Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (review)

This collection of eleven scholarly essays makes a strong case for historia as a unique and neglected form of scholarship which, for a substantial period of time during the early modern era, united the two cultures of the sciences and the humanities. In a contrast to post-Kantian efforts to defend history as a scientific discipline (as with Windelband, Rickert, Dilthey, et al.), the argument here is that history was actually the discipline out of which many forms of modern science and technology (especially medicine) arose. The thesis is a challenging one with more than antiquarian interest, especially to all humanities scholars interested in science and technology.

The book grew out of a Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte workshop convened to reconsider Arno Seifert's argument in Cognitio historica (1976) for an early modern transformation in the epistemological status of history. From Aristotle to the scholastics, history was seen as lacking an epistemological respectability. But the Renaissance witnessed a rehabilitation of historia—the text under review consistently uses the Latin term to guard against confusion with contemporary notions—as a source of empirical knowledge that contributed to the rise of empirical science. The promotion of natural history by Francis Bacon and case histories of Renaissance medicine are but two instances of a historical manifold.

Part 1, on the rise of historia as a distinct form of scholarship, includes six essays investigating this transformation in more detail. Anthony Grafton's "The Identities of History in Early Modern Europe: Prelude to a Study of the Artes Historicae" argues that the new humanist interest in civil history in the fifteenth century included a sensitivity for empirical validation. Brian W. Ogilvie's "Natural History, Ethics, and Physico-Theology" links the humanist way of looking at history with the achievements of natural history, as when moral examples are derived from the workings of nature. Gianna Pomata's "Praxis Historialis: The Uses of Historia in Early Modern Medicine" describes the function of history in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century anatomy and medicine, where "historical anatomy" always preceded functional anatomy or physiology. Ian Maclean's "White Crows, Graying Hair, and Eyelashes: Problems for Natural Historians in the Reception of Aristotelian Logic and Biology from Pomponazzi to Bacon" explores the emergence of a Baconian criticism of Aristotelian biology. Martin Mulsow's "Antiquarianism and Idolatry: The Historia of Religions in the Seventeenth Century" connects empiricism and the criticism of religion. Finally, Donald R. Kelley's "Between History and System" examines the tension between two forms of synthesis, narrative versus analysis.

Part 2, picking up from the history-system contrast, brings together five essays exploring "the working practices of learned empiricism." Laurent Pinon's "Conrad Gessner and the Historical Depth of Renaissance Natural History" examines the practical difficulties of dealing with rare animals and monsters in the "history of animals." Ann Blair's "Historia in Zwinger's Theatrum humanae vital" focuses on how concrete examples of human behavior function in one scholar's work. Chiara Crisciani's "Histories, Stories, Exempla, and Anecdotes: Michel Savonarola from Latin to Vernacular" considers the role history plays in the pursuit of mystical or alchemical knowledge. Coeditor Nancy Siraisi's "Historiae, Natural History, Roman Antiquity, and Some Rome Physicians" considers the combined roles of history and antiquarianism in the promotion of public health in sixteenth-century Rome. And Peter N. Miller's "Description Terminable and Interminable: Looking at the Past, Nature, and Peoples in Peiresc's Archive" shows how in the seventeenth century one person could still combine the study of nature and culture.

In conclusion, we would especially commend the general introduction by its coeditors as an insightful overview of the issues and arguments engaged by this archaeology of historia that is at the same time an encouragement to interdisciplinarity.