Findlen, Possessing Nature

Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Paula Findlen, 1994)

Possessing Nature examines the development of the discipline of Natural History in the context of sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy. The institutionalization of natural history is often seen as part of the Scientific Revolution modernization narrative. By examining the work of the Italian naturalists and collectors Adrovandi and Kirchner, Findlen complicates the traditional Scientific Revolution narrative by showing that both “ancient” and “modern” impulses existed within the flourishing Renaissance culture of Natural History collecting. Findlen's book is a response to previous scholarship. She argues that typical histories of science only discuss those ideas which won out and which are now integral parts of modern scientific culture – such as the ideas of Galileo, Newton, or Bacon. However, Findlen's purpose is “to bring to life individuals who, while marginal to our own view of science, were central to the early modern definition of scientific culture” (p. 6).

The book is structured in three parts. Part I looks at the museum as a space and “the linguistic, philosophical, and social matrices” that defined it (p. 8). Part II looks at the role of the museum as a laboratory and a site for the creation of knowledge. The museum was a “contested site” as it was uncertain whether the empiricism that developed there and which centered on the examination of specimens defended or demolished pre-existing orthodoxies. Part III examines the sociology of collecting in Early Modern Italy. Findlen's examination of the social context of collecting underscores “how much intellectual life was guided by patrician social conventions” (p. 8).

The museums created by Androvandi and Kirchner both responded to the present and looked to the past. Increased European travel and the colonization of the Americas which occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought about an explosion in known biological specimens. Lands and creatures were discovered which were never mentioned in the ancient authoritative books on nature by Aristotle and Pliny. Traditional histories of science often argue that this gap in ancient knowledge led some to question the entire system of authorities in favor of empirical knowledge. Findlen shows that in the Early Modern scientific culture of Italy, authority and experience were seen as complementary, not in opposition to each other. Androvandi and Kirchner saw themselves as fulfilling ancient legacies, not as founding a new, “modern” science. In sixteenth century Italy, Findlen argues, “the museum emblemized the revitalization of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Plinian natural history; it was about the reinvention of the old rather than the formation of the new” (p. 5). However, Androvandi and Kirchner remained ambivalent and critical towards the very authorities they revered.

Additionally, as was characteristic of Renaissance humanists, Androvandi and Kirchner “subsumed their philosophical speculations” based on classical texts “within a highly Christianized framework” (p. 55). Whereas traditional histories have portrayed science as secularizing, Findlen shows that early modern scientists saw no conflict between science and religion. Kirchner was himself a Jesuit, and took advantage of his connections with missionaries to add exotic specimens to his collection. Findlen concludes that “the success of Kirchner's museum, as the center of a global missionary network...made him the heart and soul of Baroque Europe” (p. 80).

Over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, museums transitioned from private to increasingly public spaces. Scientific study had once been confined to scholasticism, and was “textual and bookish”(p. 9). Despite its continued adherence to ancient authorities, the Early Modern museum did begin to “function as a visible, theatrical space” (p. 122). This trend would continue as museums eventually became aligned with public institutions instead of individual collectors, rulers, and patrons as was characteristic of the time Findlen examines. Eighteenth century naturalists commonly defined themselves against their early modern predecessors to claim that they were practicing an entirely new science, a claim which the traditional historiography of the Scientific Revolution has accepted. However, Findlen's study shows that “in many respects, Enlightenment natural history was the logical culmination of the tradition of critical inquiry initiated by Renaissance naturalists” (p. 405).