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Le meraviglie del mondo. Mostri, prodigi e fatti strani dal Medioevo all'illuminismo
Alla sensibilità di oggi potrà apparire strano, ma per secoli la cultura europea - anche nelle sue più raffinate espressioni - ha dedicato un'attenzione costante a mostri e prodigi, portenti e miracoli, mirabilia di ogni forma e natura. Uova di struzzo e corni d'unicorno, sorgenti curative e tessuti rari, automi e congegni meccanici sono stati di volta in volta fonti di paura o di piacere, oggetti da esibire in spettacoli o da analizzare con cura. A firma di due delle più autorevoli storiche dell'ultima generazione, il libro ricostruisce la storia e il significato di questo universo popolato di fatti strani e delle reazioni di meraviglia, curiosità e timore che esso ha via via suscitato su scienziati e filosofi, collezionisti e viaggiatori, medici e letterati, da s. Agostino a Marco Polo a Newton, dai cicli cavallereschi medievali alle moderne scoperte astronomiche e agli odierni tabloids. Un viaggio affascinante e inconsueto attraverso le molte vie che la cultura europea ha percorso per rappresentare se stessa, ridisegnare i propri confini, immaginare nuove direzioni.
540 pages, Paperback
First published May 22, 1998
31 people are currently reading
1214 people want to read
About the author
Lorraine Daston
44 books101 followersLorraine Daston (born June 9, 1951, East Lansing, Michigan)[1] is an American historian of science. Executive director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, and visiting professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, she is considered an authority on Early Modern European scientific and intellectual history. In 1993, she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 14, 2017
I was interested in this book largely for discussions of the fantastic in medieval perspective. I definitely got some of that--even the view of medieval life we get in fantasy, which is biased towards magical and interesting objects, seems to underplay the vivid and colorful reality of wonders in the lives of people in the Middle Ages (especially the elite, but even among common people). Princes and prelates hoarded collections of oddities far beyond the expected saints' bones and ersatz chunks of the cross. Ostrich eggs, narwhal tusks (as unicorn horns), and even whole dried crocodiles were hung in places of honor in entirely Christian churches, to communicate wealth and impress the congregation. Then there are the democratic sort of wonders, monstrous births of livestock and people, or comets, accessible to all classes and interpreted as portents of divine retribution for social ills.
That section was neat and I got some good ideas from it. But the book very quickly turned to another angle: philosophy of science. Which I am also, felicitously, particularly interested in. The early natural philosophers held some pretty bizarre views. They believed that a true natural philosopher understood the causes of all things in theory, and that wonder was a response borne out of ignorance and not fit for an educated individual. To that end, they actively tried to "make wonders cease" by explaining away strange occurrences reported by their correspondents.
Daston and Park trace the twists and turns wonders took as science grew over the 15th-18th centuries. This is all really interesting, but the changes are fairly subtle or particular to a dialogue relevant in one time period and not another, and it quickly all muddled together for me. I'm not sure if they could have done all that much more to establish time and zeitgeist to keep things grounded, but I'm not sure I could explain much of the last half of the book in any kind of chronological sequence. I think that may have been part of their point--trying to draw chronological progressions belies the messy and contradictory nature of history--and that's great but I found it hard to internalize a lot of the information because it was so similar, abundant, and without a lot of context or consequence. Medieval princes used Orientalist wonders to sell investors on financing Crusades, but what did Francis Bacon use them to do? Things become kind of abstract as the book goes on.
That said, it does give a sense of the historical depth of some familiar contemporary dialogues. The idea that scientific explanations take the magic out of the world feels like an absurd mischaracterization made by people who aren't familiar with all the amazing stuff science has discovered. But that sentiment, the idea that scientists are "unweaving the rainbow," unconsciously echoes a sentiment leading scientists and philosophers have put forth explicitly more often than not in the centuries science has sort of existed. Even later Enlightenment scientists seem to have spent more time elaborating theory and philosophy (largely trying to square the idea of natural laws with their very important religious interpretations).
It also really drove home how recently scientists have become really cognizant of the factors influencing their observations. Bacon may have pointed out the idols of the mind and the marketplace, but it doesn't seem like they were taken to heart by most scientists and implemented in methodology until much later. But early scientists still managed to start parsing out a lot of things through misguided observations of wondrous particulars, which is a good reminder about the complexity of the scientific method and the inevitable and potent influences of the culture that executes it.
I feel like I didn't really internalize as much of this content as Daston and Park intended, but they've got me on the scent of science studies. I'll be headed to histories and cultural studies about science next, so if you've got good recommendations defo let me know.
