses the issue of one of the more intense and captivating European scientific disputes, likewise common to Poland, in the era of the seventeenth-century transformation of knowledge formation, which centered around the possibility of the existence of vacuum, and which culminated in 1647. The fundamental aim of the article comes down to an attempt to determine a position in the scientific-cognitive debate, from which the pro and anti-Polish and European representatives of The Republic of Letters (Respublica literaria)  could voice their opinions. In the course of the analysis of the mid-seventeenth century scientific discourse, the reflections of Valeriano Magni, Torricelli, Jan Brożek, Wojciech Wijuk Kojałowicz, Blaise Pascal, Giovanni Elefantuzzi, Jacob Pierius, and Pierre Guiffart are subjected to close scrutiny. From the perspective of contextualism in the history of science, experiments demonstrating the existence of vacuum are perceived as anomalies that fall into the crisis of normal science, largely based on Aristotle’s physics. The conflict between the old and the new is not, however, presented as a battle of progression with epigonism, but merely as a contest between opposing individual views and the concept of science, which before the formation of the new paradigm was accompanied by ambiguous verification criteria.

Avârız and Nüzul Levies in the Ottoman Empire: A Case Study of the Province of Karaman 1620s-1700

Belleten ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 70 (258) ◽  
pp. 561-588
Author(s):  
Süleyman Demi̇rci̇
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
First Time

Basing on firsthand research on original, largely unused Ottoman archival registers (Anadolu ve Rumeli eyâletleri avârizhâne defterleri), this paper intends to examine in a systematic way avâriz and nüzul levies and their rates in the province of Karaman from 1620s to 1700. The focus of this paper will be the development of avâriz and nüzul levies as an alternative major source of regular taxation for the Ottoman government during the seventeenth century. It is a line of research that has so far attracted little attention from scholars despite the fact that there is now more debate on Ottoman socio-economic history generally.This examination will enables us to see for the first time how the avâriz and nüzul rates fluctuated during the seventeenth century down to the level of livas within the Province.

Circles of Confidence in Correspondence

Nuncius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles van den Heuvel ◽  
Scott B. Weingart ◽  
Nils Spelt ◽  
Henk Nellen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Technological Knowledge ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Republic

Science in the early modern world depended on openness in scholarly communication. On the other hand, a web of commercial, political, and religious conflicts required broad measures of secrecy and confidentiality; similar measures were integral to scholarly rivalries and plagiarism. This paper analyzes confidentiality and secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchange via letters and drawings. We argue that existing approaches to understanding knowledge exchange in early modern Europe – which focus on the Republic of Letters as a unified entity of corresponding scholars – can be improved upon by analyzing multilayered networks of communication. We describe a data model to analyze circles of confidence and cultures of secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchanges. Finally, we discuss the outcomes of a first experiment focusing on the question of how personal and professional/official relationships interact with confidentiality and secrecy, based on a case study of the correspondence of Hugo Grotius.

Was There a Scientific Revolution?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Heilbron
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Republic

This article asks whether there was a Scientific Revolution (SR) at anytime between 1550 and1800. The label ‘Scientific Revolution’ to indicate a period in the development of natural knowledge in early modern Europe has carved a place in historiography. This article suggests that there was SR, if SR signifies a period of time; perhaps, if it is taken as a metaphor. It illustrates how the deployment of the metaphor to seventeenth-century natural knowledge might be accomplished. It also considers the physics of René Descartes, the influence of Cartesianism throughout the Republic of Letters, and the academies. The metaphor can be useful if it is taken in analogy to a major political revolution. The analogy points to a later onset, and a swifter career, for the SR than is usually prescribed, and shows that Isaac Newton was its counter rather than its culmination.

Abascal and the Problem of Letters in Peru, 1806–1816

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Ricketts
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Empire ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Ideal Case ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Republic

The focus turns to Peru in this chapter, which offers an ideal case study for understanding the power struggles between the royal military and the republic of letters. One of the most successful military officers and viceroys of the empire, Fernando de Abascal, was vehemently committed to expanding his prerogatives and the military’s, while quashing efforts to implement liberal measures in his jurisdiction. With the support of one of the largest armies of the Spanish Empire, Abascal succeeded in both undertakings. Only a weak liberal opposition developed in Peru, a liberalism mainly concerned not to declare independence from Spain or claim autonomy within the Spanish Empire but to overcome the overwhelming power of the viceroy and his army. Abascal ruled as a virtual military dictator, confirming Liberals’ protests against him and establishing a model for future military caudillos.

Court, Salon and Republic of Letters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Ideal

The humanist educational project to educate the elite of Western Europe produced as one of its dizzy successes the application of conversation to the speech and behavior of nobleman at court. This, the development of the ideal of the courtier, took conversation from the leisurely retreat from the ancient political world to the courtly heart of the Renaissance political world. The salons of seventeenth-century France further transformed the conversational tradition of the court: in principle, the conversation of the salons began quietly to set itself to rival the world of oratory, to address itself to the same worldly subject matter. The Republic of Letters provided an alternate social matrix for sermo, scholarly rather than courtly—and one which migrated away from its Ciceronian roots towards the mode of Baylean critique. Where the courtly and scholarly traditions of sermo acted as complementary modes during the Renaissance, the increasing scope of salonnier conversation and the increasing abandonment of sermo by the Republic of Letters set them at odds with one another in the opening of the Enlightenment. Both now harbored universalizing ambitions, which would set these sibling modes to fierce conflict.

Blaming the messenger: a controversy in late Sanskrit poetics and its implications

2008 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yigal Bronner ◽  
Gary A Tubb
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Active Period ◽  
Appayya Dīkṣita ◽  
Sanskrit Poetics ◽  
Literary Cultures ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe last active period in the tradition of Sanskrit poetics, although associated with scholars who for the first time explicitly identified themselves as new, has generally been castigated in modern histories as repetitious and devoid of thoughtfulness. This paper presents a case study dealing with competing analyses of a single short poem by two of the major theorists of this period, Appayya Dīkṣita (sixteenth century) and Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja (seventeenth century). Their arguments on this one famous poem touch in new ways on the central questions of what the role of poetics had become within the Sanskrit world and the way in which it should operate in relation to other systems of knowledge and literary cultures.

The Making of a Man of Letters: The Backstage and Afterlife of Paul Rapin Thoyras’ Histoire d’Angleterre

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-347
Author(s):  
Miriam Franchina
Keyword(s):  
Self Presentation ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic

The significance of Paul Rapin Thoyras’s Histoire d’Angleterre (1724–1727) has been widely recognized, and yet little is known about the circumstances which brought it about. This article looks behind the scenes of its production, revealing the Histoire to be the culmination of Rapin’s self-presentation as an homme de lettres. It presents Rapin’s interaction and ensuing dispute with his intended publisher (Thomas Johnson), his contributions to Jean Le Clerc’s journals and his management of anonymity and publicity as strategies to gain acceptance and advancement within the Republic of Letters. The case study sheds light on the discourses of self-description of the scholarly community, highlighting the controversial relationship it entertained with the world of print.

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