Translations, whether in the form of text, illustration, or interpretive analysis, served knowledge-making in multiple ways. It offered a refuge, severed contexts, and concealed the various workers that created it. Over the course of the seventeenth century, European naturalists in Istanbul, such as Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli (1658–1730), procured illustrations of Ottoman nature as fundamental resources to identify, collect, and compare indigenous plants and newly bred varieties. Despite maintaining an actual mediation for cross-cultural interactions, these sources of virtual communication remain largely forgotten in modern scholarship. This article argues that this curious yet invisible corpus was not a nonagentive medium in an alienated leisure of a gentleman-scholar; instead, these illustrations were designed to call upon the viewer’s constant attention in self-motivated scientific labor. Such handy tools responded and contributed to early modern scholars’ modes of working, and in exchange they determined these sources’ own function, position, and visibility – either as a by-product or as a derivative. It is therefore only when integrated into the labor history of science that the degrees of invisibility pertaining to both Ottoman nature studies and self-directed labor can come into a granular view.
...MoreArticle Lissa Roberts; Seth Rockman; Alexandra Hui (2023) Science and/as work: An introduction to this special issue. History of Science (pp. 439-447).
Similar Citations
Article
Acar, Şinasi;
Özveri, Murat;
(2007-2008)
Inheritance Record of Yusuf Beshe, an Ottoman Bowmaker of Late 17th Century
Article
Harun Küçük;
(2020)
The Bureaucratic Sense of the Forthcoming in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul
Chapter
Witkam, Jan Just;
(2006)
Precious Books and Moments of Friendship in 17th-Century Istanbul
Article
Soffientino, Bruno;
Pilson, Michael E. Q.;
(2009)
Osservazioni Intorno al Bosforo Tracio Overo Canale di Constantinopoli Rappresentate in Lettera Alla Sacra Real Maestá Cristina Regina di Svezia da Luigi Ferdinando Marsilii, 1681: First English Translation, with Notes
Article
Robert Born;
(2017)
The Ottoman expansion and the development of cartography in east-central Europe (15th-18th centuries)
Chapter
Feza Günergun;
(2011)
The Ottoman Ambassador’s Curiosity Coffer: Eclipse Prediction with De La Hire’s “Machine” Crafted by Bion of Paris
Article
Tekiner, Halil;
(2009/2010)
Osmanli Eczaciliginda Bir Kilometre Tasi: Ingiliz Eczanesi
Article
Tekiner, Halil;
Mat, Afife;
(2009)
Les pharmacopées turques de langue française
Chapter
Meltem Kocaman;
(2019)
Scientific Instrument Retailers in Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century, and Verdoux’s Optical Shop
Book
Ebrahimnejad, Hormoz;
(2009)
The Development of Modern Medicine in Non-Western Countries: Historical Perspectives
Book
Gülru Necipoğlu;
Cemal Kafadar;
Cornell H. Fleischer;
(2019)
Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3–1503/4)
Article
M. Kemal Temel;
(2020)
The 1918 “Spanish Flu” Pandemic in the Ottoman Capital, Istanbul
Article
Ceren Gülser İlikan Rasimoğlu;
(2022)
Hidden Curriculum and Politicization of Medical Students in the Late Ottoman Empire
Chapter
Panagiotis Lazos;
George N. Vlahakis;
Constantine Skordoulis;
(2019)
Instruments and Laboratories in the Schools of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 1850–1960
Article
Yildirim, Nuran;
(2009/2010)
Osmanli Eczaciliginin Gelisme Sürecinde Ilaç Hazirlayip: Satan Esnaf ve Saglikçilar
Book
Hård, Mikael;
Misa, Thomas J.;
(2008)
Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities
Article
Etker, Seref;
(2008)
Paul-Louis Simond ve Bakteriyolojihane-i Osmani'nin Çemberlitas'ta açilisi (21 Eylül 1911)
Thesis
Küçük, B. Harun;
(2012)
Early Enlightenment in Istanbul
Article
Zeynep Sabancı;
Somer Alp Şimşeker;
(2023)
A New Type of Warfare: Chemical Filling Facilities in Istanbul, 1914–1918
Book
Kātib Çelebi;
Gottfried Hagen;
Robert Dankoff;
(2021)
An Ottoman Cosmography: Translation of Cihānnümā
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society
Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Revue d'Histoire de la Pharmacie
Be the first to comment!