Tara Nummedal | Brown University (original) (raw)
Books by Tara Nummedal
https://furnaceandfugue.org/ Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic sev... more https://furnaceandfugue.org/
Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic seventeenth-century text, Michael Maier’s alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens. This intriguing and complex text from 1618 reinterprets Ovid’s legend of Atalanta as an alchemical allegory in a series of fifty emblems, each of which contains text, image, and a musical score for three voices. Re-rendering Maier’s multimedia masterpiece as an enhanced digital publication, Furnace and Fugue allows contemporary readers to hear, see, manipulate, and investigate Atalanta fugiens in ways that were perhaps imagined when it was composed but were simply impossible to realize in full before now.
John Abbot and William Swainson: Art, Science, and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Illustration, 2019
During his lifetime (1751–ca. 1840), English-born naturalist and artist John Abbot rendered more ... more During his lifetime (1751–ca. 1840), English-born naturalist and artist John Abbot rendered more than 4,000 natural history illustrations and profoundly influenced North American entomology, as he documented many species in the New World long before they were scientifically described. For sixty-five years, Abbot worked in Georgia to advance knowledge of the flora and fauna of the American South by sending superbly mounted specimens and exquisitely detailed illustrations of insects, birds, butterflies, and moths, on commission, to collectors and scientists all over the world.
Between 1816 and 1818, Abbot completed 104 drawings of insects on their native plants for English naturalist and patron William Swainson (1789–1855). Both Abbot and Swainson were artists, naturalists, and collectors during a time when natural history and the sciences flourished. Separated by nearly forty years in age, Abbot and Swainson were members of the same international communities and correspondence networks upon which the study of nature was based during this period.
The relationship between these two men—who never met in person—is explored in John Abbot and William Swainson: Art, Science, and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Illustration. This volume also showcases, for the first time, the complete set of original, full-color illustrations discovered in 1977 in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. Originally intended as a companion to an earlier survey of insects from Georgia, the newly rediscovered Turnbull manuscript presents beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths, and a wasp. Most of the insects are pictured with the flowering plants upon which Abbot thought them to feed. Abbot’s journal annotations about the habits and biology of each species are also included, as are nomenclature updates for the insect taxa.
Today, the Turnbull drawings illuminate the complex array of personal and professional concerns that informed the field of natural history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These illustrations are also treasured artifacts from times past, their far-flung travels revealing a world being reshaped by the forces of global commerce and information exchange even then. The shared project of John Abbot and William Swainson is now brought to completion, signaling the beginning of a new phase of its significance for modern readers and scholars.
Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany, 2019
In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the... more In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the recipe for an extraordinary substance she called the lion's blood. She claimed that this golden oil could stimulate the growth of plants, create gemstones, transform lead into the coveted philosophers' stone—and would serve a critical role in preparing for the Last Days. Boldly envisioning herself as a Protestant Virgin Mary, Anna proposed that the lion's blood, paired with her own body, could even generate life, repopulating and redeeming the corrupt world in its final moments.
In Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood, Tara Nummedal reconstructs the extraordinary career and historical afterlife of alchemist, courtier, and prophet Anna Zieglerin. She situates Anna's story within the wider frameworks of Reformation Germany's religious, political, and military battles; the rising influence of alchemy; the role of apocalyptic eschatology; and the position of women within these contexts. Together with her husband, the jester Heinrich Schombach, and their companion and fellow alchemist Philipp Sommering, Anna promised her patrons at the court of Wolfenbüttel spiritual salvation and material profit. But her compelling vision brought with it another, darker possibility: rather than granting her patrons wealth or redemption, Anna's alchemical gifts might instead lead to war, disgrace, and destruction. By 1575, three years after Anna's arrival at court, her enemies had succeeded in turning her from holy alchemist into poisoner and sorceress, culminating in Anna's arrest, torture, and public execution.
In her own life, Anna was a master of self-fashioning; in the centuries since her death, her story has been continually refashioned, making her a fitting emblem for each new age. Interweaving the history of science, gender, religion, and politics, Nummedal recounts how one resourceful woman's alchemical schemes touched some of the most consequential matters in Reformation Germany.
What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors... more What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europe’s social and economic ills.
Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the “real” alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.
