Science and the secrets of nature: books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture

Abstract

By explaining how to sire multicolored horses, produce nuts without shells, and create an egg the size of a human head, Giambattista Della Porta's Natural Magic (1559) conveys a fascination with tricks and illusions that makes it a work difficult for historians of science to take seriously. Yet, according to William Eamon, it is in the "how-to" books written by medieval alchemists, magicians, and artisans that modern science has its roots. These compilations of recipes on everything from parlor tricks through medical remedies to wool-dyeing fascinated medieval intellectuals because they promised access to esoteric "secrets of nature." To popular readers of the early modern era, they offered a hands-on, experimental approach to nature that made scholastic natural philosophy seem abstract and sterile.

Contents

Introduction: Printing, Popular Culture, and the Scientific Revolution -- pt. 1 -- The Literature of Secrets-- 1. The Literature of Secrets in the Middle Ages-- 2. Knowledge and Power -- pt. 2 -- The Secrets of Nature in the Age of Printing -- 3. Arcana Disclosed -- 4. The Professors of Secrets and Their Books -- 5. Leonardo Fioravanti, Vendor of Secrets -- 6. Natural Magic and the Secrets of Nature -- 7. The Secrets of Nature in Popular Culture -- pt. 3 -- The "New Philosophy" -- 8. Science as a Venatio -- 9. The Virtuosi and the Secrets of Nature. -- 10. From the Secrets of Nature to Public Knowledge -- Appendix: Secreti Italiani: Italian Booklets of Secrets, ca. 1520-1643.