Instruments of invention in Renaissance Europe: The cases of Conrad Gesner and Ulisse Aldrovandi

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous referee for his or her insightful comments and suggestions, to Eric J. Engstroem, who did a very nice job translating large parts of this article from German into English. We also thank the editors of this volume, Vera Keller and Alexander Marr, for providing us with the opportunity to collaborate on this article. The research on Ulisse Aldrovandi's Pandechion epistemonicon, some results of which we present here, was largely conducted under the excellent conditions offered by a fellowship at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University and a Frances A. Yates fellowship at the Warburg Institute, University of London, Institute of Advanced Study.

Notes

1. Blair, Too Much to Know.

2. Schmidt-Biggemann, Topica universalis.

3. We are not concerned here with the important distinction between remembering and recollecting, a key conceptual differentiation of Aristotelian-Scholastic cognition that was often elided by the rhetorical tradition and for which Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia was a key source. Building on this distinction Rhodri Lewis, amongst others, has forcefully and convincingly argued that mnemotechniques should be considered as an art of recollection (ars reminiscendi) rather than an art of memory. See esp. Lewis, “A Kind of Sagacity.” We would like to suggest, however, that the instruments of invention that we are discussing in the present essay were conceived less as aides to either memory or recollection than as external repositories, even though the line between mnemonics and external repositories is often hard to draw in the period under discussion here.

4. On collecting and ordering scholarly information in the early modern period see esp. Blair, Too Much to Know.

5. Gesner, Bibliotheca Vniuersalis. Gesner, Pandectarum sive partitionum universalium (= Bibliotheca universalis II).

6. Gesner, Bibliotheca Vniuersalis, I, Epistola nuncupatoria, *fol. 3v: “[…] non enim eruditis solum, sed quibuslibet hunc Indicem collegimus […].”

7. Ibid., II, Praefatio, *fol. 3v: “[…] an idem prius ab alijs satis recte sit scriptum […].”

8. See Keller, “Accounting for Invention.”

9. The note-taking practices of the learned in early modern Europe have of late attracted a considerable bit of attention among historians of science and intellectual historians alike. For a recent overview see the special issue of this journal on early modern note taking edited by Richard Yeo and Ann Blair, “Note-taking.” Among the more recent literature see, e.g., Blair, “Note Taking” and Daston, “Taking Note(s).”

10. See, e.g., Serrai, Conrad Gesner.

11. See Leu, Keller, and Weidmann, Conrad Gessner's Private Library; Blair, Too Much to Know, 213–225; and Fiammetta, ‘Bibliotheca universalis.’

12. On what follows, cf. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 52–64. On commonplacing, logic and memory in Gesner cf. also Nelles, “Reading and Memory,” 147–169, esp. 151–154.

13. For a recent and accurate account of this connection see Nelles, “Reading and Memory,” 159–163.

14. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis II, Praefatio, *fol. 2r: “Ad discendum ergo nihil tantopere confert, quam delectum habere librorum, et optimos quosque sequi: quod quidem mediocriter assequetur, qui simul utrumque Bibliothecae Tomum consuluerit, in secundo enim sola fere scriptorum nomina reperiet, in primo etiam argumenta et censuras singulorum, et alia quaedam.” Cf. also ibid., *fol. 3r.

15. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 63–65.

16. On the influence of Melanchthon in particular cf. also Nelles, “Reading and Memory,” 151–153.

17. “Certe methodum, ordines, locos, divisiones, definitiones, totam denique corporis suis constitutionem, scientiae omnes a dialectica mutuantur.” Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis II, Praefatio, *fol. 3v.

18. “Loci quidem communes absolute dicuntur, qui nulli scientiae aut parti philosophiae astringuntur, sed ex omnibus aliquid habent, et quae praecipua ad communem vitae dicendique usum pertinent, ita ut rhetorico aliquo genere tractari possint, undecunque delibant”; ibid., fol. 22v–23r.

19. Cf. also the Latin introduction to the Melissa that Gesner edited, an anthology of aphorisms of early Christian apologists: “Sicut igitur faber in sylvis, suam fabricandi materiam sibi querit ac deligit: ita Rhetor aut Dialecticus futurus, quoniam de quavis re proposita verba facere instituit, ex quovis etiam diversorum scriptorum genere eam conquirat necesse est, si huius vel illius nominis dignus in universum et absolute haberi velit: quod forsan ostentationis potius ambitionisque fuerit, quam ut humano ingenio perfici possit.” Gesner, Apomnemonēumatōn, unpaginated Praefatio. See also Nelles, “Reading and Memory,” 153.

20. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis II, Praefatio, *fol. 4r: “Etenim sicut in Dialecticis, non modicam artis partem assecutus est, qui rerum omnium genera, species, ac differentias tenet: id est, singula vocabula, ad sua (ut vocant) praedicamenta, non simpliciter, sed sub proximo genere specieve locare novit: Ita in omni philosophia plurimum ille profecisse existimandus est, qui omne quod inter legendum occurrerit, ad certum librum, librique titulum, et tituli partem referre potuerit: quod quidem studiosus adolescens pauca exercitatione, dum nostra legit, et adiungere alia conatur, mox consequetur.” Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are ours.

21. Ibid., fol. 24r. (recte: 23r.); cf. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 88.

22. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 75–118.

23. Ibid., 72.

24. Erasmus, De duplici copia, II, 258: “Ergo qui destinavit per omne genus autorum lectione grassari (nam id omnino semel in vita faciendum ei, qui velit inter eruditos haberi), prius sibi quam plurimos comparabit locos.”

25. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis II, Praefatio, *fol. 4v: “Omnino sane philosophi, id est studiosi hominis, interest, de rebus ubique omnibus materiam habere paratam. Ea vero quid conducet, nisi ordinata distinctaque sit? Ordinari vero non poterit, nisi certis scientiarum omnium locis institutis.” Cf. also the quote in footnote 19 above.

26. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 119–124.

27. Seifert, Cognitio historica, and Pomata and Siraisi, “Introduction.”

28. “Et io, desiderando quanto prima di mandare le mie opere in luce, accioché come preciosissimo tesoro per disaventura non / giacciano sepulte in terra dopo la morte mia, ho bisogno d'un’ mecenate, che mi favorisca, in modo ch'io possa communicarle a studiosi.” Aldrovandi, Discorso naturale, fol. 508v–509r. Our analysis of the Discorso naturale is based on the edition in Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 175–232.

29. On the whole paragraph Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 173–174.

30. On the whole paragraph, ibid.

31. “Hora Le dico che non fu meraviglia che Aristotile scrivesse et osservasse tante varietà d'animali et piante, ancorché i suoi libri delle piante non se ritruovino [ … ] nondimeno – sia detto senza iattanza – mi pare che gl'animali e piante ch'io ho osservato insin ad hora, quantunque io non habbia havuto aiuto alcuno come hebbe il Philosopho da cosí gran’ re, nondimeno l'ho superato di gran lunga in questa osservatione particolare, perge havendo osservato et raunato insieme da dodeci mila cose diverse, idée et essemplari delle specie prodotte dal grande Iddio a utilità nostra.” Aldrovandi, Discorso naturale, fol. 510r.

32. On this notion see Blair, “Reading Strategies,” and Ogilvie, “Many Books of Nature.”

33. See Krämer, “Ein papiernes Archiv alles jemals Geschriebenen.”

34. On the publication history of Aldrovandi's works see Céard, “La Monstrorum historia,” vii–xliv.

35. An especially clear instantiation of this take on Aldrovandi's work and method is Olmi, “Observation at First Hand,” 59–62.

36. On Aldrovandi's museum of natural history see Findlen, Possessing Nature, and Olmi, L'inventario del mondo.

37. On this term see Pomata and Siraisi, “Introduction.”

38. Aldrovandi, Observationes.

39. On the changing meanings and uses of observatio in the Middle Ages and the early modern period see Park, “Observation in the Margins,” Pomata, “Observation Rising,” and Daston, “Empire of Observation.”

40. Still the indispensable reference work on Aldrovandi's extant manuscripts is Frati, Catalogo dei manoscritti.

41. Aldrovandi, Pandechion epistemonicon. The Pandechion epistemonicon has not attracted much scholarly attention in its own right. Krämer, “Ein papiernes Archiv alles jemals Geschriebenen” offers the most comprehensive treatment to date. See also the passages in Bacchi, “Ulisse Aldrovandi e i suoi libri,” 305–307; Blair, “Reading Strategies,” 26–27; Blair, Too Much to Know, 105; Findlen, Possessing Nature, 65–66 and passim; Findlen, “Masculine Prerogatives,” 44 and endnote 62; and Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 19.

