Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500-1800

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Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800 The Bard Graduate Center Cultural Histories of the Material World The Bard Graduate Center Cultural Histories of the Material World is a series centered on the exploration of the material turn in the study of culture. Volumes in the series examine the ways human beings have shaped and interpreted the material world from a broad range of scholarly perspectives and show how attention to materiality can contribute to a more precise historical understanding of specific times, places, ways, and means. Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800 Peter N. Miller and François Louis, Editors Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800 Peter N. Miller and François Louis, Editors The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2012 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper 2015 2014 2013 2012 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Antiquarianism and intellectual life in Europe and China, 1500-–1800 / Peter N. Miller and François Louis, editors. p. cm. — (The Bard Graduate Center cultural histories of the material world) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-472-11818-2 (cloth : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-0-47202826 -9 (ebook) 1. Europe—Intellectual life—16th century. 2. China—Intellectual life—16th century. 3. Europe—Intellectual life—17th century. 4. China—Intellectual life—17th century. 5. Europe—Intellectual life— 18th century. 6. China—Intellectual life—18th century. 7. Antiquarians—Europe—History. 8. Antiquarians—China—History. 9. Europe—Historiography. 10. China—Historiography. I. Miller, Peter N., 1964– II. Louis, François, 1963– D210.A48 2011 907.2'04—dc23 2012000940 In memory of Judith Shklar (1928–92), a teacher of fearless questions To be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that’s a chair, that’s a table, and yet at the same time, it’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy. The problem might be solved after all. —฀ Virginia฀Woolf,฀To฀the฀Lighthouse It is entirely appropriate that the first book in Cultural Histories of the Material World deals with antiquarianism, and with comparison. For it was the antiquaries of the European fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries who created the modern study of the ancient world by bringing objects and the object world into the domain of scholarship. Their study of ancient religion, law, clothing, weapons, sports, ritual, architecture , and food was written out of an awareness that textual sources needed to be completed by confrontation with material remains, and that material remains were most fully understood when compared to surviving texts. Thus, antiquarianism implies—if only at the level of evidence —a comparative approach. Indeed, one of the features of early modern antiquarianism that seems most appealing now is precisely its frequent cross-cultural efforts. The syncresis of Roman religion, for example , invited reference to contemporary cults; John Selden’s Diis Syris (1617) and Lorenzo Pignoria’s updating of Cartari’s Imagini degli dei de l’antiqui (1615) offer striking examples presented as matter-of-fact interventions in a contemporary discourse. Of course both the resort to material evidence and comfort with comparison were part of what made antiquarian scholarship so anathema to later centuries of university-trained “expert” historians. Objects have always had a problematic status among those trained as scholars. In much the same way as the liberal arts were those that involved the head—abstract reasoning—and the mechanical arts those that involved the hand—and therefore could be and were performed by slaves—the Series Editor’s Preface x Preface study of texts was linked to aristocratic notions of self-perfection. Moreover , objects are, famously, mute. To be coaxed into speech requires much persuasion...