Prints and the Natural World

Intersections Between Materiality and Visuality in 18th-Century Scientific Culture

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on communicative dimension of science in the beginning of the eighteenth century. I intend analyse the underlying principles of production and reception of printed materials, based on the writings of notable naturalists such as Levinus Vincent (1706; 1715) and Albertus Seba (1734-1764). Furthermore, special attention will be paid to the analysis of periodicals, exemplified by the “Philosophical Transactions" published by Royal Society of London. As such, the intention is to examine the forms of scientific action and production, with a specific focus on printed media. The aim is to highlight how technical, visual, and physical devices, both in their textual and imagery expression, require particular rhetorical strategies. These strategies play a crucial role in delimiting the effects and meanings generated by the material forms in question. Therefore, this research has been conducted in the light of the theoretical contributions of Roger Chartier (2014), Elisabeth Eisenstein (1990) and Nick Wilding (2016). The focus is on the interconnections between precision, observation and the representation of natural world, stressing the intrinsic relationship between materiality, visuality and printed culture, as outlined by these scholars. In this manner, this is an effort to analyse the material and symbolic dimensions of philosophical periodicals and inventories, in 18^th century, highlighting the crucial role that printed literature plays in consolidating naturalists as scholars-mediators, as proposed by Kapil Raj (2016).  Therefore, the aim is to reflect who communicative technologies inserted in sociability networks and cultural productions of the period, simultaneously, transform both the knowledge and knowledgeable subject.