That section was neat and I got some good ideas from it. But the book very quickly turned to another angle: philosophy of science. Which I am also, felicitously, particularly interested in. The early natural philosophers held some pretty bizarre views. They believed that a true natural philosopher understood the causes of all things in theory, and that wonder was a response borne out of ignorance and not fit for an educated individual. To that end, they actively tried to "make wonders cease" by explaining away strange occurrences reported by their correspondents.
Daston and Park trace the twists and turns wonders took as science grew over the 15th-18th centuries. This is all really interesting, but the changes are fairly subtle or particular to a dialogue relevant in one time period and not another, and it quickly all muddled together for me. I'm not sure if they could have done all that much more to establish time and zeitgeist to keep things grounded, but I'm not sure I could explain much of the last half of the book in any kind of chronological sequence. I think that may have been part of their point--trying to draw chronological progressions belies the messy and contradictory nature of history--and that's great but I found it hard to internalize a lot of the information because it was so similar, abundant, and without a lot of context or consequence. Medieval princes used Orientalist wonders to sell investors on financing Crusades, but what did Francis Bacon use them to do? Things become kind of abstract as the book goes on.
That said, it does give a sense of the historical depth of some familiar contemporary dialogues. The idea that scientific explanations take the magic out of the world feels like an absurd mischaracterization made by people who aren't familiar with all the amazing stuff science has discovered. But that sentiment, the idea that scientists are "unweaving the rainbow," unconsciously echoes a sentiment leading scientists and philosophers have put forth explicitly more often than not in the centuries science has sort of existed. Even later Enlightenment scientists seem to have spent more time elaborating theory and philosophy (largely trying to square the idea of natural laws with their very important religious interpretations).
It also really drove home how recently scientists have become really cognizant of the factors influencing their observations. Bacon may have pointed out the idols of the mind and the marketplace, but it doesn't seem like they were taken to heart by most scientists and implemented in methodology until much later. But early scientists still managed to start parsing out a lot of things through misguided observations of wondrous particulars, which is a good reminder about the complexity of the scientific method and the inevitable and potent influences of the culture that executes it.
I feel like I didn't really internalize as much of this content as Daston and Park intended, but they've got me on the scent of science studies. I'll be headed to histories and cultural studies about science next, so if you've got good recommendations defo let me know.
January 21, 2008
Fascinating book - it seems everything Lorraine Daston's touches is brilliant. This was my entrée to early-modern science studies, and a compelling and engaging introduction at that. Though I may bicker with some of Park and Daston's arguments - I think they overstate the centrality of the 17th century to the development of modernity - one forgives them the occasional overstretching, and towards the back end of the book, repetitiveness, because as a whole the work is so brillaint.
Fantastically illustrated to boot. And another bang-up design job by Bruce Mau and Zone Books.
Fantastically illustrated to boot. And another bang-up design job by Bruce Mau and Zone Books.
September 13, 2007
This is a pretty amazing book - one of my all-time favorites. It's a history of how a sense of wonder (religious, supernatural, whatever) drove scientific investigation in pre-Modern Europe. It's science writing and writing about the history of science, but it's also about the way culture is constructed in the shadow of irrational impulses. Plus it's beautifully written and Lorraine Daston is a badass academic who can actually make a non-academic reader feel connected to what she's writing.
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September 29, 2022Fascinating book, read it just for the beautiful writing.
December 13, 2023
Heartbreakingly, this is a fascinating and beautiful book written in the driest, most un-wonderful prose. Tortured diction and syntax combined with a kind of stony, lifeless literalism on the sentence level. It's not only awful to read, it's also difficult to extract meaning and information from. Still, it's a book that can change how you see some things.
July 18, 2017
Neat concept even for someone less interested in pre-modern history. Major recommendation for anyone interested in history of science\intellectual history
March 1, 2019
The use of wonder and wonders in the shaping of ideas on natural history and natural philosophy from medieval times to the early modern era.
May 24, 2024
riassunto del libro = Marx aveva ragione e tutto è ideologia
December 20, 2025
Per i veri trip
May 18, 2012
Interested in freaks and wonders, but also want to know how they got that way in the first place? Think about how huge the world was, when ostrich eggs and alligators inspired maps that contained dragon-like fish between continents. Read this before you even pick up a book on circuses or so-called hermaphrodites.
October 24, 2009
It was a pleasure just to leaf through this nicely constructed book. The illustrations alone were entertaining. The argument on the changing meanings attached to wonder, especially in changing cultural contexts, was lucid and informative.
February 18, 2010
Interesting subject, but I just couldn't get into the book itself.
July 16, 2013
Read this for a class, but really enjoyed the examples and the complex philosophy of wonder and curiosity.
May 22, 2015
Fantastic pictures, in all senses of fantasy. Worth reading before any trip to the Cloisters (the met Cloisters)
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews