Scientiae Studies
About the Book Series
The major premise of the Scientiae Studies series is that knowledge during the early modern period was pre-disciplinary, and that, similarly, theories and practices, confronted with a rapidly growing body of new objects, had yet to be separated into their modern ‘scientific’ configurations. As a result of such premise, this is a forum ideally suited to innovative interdisciplinary discourses and strands of intellectual history pivoted around the circulation of knowledge, as well as deliberately global. By looking within and beyond European history, we would also like to accept proposals that respond to a foundational interest of Scientiae as an association, the institutionalization of knowledge, which in turn stimulates research on the history of universities and on the birth and evolution of early modern collections. Thus the series aims to bridge the gap between material culture and history of ideas.
While attempts to understand and control the natural world, and therefore natural philosophy and natural history, remain central to its endeavours, the Scientiae Studies series addresses a wide range of related fields, including but not restricted to Biblical exegesis, medicine, artisan practice and theory, logic, humanism, alchemy, magic, witchcraft, demonology, astronomy, astrology, music, antiquarianism, experimentation and commerce.
Engraving Accuracy in Early Modern England: Visual Communication and the Royal Society
1st Edition
By Meghan Doherty
December 01, 2025
Engraving Accuracy in Early Modern England traces major concepts including: the creation of the visual effects of accuracy through careful action and training; the development of visual judgment and connoisseurship; the role of an epistolary network in the production of knowledge; balancing readers...
Making Truth in Early Modern Catholicism
1st Edition
Edited
By Andreea Badea, Bruno Boute, Marco Cavarzere, Steven Vanden Broecke
December 01, 2025
Scholarship has come to value the uncertainties haunting early modern knowledge cultures; indeed, awareness of the fragility and plurality of knowledge is now offered as a key element for understanding early modern science as a whole. Yet early modern actors never questioned the possibility of ...
Reassessing Epistemic Images in the Early Modern World
1st Edition
Edited
By Ruth Noyes
December 01, 2025
This edited collection of papers explores from an interdisciplinary perspective the role of images and objects in early modern knowledge-making practices with an emphasis on mapping methodological approaches against printed pictures and things. The volume brings together work across diverse printed...
The Democratization of Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: The Philosopher and the People
1st Edition
By Marco Sgarbi
December 01, 2025
The book identifies to what extent it is possible to speak of a democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy. It establishes the boundaries of the present investigation within the Aristotelian tradition, and outlines democratization as a process capable of assigning power to people. It deals ...
Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony: From Sound to Music
1st Edition
By Leendert van der Miesen
April 07, 2025
Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony delves into the central role of music among the early modern sciences by focusing on the work of the French polymath Marin Mersenne (1588–1648). Although now regarded more as an art than a science, music was for many early modern scholars a universal science ...
Epistemic Practices and Plant Classification in Premodern European Botanical Knowledge: An Interdisciplinary Treatment
1st Edition
Edited
By Fabrizio Baldassarri
March 11, 2025
This volume aims to uncover the diverse approach to plants in the Renaissance and seventeenth century that paved the way for a definition of botany as a fully-fledged discipline. Its scope expands beyond the natural historical interest in collections and the fabrication of materia medica: moving ...
Thaddaeus Hagecius, or Hájek, 1526-1600: Bohemian Polymath of the Rudolfine Period
1st Edition
Edited
By Martin Zemla
January 21, 2025
Tadeas Hajek of Hajek (1526–1600), Latinized as Thaddaeus Hagecius ab Hagek/Hayek, was a key figure in early scientific debates not only in his native Bohemia. A versatile scholar and polymath, he was prolific in medicine, botany, mathematics and astronomy. Modern interpreters tended to point out ...