42. Only occasionally was a word or phrase written directly onto the pages of the Pandechion.

43. “Questa è una somma di sessantaquatro volumi, così chiamata da me, cioè selva universale delle scienze, per mezzo di questa volendo sapere o comporre sopra qual si voglia cosa naturale o artificiale ivi trovarà a quel proposito quel che n'hanno scritto i poeti, i teologi, i legisti, i filosofi, gli istorici […] et altri ritroveranno quello che n'hanno detto i scrittori che sono venuti a mia notitia, con molti documenti, varietà di luoghi et copia d'autorità di scrittori.” Breve Nota delle opere fatte dà Ulisse Aldrovandi; appendix to Aldrovandi to Ferdinando I. dei Medici, April 1588 [day unknown]; printed in Mattirolo, “Le lettere,” 381. Cf. Findlen, Possessing Nature, 64.

44. Ulisse Aldrovandi comments on these aspects of the Pandechion in his De arte Raimundi Lulli: “qui servat hunc ordinem, quem nos servavimus in nostro Pandechio, de quacumque re occurret scribere, legere, loqui litterisque mandare, omnia ad manum et in promptu habebit et quaecumque in quinquaginta annis legimus et vidimus momento temporis possumus consulere nostrum Epistemonicon, ibique ordine alphabetico statim excerpta videre, nec opus est quaerere in bibliotheca, quinam sint illi auctores, qui de illa materia tractent, quia ex nostro Epistemico citantur omnes auctores, qui ex professo vel alia aliqua de causa mentionem fecere de aliqua re naturali, cuius descriptionem et historiam componere velimus, quia a principio legi et quicquid spectaret ad nostras historias [naturales] et etiam alias scientias, quibus alii delectantur, ibi breviter descripta sunt in schedis.” Aldrovandi, De arte Raimundi Llulli (undated but probably written in 1595), 183–184; cited after Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 21, footnote 9.

45. Aldrovandi, Pandechion epistemonicon, vol. ALIM–ANET, fol. 561v.

46. Gesner's main source is Trithemius' De scriptibus ecclesiasticis. But he also refers to other bibliographical works, to his correspondence, and to libraries. See Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 24–35.

47. See Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 20.

48. Ibid., 19.

49. Blair, Too Much to Know, 96–99. On the emergence of different practices and techniques in the seventeenth century that involved mobile slips as their end product, such as the literary closet developed by Thomas Harrison, the description of which was published by Vincent Placcius see ibid., 99–102.

50. See ibid. On Aldrovandi's experimenting with different techniques and ordering principles for his reading notes see Krämer, “Ein papiernes Archiv alles jemals Geschriebenen.”

51. Aldrovandi owned a copy of the Bibliotheca universalis. See Bacchi, “Ulisse Aldrovandi e i suoi libri,” 304–305. Other than this Bacchi does not provide any evidence for her claim. On the complicated issue of where the techniques used writing and structuring the Pandechion came from cf. also Krämer, “Ein papiernes Archiv alles jemals Geschriebenen,” 24.

52. On the whole paragraph see Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 104; on the two different techniques proposed by Gesner for fixing the scraps of paper in the right order – one of which involves glue, the other strings – in paticular see also Wellisch, “How to Make an Index.”

53. According to Gesner, Rheticus used this technique when he wrote his astronomiae de iudicijs Pandectas. See Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 105. Another prominent example of a Renaissance scholar who used the cut and paste technique described by Gesner is Girolamo Cardano; see Blair, “Reading Strategies,” 26. More generally on the application of this technique in the early modern period cf. Blair, Too Much to Know, 213–229.

54. “Collum, et Collus Dici possit Plautus […] 231.” Aldrovandi, Pandechion epistemonicon, vol. COE–COMP, fol. 265v; underlining in the original.

55. The whole passage reads as follows: “Ondeché mi diedi totto alla cognitione della philosophia et / medicina et, cognoscendo che la vera philosophia sublunare non era altro che la vera cognitione de misti perfetti et imperfetti, cosí animati come inanimate, obietti continui de sensi nostri, però con tutte le mie forze, studiato ch'ebbi tutta la philosophia universale, cominciai a considerare la natura e differenze, tanto esteriori come interiori, di ciascuna cosa naturale, sapendo che quest'era la vera philosophia: il conoscere apartamente la generatione, temperatura, natura et facultà di ciascuno cosa per mezo della esperietia, sendomi noto – per testimonio di Aristotele nel secondo libro della Posteriora – che dalle esperienze nascono le memorie, dalle memorie gl'universali, quai sono principii delle arti e delle scientie, essendo li veri universali fondati nelle prime sostanze, senza le quali gl'universali restano figmento solo dell'intelletto nudo, essendo noto a ciascuno non portarsi al nostro intelletto cosa alcuna – sí come testifica il Philosopho nostro – senza li senza esteriori, da quali sono indutte.” Aldrovandi, Discorso naturale, fol. 507r–v.

