IsisCB Explore

Book ID: CBB440214325

The Art of Discovery: Digging into the Past in Renaissance Europe (2022)

Maren Elisabeth Schwab (Author)
Grafton, Anthony T. (Author)

Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9780691237145

Publication Date: 2022
Physical Details: 328
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

Google Books

Academia.edu

Relics; fetishes Science and religion Crafts and craftspeople Expertise Artifacts Material culture Antiquarianism Renaissance Europe

In the early fifteenth century, a casket containing the remains of the Roman historian Livy was unearthed at a Benedictine abbey in Padua. The find was greeted with the same enthusiasm as the bones of a Christian saint, and established a pattern that antiquarians would follow for centuries to come. The Art of Discovery tells the stories of the Renaissance antiquarians who turned material remains of the ancient world into sources for scholars and artists, inspirations for palaces and churches, and objects of pilgrimage and devotion.Maren Elisabeth Schwab and Anthony Grafton bring to life some of the most spectacular finds of the age, such as Nero’s Golden House and the wooden placard that was supposedly nailed to the True Cross. They take readers into basements, caves, and cisterns, explaining how digs were undertaken and shedding light on the methods antiquarians—and the alchemists and craftspeople they consulted—used to interpret them. What emerges is not an origin story for modern archaeology or art history but rather an account of how early modern artisanal skills and technical expertise were used to create new knowledge about the past and inspire new forms of art, scholarship, and devotion in the present.The Art of Discovery challenges the notion that Renaissance antiquarianism was strictly a secular enterprise, revealing how the rediscovery of Christian relics and the bones of martyrs helped give rise to highly interdisciplinary ways of examining and authenticating objects of all kinds.

...More

Reviewed By

Review Pamela O. Long (2023) Review of "The Art of Discovery: Digging into the Past in Renaissance Europe". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (pp. 272-274). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB440214325/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Thesis Mark H. Summers; (2021)
Reframing Relics: Visible and Material Sanctity in Monstrance Reliquaries (/isis/citation/CBB728845713/)

Book Wolfram Koeppe; (2019)
Making marvels: science and splendor at the courts of Europe (/isis/citation/CBB413544581/)

Book Michael R. Bailey; (2014)
Loco Motion: The World's Oldest Steam Locomotives (/isis/citation/CBB451724895/)

Article David Allen Cole; (2022)
Can We Bring Chemistry Back? Exploring the Potential of “Gateway Artifacts” at the Science History Institute (/isis/citation/CBB236916406/)

Book Lauren R. Cannady; Jennifer Ferng; (2021)
Crafting Enlightenment: Artisanal Histories and Transnational Networks (/isis/citation/CBB989180674/)

Article Rublack, Ulinka; (2013)
Matter in the Material Renaissance (/isis/citation/CBB001213848/)

Book Mark Thurner; Juan Pimentel; (2021)
New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities (/isis/citation/CBB590414414/)

Article Klein, Ursula; (2014)
Depersonalizing the Arcanum (/isis/citation/CBB001421294/)

Article BuYun Chen; (January 2022)
The Craft of Color and the Chemistry of Dyes: Textile Technology in the Ryukyu Kingdom, 1700–1900 (/isis/citation/CBB196651656/)

Chapter Smith, Pamela H.; (2001)
Giving voice to the hands; The articulation of material literacy in the sixteenth century (/isis/citation/CBB001181473/)

Article Ivano Dal Prete; (2018)
The Ruins of the Earth: Learned Meteorology and Artisan Expertise in Fifteenth-Century Italian Landscapes (/isis/citation/CBB802730567/)

Web Object Pamela H. Smith; Naomi Rosenkranz; Tianna Helena Uchacz; Tillmann Taape; Clément Godbarge; Sophie Pitman; Sophie Boulboullé; Joel Klein; Donna Bilak; Marc Smith; Terry Catapano; (2020)
Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 (/isis/citation/CBB964964407/)