The special issue publishes the proceedings of the day conference History Comes to Life: Seventeenth-Century Natural History, Medicine, and the New Science, organized by Anna Marie at The Royal Society in April (with the financial and logistical support of the project, The Royal Society, the Wellcome Trust, the John Fell Fund, and the BSHS). It features six fresh and fascinating articles from leading authorities on a wide range of topics at the intersection of seventeenth-century natural history, medicine, and science, including Buffon and animals, Francis Willughby and insects, and Jan Swammerdam’s abiding intellectual infatuation with frogs and toads. You can now enjoy early access to the articles online; the print version of the special issue will be available at the end of November. You can also listen to the podcasts from the conference. Congratulations to Anna Marie and the rest of the contributors!

Post updated to include photographs

Our Martin Lister Research Fellow Anna Marie Roos has curated a small exhibition entitled ‘The Lister Sisters and the Art of Seventeenth-Century Science’, which will run in the Proscholium of the Old Bodleian Library from 18 August to 30 September (the poster can be downloaded here [pdf]). The free display showcases a unique set of drawings, prints, and copperplates of molluscs and their shells, (re)discovered among the library’s holdings by Anna Marie in 2010, which formed the basis for the illustrations in Martin Lister’s conchological magnum opus, the Historiae Conchyliorum (1685-92). Prepared by Lister’s teenage daughters, Susanna and Anna, the materials shed light on representational conventions within late seventeenth-century natural history, as well as on the gendered nature of illustrative practice in this boom era for lavishly illuminated scientific books. Anna Marie will also be giving a free lecture on ‘The Art of Science: The Rediscovery of the Lister Copperplates’ at 1pm on Wednesday 19 September in the Bodleian’s Convocation House (more info and booking on the library website). Further details of both events on The Conveyor.

Anna Marie in front of the display

Lecturing in Convocation House

In conversation with Stephen Johnston

The exhibition proves a hit

• Collecting and Correspondence: Sloane’s Papers and Scientific Networks (Supervised by Dr Arnold Hunt, British Library and Dr Anne Goldgar, King’s College London)

• Putting Nature in a Box: Sloane’s Vegetable Substances (Supervised by Dr Charlie Jarvis, Natural History Museum, and Professor Miles Ogborn, Queen Mary University of London)

• A third Doctoral studentship in the programme, Visualizing Natural Knowledge: Sloane’s Albums of Natural History Drawings (Supervised by Dr Kim Sloan, British Museum, and Dr Elizabeth Eger, King’s College London) has already been allocated to a named student.

Further particulars are available here (doc). Applicants can apply for both studentships, but must complete separate applications for each as outlined below.

These studentships will focus on the collections of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), which are now divided between the British Museum, the Natural History Museum and the British Library. The research projects will explore various aspects of Sloane’s collections in order to understand how his collecting practices were involved in the making of Enlightenment knowledge. The successful applicants will be expected to work closely with the partner institutions, and each other, in order to draw out the intellectual and material connections between the different parts of Sloane’s collections. They will also participate in the development of new finding-aids for the collections, leading to innovative forms of public engagement.

The award pays fees and an annual maintenance grant (currently £15,590 per year) and the partner institution will contribute up to £1000 pa research costs. The usual AHRC eligibility rules (pdf) apply to these studentships, including having an appropriate master’s degree by October 2012 and AHRC’s residential requirements.

For both studentships the closing date is 29 June 2012. Interviews will be held in London on 19 July 2012. Applicants will need to include a CV, two references, an academic transcript, and a 1000-word statement of purpose.

• For Collecting and Correspondence: Sloane’s Papers and Scientific Networks further details (doc) are available on the Department of History, King’s College London website. Informal inquiries should be made to Dr Anne Goldgar (anne.goldgar(at)kcl.ac.uk) and applications should be made to Kings College London.
• For Putting Nature in a Box: Sloane’s Vegetable Substances further details (doc) on the project and how to apply are available on the School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London, website. Informal inquiries should be made to Professor Miles Ogborn (m.j.ogborn(at)qmul.ac.uk) and applications should be made to Queen Mary University of London.

Podcast available on the seminar page!