56. On this collective understanding of experience, experimentum or experientia, and its relation to observatio see Pomata, “Observation Rising,” 45 and 67.

57. See Zedelmaier, “Wissensordnungen der Frühen Neuzeit,” 839–840.

58. See Meinel, “Enzyklopädie der Welt,” 162–187; É. Décultot, ed., Lire, copier, écrire; Cevolini, “Verzetteln lernen,” 233–256; Cevolini, De arte excerpendi; Blair, Too Much to Know, 62–116.

59. Meinel, “Enzyklopädie der Welt,” 172.

60. Blair, Too Much to Know, 91, was not able to identify the actual use of such registry methods until the end of the seventeenth century. But recently Stolberg, “Medizinische loci communes,” 37–60, has found evidence dating back to the sixteenth century.

61. Zedelmaier, “De ratione excerpendi,” 86–87.

62. Snow, “Francis Bacon's Advice to Fulke,” 370 and 372; cf. Blair, “Note Taking as an Art of Transmission,” 87.

63. Zedelmaier, “De ratione excerpendi,” 87–88.

64. On its origins in the work of Thomas Harrison, see Malcolm, “Thomas Harrison.”

65. Zedelmaier, “Gelehrtes Wissensmanagement,” 84–85.

66. Yates, The Art of Memory. Cf. Blair, Too Much to Know, 75–76.

67. “Maior est apparatus quam emolumentum,” Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (henceforth BUB) Ms. Aldrovandi 21, II, 166; cited in Blair, Too Much to Know, 76 and 284, endnote 66 after Giudicelli-Falguières, “Invention et mémoire,” 236.

68. Cf. Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 21.

69. “[M]oreque mercatorum dividebam in ordinem alphabeticum quenlibet librum.” BUB Ms. Aldrovandi 21, II, S. 168–169; cited in Blair, Too Much to Know, 282, endnote 30, after Giudicelli-Falguières, “Invention et mémoire,” 247–248.

70. Cf. Blair, Too Much to Know, 69.

71. See Krämer, “Ein papiernes Archiv alles jemals Geschriebenen.”

72. Adam, Poetische und Kritische Wälder, 58.

73. See footnote 19 above.

74. On the meanings of silva in classical Latin, see the entry on silva in Georges, Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches und deutsch-lateinisches Handwörterbuch, cols. 2669–2670; on the significance of Aldrovandi's notion of selva universale cf. also Tugnoli Pattaro, Metodo e sistema, 19.

75. Bacon, Sylva sylvarum, unpaginated foreword.

76. Cf. Adam, Poetische und Kritische Wälder, 238.

77. Findlen, Possessing Nature, 64.

78. He chose to call this part of the Bibliotheca universalis pandectae, he argues, because they are “ex omne genus authoribus confectae [ … ], et quod studiorum omnium classes complectantur.” C. Gesner, Bibliotheca universalis II, fol. *4r. On Gesner's reasons for choosing this term see Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 52, footnote 142. Cf. also Nelles, “Reading and Memory,” 163.

79. See footnote 53 above. We might also think of Francis Bacon's extant waste book “Comentarius solutus sive pandecta, sive ancilla memoriæ” in The Works of Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (= The Letters and Life, vol. 4), 39–95.

80. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis, 20–21.

81. Keller, “Accounting for Invention,” 244.

82. Or also historia literarum; see Bacon, Of the Proficience, 68, and Bacon, “De augmentis scientiarum,” in Works, vol. 1, 413–837, 502–504. On “historia literaria” see Grunert and Vollhardt, eds., Historia literaria.

83. Leibniz, “Consilium de Literis instaurandis,” 790–791.

84. See ibid., 791–792.

85. See Müller-Wille and Scharf, “Indexing Nature,” 1–39; Müller-Wille, “Vom Sexualsystem zur Karteikarte”; Müller-Wille and Charmantier, “Natural History.”

86. Yeo, “Between Memory and Paperbooks.”

87. On the connection between early modern learned note-taking practices and the Baconian matter of fact see Daston, “Perché i fatti sono brevi?”

88. See ibid., 759.