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Conference: Natural History and Seventeenth-Century Science

Update: see write-up, photos, and podcasts

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A seventeenth-century rendering of a little horn (or screech) owl.

A day conference on History Comes to Life: Seventeenth-Century Natural History, Medicine and the New Science‚ will be held on Friday 27 April 2012 from 9am to 5.30pm at The Royal Society in London. Organised by our industrious Martin Lister (1639-1712) Research Fellow Anna Marie Roos, and held to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Lister – Royal Physician and the first arachnologist and conchologist  –  the event will explore the often neglected relationship between medicine and natural history in the seventeenth-century. Featuring an exciting line-up of ten international authorities on early modern science, the meeting will dovetail out from Lister’s work to consider to what extent practices and technologies of natural history changed between the Renaissance and the seventeenth century. It will also explore how the acquisition of natural history knowledge and new schemes of taxonomy influenced the perception and treatment of animals for medical and experimental use. As well as support from Cultures of Knowledge, the conference is sponsored by The John Fell FundThe British Society for the History of ScienceThe Royal Society, and the Wellcome Trust. The conference fee is a bargain at £40 (full price) or £30 (student/unwaged). For further details and to register online, please visit the conference webpage. Please address queries to felicity.henderson(at)royalsociety.org.

Martin Lister Biography Launch

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The cause for celebrations.

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AMR and the befitting baked goods.

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A closer look at the felicitous fancies.

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The launch in full swing.

The biography of Martin Lister recently published by our Research Fellow Anna Marie Roos was officially launched this Tuesday at a small but perfectly formed reception in the splendid environs of the Royal Society Library in London. Around thirty guests gathered to mark the appearance of Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639-1712), the First Arachnologist (Brill, 2011) and, during the course of the evening, they were treated to selected readings from Anna Marie, wines from French vineyards visited by Lister (sourced by Anna Marie while researching Lister’s medical journal), and some thematically congruous cupcakes bearing illustrations from Lister’s arachnological and conchological masterworks. Many thanks to Anna Marie for suggesting the idea, to Brill for their generous financial support, and to all at the Royal Society (with special shout-outs to Felicity Henderson and Keith Moore) for allowing us the use of their wondeful venue, for hosting us so graciously, and for all of their assistance with preparations. For more information about the book and to purchase copies, please visit Brill’s website or download the flyer (pdf).

Martin Lister Biography Published

web_of_nature_coverUpdate: see photos of the launch

We are delighted to announce the publication of a monograph by our Martin Lister Research Fellow Dr Anna Marie Roos. Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639-1712), the First Arachnologist (Brill, 2011) is the first and only full-length biography of the prominent naturalist and physician. Drawing on rich archival sources (including over 1,100 surviving letters, which Roos is also editing under the auspices of the Project), Roos provides a detailed picture of what it meant to be a virtuoso in the seventeenth-century Republic of Letters. Lister, described by Robert Boyle as a researcher of ‘piercing sagacity’, discovered ballooning spiders, while his work on molluscs was standard for 200 years. However, he also invented the histogram, provided Sir Isaac Newton with chemical procedures and alloys for his telescopic mirrors, demonstrated that York’s walls were Roman, received the first reports of Chinese smallpox vaccination, donated the first significant natural history collections to the Ashmolean Museum, and was involved in the day-to-day administration of the Royal Society in its formative years. His study of natural history represents a conceptual bridge between the work of Renaissance naturalists and those of the Enlightenment, while the impact of his research extended into Jamaica, America, Barbados, France, Italy, the Netherlands, China, as well as his native England. Roos also disentangles the significant webs of knowledge, patronage, familial, and gender relationships that shaped Lister’s life as a natural philosopher, presenting a humanistic and holistic view of early science. For more information about the book, please visit the publisher website or download the flyer (pdf).

Reading Conference in Early Modern Studies

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James introduces the Project.

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Anna Marie describes stibnite.

The Project was on the road again this week, this time at the venerable Reading Conference in Early Modern Studies, which this year took as its theme ‘Communication and Exchange’ (University of Reading, 18−20 July 2011). On Monday afternoon, a panel devoted to CofK comprised three interlocking papers. Project Coordinator James Brown provided an overview of the Project and its intellectual objectives, Research Fellow Anna Marie Roos delivered a wonderful case study of Martin Lister‘s hitherto unsung contributions to Newtonian telescopy, while Editor Kim McLean Fiander introduced our union catalogue of early modern correspondence and treated delegates to a sneak preview of its editorial and search interfaces. In the evening, Project Director Howard Hotson concluded our contribution with a plenary address on the multi-layered network of Samuel Hartlib. In a wide-ranging analysis, Howard recapitulated some of the broader objectives of the Project, before describing the way in which Hartlib’s legendary intelligencing both superimposed and reflected the pedagogical, diplomatic, commercial, and military networks engendered by the upheavals of the Thirty Years War. For more information about the conference, please download the programme (pdf).

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Kim introduces the catalogue.

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Howard's keynote on Hartlib.

Lecture: Martin Lister’s Conchological Copperplates

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A lecture by our Martin Lister Research Fellow Dr Anna Marie Roos on ‘The Art of Science: The ‘Rediscovery’ of Martin Lister’s Historiae Conchyliorum (1685-92)’ will take place at 5pm on Tuesday 31 May in the Hawkins Room of Merton College. The event is a joint meeting of the Merton Biomedical and Life Sciences and History of the Book research groups. Anna Marie is a leading authority on the history of science and medicine in early modern England. Alongside her work for Cultures of Knowledge (for which she is editing Lister’s correspondence), she has published widely in the history of chemistry, as well as on magic and astrological medicine. Her talk will focus on the stunning series of copperplates created by Lister’s teenage daughters to illustrate his groundbreaking compendium of shells, the rediscovery of which last year aroused a great deal of interest.

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Anna Marie during her talk.

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Listerian material from Merton’s holdings.

Martin Lister’s Medical Journal to be Published

lister_pocketbookIn 1663, Martin Lister left his parents’ house in Burwell, Lincolnshire to study medicine in Montpellier. Whilst in France, he kept a journal in an almanac entitled Every Man’s Companion: Or, An useful Pocket-Book (MS Lister 19, Bodleian Library).

Month by month, Lister noted the medical texts he consulted (and the French romances and comedies he read) in this thin octavo, and annotated the recipes given to him when he lodged with an apothecary. He described the personalities and works of luminaries he met in France including William Croone, Nicolas Steno, and John Ray. Lister performed a series of dissections with Steno, as well as going on natural history expeditions with Ray. Lister also attended the salon of Sir Thomas Crew to discuss ornithology, medicine, and literature, mixing with other fellows of Cambridge and English expatriates. As his time in Montpellier was part of his education as a gentleman, Lister made detailed notes about his visits to gardens and libraries in Paris, manufacturing methods, viniculture, literature and drama, and rules of politesse and art connoisseurship.

Dr Anna Marie Roos, our Lister Research Fellow, has recently been awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant to create a textual edition of the pocketbook with appropriate apparatus. To annotate the edition, she will also utilize 25 pages of memoirs of Lister’s time in Montpellier and 43 pieces of Lister’s French correspondence in the Bodleian Library and in France. As the account of Lister’s journey is so detailed, his grand tour and memoirs will also be recreated as an interactive website using maps, images, and texts, providing a virtual introduction to an early modern medical education.

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