The zoological theme continued on Thursday 3 May when Florike Egmond from Leiden University (formerly of the Clusius Project) gave a talk in our seminar series entitled The Webs of Clusius and Gessner: Correspondence, Images, and Collecting in Sixteenth-Century Natural History. In a detailed and lavishly illustrated discussion, Florike described her recent discovery of two albums of original watercolour drawings created for the sixteenth-century Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner (1551-1558) within the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam.

Crafted in Basel by the anatomist and natural historian (and Gessner’s friend) Felix Platter (1536-1614), the images – of a menagerie of marine life, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, across 369 pages – formed the basis of many of the illustrations within Gessner’s zoological masterwork, the Historiae Animalium (1551-1558). You can find out more about this exciting discovery in Florike’s recent blog post for the Picturing Science network, and in her recent article for the Journal of the History of Collections.

Conrad Gessner.

Anna Marie chairs Florike.

Renaissance correspondence networks, argued Florike, played a key role in sharing and disseminating (although not, curiously, in facilitating discussion of) manuscript images, as both Gessner, Clusius, and other naturalists solicited hand-drawn illustrations of animals to serve as the basis of woodcuts in their publications from colleagues and agents around the world. These exchanges, in turn, formed the basis of what Florike termed (with caveats) a kind of visual ‘canon formation’ within natural history, as elements of various portrayals were adapted, reworked, and reappropriated across different contexts and between media; as representational norms stabilized; and as the repertoire of animals deemed suitable for inclusion in zoological texts (whose wide remit originally encompassed familiar creatures such as cats and goats) was narrowed and standardized. A lively question and answer session focused on the artisanal communities responsible for producing the illustrations; how the works were commissioned and stored; and the frustrating but typical absence of any kind of discussion of manuscript images in the letters with which they circulated (resulting, suggested Florike, from the self-evident nature of enclosed materials).

Seminars take place in the Faculty of History on George Street on Thursdays at 3pm. For future talks in the series – and to listen to the podcast of Florike’s paper – please see the seminar webpage. All are welcome!

Podcasts on the conference page!

In commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the death of Martin Lister, and in another collaboration between Cultures of Knowledge and The Royal Society, our indefatigable Lister Research Fellow Anna Marie Roos organized a conference on History Comes to Life: Seventeenth-Century Natural History, Medicine, and the New Science at the Society’s London premises on 27 April 2012.

Generously sponsored by the project, The Royal Society, The Wellcome Trust, the John Fell Fund, and the BSHS, sixty-three delegates attended the day-long event, which featured papers from eleven international authorities on early modern science. Speakers discussed everything from the views of French naturalists about the differences between dromedaries and camels, to the chequered history of the publication of the cabinet of natural curiosities of Albertus Seba, to the ornithology of Francis Willughby and John Ray and the scientific representation of frogs and toads.

Helen Watt, our Lhwyd researcher.

Perusing the exhibition.

Anna Marie talks to Jill Lewis.

Early modern ornithologies.

There was a concomitant exhibition in the Royal Society’s Marble Hall, also curated by Anna Marie, featuring a display of relevant books from the Society’s collections; highlights were a bear paw clam displayed alongside its illustration by Lister’s daughters in his Historiae Conchyliorum (1692-97), and John Ray’s Historia Plantarum, in which Ray deployed the terms ‘petal’ and ‘pollen’ for the first time. In a further exciting output, Anna Marie will guest edit a special conference issue of Notes and Records of the Royal Society (December 2012) dedicated to the complex interplay between seventeenth-century medicine and natural history. Dovetailing out from Lister’s own contributions, the special issue will consider to what extent practices and technologies of natural history changed between the Renaissance and the seventeenth century, and will explore how the acquisition of knowledge concerning the natural world and new taxonomies affected the perception and treatment of beasts for medical and experimental use.

On Thursday 3 May Florike Egmond from the Clusius Project will be sharing a paper on Clusius, collecting, and practices of scientific illustration in our third annual seminar series. For her talk and seven other exciting contributions, please visit the seminar webpage.

Update: see write-up, photos, and podcasts

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 Fund, The British Society for the History of Science, The 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.

The cause for celebrations.

AMR and the befitting baked goods.

A closer look at the felicitous fancies.

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).

Update: 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).

Post edited to add photographs

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.

Anna Marie during her talk.

Listerian material from Merton’s holdings.