Experiencing Nature: The Spanish American Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution

Notes

Notes introduction 1. Consulta del Consejo, October 9, 1592, Madrid, Archivo General de Indias (from now on AGI), Indiferente, 746, No. 44. 2. For more on this theme, see Antonello Gerbi, Nature in the New World; Raquel Alvarez Peláez, La conquista de la naturaleza americana; Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man; and John H. Elliott, The Old World and the New. 3. My approach to Spanish explorers’ encounters with the New World regarding empirical practices is similar to the one taken by Stephen Greenblatt regarding the conceptualization of wonder and the New World. For him, “the frequency and intensity of the appeal to wonder in the wake of the great geographical discoveries of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries helped (along with many other factors) to provoke . . . [the] conceptualization [of the marvelous].” In my case, the Spanish encounter with the New World intensified and expanded institutions and practices regarding personal experience and empirical information. See Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, p. 19. 4. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution; Urs Bitterli, Cultures in Conflict; William J. Bouwsma, “Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture,” in After the Reformation: Essays in Honor of J. H. Hexter, ed. Barbara C. Malament; Anthony Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery; Elliott, The Old World and the New. 5. Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, p. 58f. 6. See Allen G. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. 1, p. 61ff. 7. See Pamela H. Smith, The Business of Alchemy (Princeton, 1994); Tara E. Nummedal, “Practical Alchemy and Commercial Exchange in the Holy Roman Empire,” in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, p. 207ff. 8. The following account is taken from several sources on the history of Spain. See Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain, 1516 –1659; Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, “Instituciones políticas y grupos sociales en Castilla durante el siglo XVII,” in Instituciones y sociedad en la España de los Austrias; John H. Elliott, “The Decline of Spain,” Past and Present 20 (1961); John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716; Manuel Fernández Alvarez,La sociedad española del Renacimiento; Manuel Fernández Alvarez, La sociedad española en el Siglo de Oro; Clarence Henry Haring, Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies; Henry Kamen, Philip of Spain; John Lynch, The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598–1799; John Lynch, Spain, 1516 –1598: From Nation State to World Empire; José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social (siglos XV a XVII), vol. 1; and I. A. A. Thompson, War and Society in Habsburg Spain: Select Essays. 9. José Losana Méndez, La sanidad en la época del descubrimiento de América, p. 35. 10. See, for instance, two surveys by leading scholars in the field that barely (if at all) mention Spain: Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 1500–1700; and Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution. 11. For more on Medina and Cortés, see Francisco José González, Astronomía y navegación en España: Siglos XVI–XVIII, pp. 72 and 78; on Borough, see Peter Barber, “England II: Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps, 1550–1625,” in Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Buisseret; José López Piñero and José Pardo Tomás, “The Contribution of Hernández to European Botany and Materia Medica,” in Searching for the Secrets of Nature: The Life and Works of Dr. Francisco Hernández, ed. Simon Varey, Rafael Chabr án, and Doris B. Weiner. 12. For more on the increased materialism of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe and the development of modern scientific practices, see Chandra Mukerji, From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern Materialism, Chapters 3 and 4. 13. Alvarez Peláez, La conquista; David C. Goodman, Power and Penury: Government , Technology, and Science in Philip II’s Spain; José María López Piñero, Ciencia y técnica en la sociedad española de los siglos XVI y XVII; and José María López Piñero, ed., Historia de la ciencia y de la técnica en la corona de Castilla, vol. 3. 14. Robert K. Merton, “STS: Foreshadowing...