Download or read book In the Land of Marvels written by Paola Bertucci and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a journey through Italy casts light on secrets, stereotypes, and the manipulation of information in eighteenth-century science. In 1749, the celebrated French physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet set out on a journey through Italy to solve an international controversy over the medical uses of electricity. At the end of his nine-month tour, he published a highly influential account of his philosophical battle with his Italian counterparts, discrediting them as misguided devotees of the marvelous. Paola Bertucci's In the Land of Marvels brilliantly reveals the mysteries of Nollet's journey, uncovering a subterranean world of secretive and ambitious intelligence gathering masked as scientific inquiry. The advent of electricity was a pivotal phenomenon not only in the history of physical experimentation, but also in the cultivation of popular scientific interest. Nollet's journey was supposedly inspired by the need to investigate, and subsequently report on, claims of the use of electrified "medicated tubes" by their Italian inventor Gianfrancesco Pivati. Motivated by economic interests in the silk industry, Nollet's journey was in fact an undercover mission commissioned by the French state to discover the secrets of Italian silk manufacture and possibly supplant its international success. The event that sparked the medical controversy—the unusual cure of a bishop—was a complete fabrication. Bertucci insightfully contrasts published accounts of the event with private documents and discusses how eighteenth-century scientists published fictional events and results to bolster their careers, ultimately leading to long-lasting misrepresentations of scientific practice and enduring stereotypes. In the Land of Marvels reveals the constellation of historical actors, from reputed physicists to travel writers and electrical amateurs, who manipulated information to gain authority and prestige.

Download or read book A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World written by John Pinkerton and published by . This book was released on 1814 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Papacy Quietism Zouaves Pontifical written by Philippe Levillain and published by Taylor & Francis US. This book was released on 2002 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Universal Catalogue of Books on Art A to K written by National Art Library (Great Britain) and published by New York : B. Franklin. This book was released on 1870 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journey to Italy written by Marquis de Sade and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1775, the young Count de Sade decided to turn a flight from legal trouble into an opportunity to undertake the "grand tour." He transformed his sojourns in Florence, Rome, Naples, and their environs into a philosophical travelogue; alongside advice on where to go and what to see, his Journey to Italy would include analyses of local customs and institutions, history and politics, natural phenomena, and the development of the arts. For today’s readers, Journey to Italy provides remarkable portraits of major Italian cities and the surrounding countryside, vivid accounts of aristocratic and popular entertainments, and a clear sense of what it was like to be a tourist in eighteenth-century Italy – from scams, rough roads, and unreliable guidebooks to learned interlocutors, balls, and nights at the opera. We witness Sade learning about the lives of Roman emperors, the machinations and misdeeds of pontiffs, the power struggles of the Medici, the ancient libertine world revealed by the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and a host of artistic examples and cultural practices – the material he would soon metamorphose into trenchant satire, gothic horror, and violent sexual fantasy. This book presents the first English translation of Sade’s unfinished and unpolished Journey to Italy along with his extensive dossiers of notations, sketches, plans, and correspondence. The translation is accompanied by extensive explanatory annotations and preceded by a critical introduction that provides biographical, artistic, historical, and intellectual context for Sade’s fascinating project, connecting his travels in and writings about Italy to his later famous and controversial works.

Download or read book Cosmos written by Alexander von Humboldt and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogue of the Library of the Boston Athenaeum 1807 1871 I N written by Boston Athenaeum and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An Encyclop dia of Gardening written by John Claudius Loudon and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Crtitical Bibliography of French Literature V2 16th C written by and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae written by and published by . This book was released on 1743 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogus bibliothec Harleian by W Oldys S Johnson and M Maittaire written by William Oldys and published by . This book was released on 1743 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae written by Edward Harley Earl of Oxford and published by . This book was released on 1744 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Gardens of Italy written by Evelyn March Phillipps and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gift of Albert R. Martin.

Download or read book The First Proofs of the Universal Catalogue of Books on Art written by National Art Library (Great Britain) and published by . This book was released on 1870 with total page 1160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Prosciutto Sundial written by Christopher Charles Parslow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Prosciutto Sundial is the first comprehensive study of the sundial in the shape of a miniature prosciutto from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum from its rediscovery in 1755 to modern times. Drawing on contemporary correspondence and manuscripts, early philological and scientific assessments, and later published accounts, it catalogs the many attempts by scholars and lay people alike to understand how it functioned. It explains the significance of its context in the Villa and, through the results of empirical analysis using a 3D model, highlights the remarkable accuracy of this unique ancient timepiece.

Download or read book Bibliotheca elegantissima Monroiana A catalogue of the library of John Monro which will be sold by auction written by and published by . This book was released on 1792 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The First Proofs of the Universal Catalogue of Books on Art written by ohne Autor and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2020-04-12 with total page 1034 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the original, first published in 1870.