Reading Olivier de Serres circa 1600: Between Economy and Ecology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Conley
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
French Renaissance ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

Formerly belonging to the literary canon of the French Renaissance, and often associated with the ideology of a return to the country—even to Maréchal Pétain’s Travail et Patrie—Olivier de Serres’s Théâtre d’agriculture et mesnage des champs (1600) remains a keystone in the history of agronomy. Threading the wisdom of ancient authors through his own experience, and staunchly Protestant in vision, Serres sets an agenda for the country gentleman and farmer. At once art and science, it deploys a limpid and vigorous style to argue for economy and productive management of the earth. This essay contends that today, despite its legacy, the work offers a vision and a savoury mode of writing vital to what we can make of ecology in the early modern age.

The Embalming Art in the Modern Age: The Mummies of Caroline, Letizia and Joachim-Napoleon Agar as Examples of Funerary Rites in the Napoleonic Empire

Nuncius ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Marinozzi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Kingdom Of Naples ◽  
History Of ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
The Right ◽  
Shed Light

In the early 1980s a systematic investigation was begun by G. Fornaciari and his staff of a series of mummies from central and southern Italy, and in particular of important Renaissance remains. The study of a substantial number of artificial mummies has shed light on the human embalming techniques connected with the methods and procedures described by medical and non-medical authors in the early modern period. This has made it possible to reconstruct the history of the art of mummification, from the ‘clyster’ techniques to the partial or total evisceration of the corpse, to the intravascular injection of drying and preserving liquors. In addition to the bodies of Aragonese princes and members of the Neapolitan nobility, interred in the Basilica of San Domenico in Naples are the remains of important French personages dating to the modern age. Among the tombs arranged in two parallel rows to the right of the balcony are four sarcophagi containing the bodies of the wife and three children of Jean Antoine Michel Agar, who served as the Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of Naples from 1809 to 1815. The type of wrapping used for the corpses of the children presents strong analogies to those of ancient Egyptian mummies.

scholarly journals Jesuit Sanctity: Hypothesizing the Continuity of a Hagiographic Narrative of the Modern Age

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
History Of

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.

Philippe Hurault de Cheverny (1528–99) and the Making of Memoirs in Early Modern France

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolae Virastau
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Private Life ◽  
First Person ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
History Of

Abstract Memoirs occupy a privileged position in the history of French literature. Historians of French memoirs consider the Memoires d’Estat of Chancellor Philippe Hurault de Cheverny to be a stepping stone in the history of self-writing because they seem to mark a transition from self-narratives focusing on the author’s public persona to a self-writing that emphasizes the author’s private life, that is, to something more akin to modern autobiography. Unlike most autobiographical works printed at the time, Cheverny’s memoirs integrate details about the author’s private life and family affairs into the more common first-person chronicle of his public career. A closer examination reveals, however, that multiple practices of self-writing are at work in Cheverny’s book, and that its apparent originality in the history of memoirs and their relation to autobiography more generally are an effect of editorial changes made after the author’s death. The article argues that practices of collective writing and editing of personal documents were common in the early modern age.

Kolonialphantasien in der Populären Naturwissenschaft der Frühen Neuzeit

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36
Author(s):  
Karl Guthke
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
Age Of Discovery

AbstractThe analogy between colonization and space exploration was by no means invented by H.G. Wells in his novel about the invasion of Mars, The War of the Worlds (1897), or the science fiction in its wake. The analogy goes back to the age of the Copernican Revolution, which put the Earth on a par with other planets and thus suggested that those, too, could be inhabited by man-like creatures. Since then, popularizers of astrophysics have nurtured the notion that "we" or "they" could fill the roles of colonizers and natives, though it remained a matter of debate who had to play which role. Among those given to such contemplation we find Bruno, Kepler, Wilkins, and Huygens, along with scientifically trained literati such as Francis Godwin, Fontenelle, Swift. Together, they constitute a noteworthy phenomenon of the early modern age of discovery and conquest.

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