Papers by Tara Nummedal
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Apr 1, 2007
Central European History, Mar 1, 2009
In recent years, historians of science have come to appreciate the profound impact of Europeans’ ... more In recent years, historians of science have come to appreciate the profound impact of Europeans’ colonial endeavors on their understanding of nature in the early modern period. As they confronted “new worlds” in the Americas and elsewhere, Europeans scrambled to understand, catalog, and exploit the natural objects they found there for commercial, political, social, and intellectual profit. Old World knowledge was often inadequate to the task, and as a result, early modern Europeans developed not just new ideas to fill in the gaps, but also newepistemologies, empirical practices, and institutions that contributed in profound ways to what is still most often known as the “Scientific Revolution.” In some cases, Europeans also saw the peoples they encountered abroad as an important source of useful knowledge. This notable interest in the foreign and exotic did not go unrivalled, however. As Alix Cooper argues in this innovative new book, interest in the local, indigenous nature of Europe was just as intense and just as productive in the early modern period. As European “‘stay-at-home’ authors” (p. 11) directed their attention to the “humble,” “lowly” plants and minerals in their own backyard, Cooper shows, they developed important new genres, methods, and formats for cataloging nature, from the pocket-sized lists that characterized the local flora to the regional mineralogy and more comprehensive territorial natural histories. The authors of these texts, most often learned physicians, engaged a variety of audiences, from local medical students and university officials in the sixteenth century to the princely court and other scholars in the Republic of Letters in the seventeenth century and a broad public in the eighteenth century. Authors shaped their catalogs of nature in particular ways to reach out to these different audiences, emphasizing the practical utility of herbs in local flora for medical students, for example, or highlighting the “natural wealth” in territorial mineralogies aimed at cameralist officials at court. Together, these authors and audiences documented Europe’s indigenous nature as fully as exotic new species in faraway lands. In doing so, they developed techniques that would have a lasting impact on the practice of natural history. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is Cooper’s attention to the way in which Europeans rhetorically “framed their relationships with their own Central European History 42 (2009), 143–191. Copyright # Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association Printed in the USA
Renaissance Quarterly, 2007
Renaissance Quarterly, 2009
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006
Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt&g... more Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt> *vvr-a?? ^av^-av^v^- ALCHEMY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE TARANUMMEDAL fft^.JS-^ STjSSJB^ ftFjSSJBft SfjCSjJBft vf^. Page 2. ...
Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire
Spuren der Avantgarde: Theatrum alchemicum, 2016
Speculum, Oct 1, 2003
Page 1. 1348 Reviews illustrating Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10007 (Vitr. 5,2), fol. 147v, offe... more Page 1. 1348 Reviews illustrating Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10007 (Vitr. 5,2), fol. 147v, offers the paleogra pher, codicologist, and art historian a solid reproduction from which to make some prelim inary assessments about ...
Early Science and Medicine, 2009
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006
Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt&g... more Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt> *vvr-a?? ^av^-av^v^- ALCHEMY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE TARANUMMEDAL fft^.JS-^ STjSSJB^ ftFjSSJBft SfjCSjJBft vf^. Page 2. ...
https://furnaceandfugue.org/ Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic sev... more https://furnaceandfugue.org/
Furnace and Fugue brings to life in digital form an enigmatic seventeenth-century text, Michael Maier’s alchemical emblem book Atalanta fugiens. This intriguing and complex text from 1618 reinterprets Ovid’s legend of Atalanta as an alchemical allegory in a series of fifty emblems, each of which contains text, image, and a musical score for three voices. Re-rendering Maier’s multimedia masterpiece as an enhanced digital publication, Furnace and Fugue allows contemporary readers to hear, see, manipulate, and investigate Atalanta fugiens in ways that were perhaps imagined when it was composed but were simply impossible to realize in full before now.
John Abbot and William Swainson: Art, Science, and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Illustration, 2019
During his lifetime (1751–ca. 1840), English-born naturalist and artist John Abbot rendered more ... more During his lifetime (1751–ca. 1840), English-born naturalist and artist John Abbot rendered more than 4,000 natural history illustrations and profoundly influenced North American entomology, as he documented many species in the New World long before they were scientifically described. For sixty-five years, Abbot worked in Georgia to advance knowledge of the flora and fauna of the American South by sending superbly mounted specimens and exquisitely detailed illustrations of insects, birds, butterflies, and moths, on commission, to collectors and scientists all over the world.
Between 1816 and 1818, Abbot completed 104 drawings of insects on their native plants for English naturalist and patron William Swainson (1789–1855). Both Abbot and Swainson were artists, naturalists, and collectors during a time when natural history and the sciences flourished. Separated by nearly forty years in age, Abbot and Swainson were members of the same international communities and correspondence networks upon which the study of nature was based during this period.
The relationship between these two men—who never met in person—is explored in John Abbot and William Swainson: Art, Science, and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Illustration. This volume also showcases, for the first time, the complete set of original, full-color illustrations discovered in 1977 in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. Originally intended as a companion to an earlier survey of insects from Georgia, the newly rediscovered Turnbull manuscript presents beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths, and a wasp. Most of the insects are pictured with the flowering plants upon which Abbot thought them to feed. Abbot’s journal annotations about the habits and biology of each species are also included, as are nomenclature updates for the insect taxa.
Today, the Turnbull drawings illuminate the complex array of personal and professional concerns that informed the field of natural history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These illustrations are also treasured artifacts from times past, their far-flung travels revealing a world being reshaped by the forces of global commerce and information exchange even then. The shared project of John Abbot and William Swainson is now brought to completion, signaling the beginning of a new phase of its significance for modern readers and scholars.
Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany, 2019
In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the... more In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the recipe for an extraordinary substance she called the lion's blood. She claimed that this golden oil could stimulate the growth of plants, create gemstones, transform lead into the coveted philosophers' stone—and would serve a critical role in preparing for the Last Days. Boldly envisioning herself as a Protestant Virgin Mary, Anna proposed that the lion's blood, paired with her own body, could even generate life, repopulating and redeeming the corrupt world in its final moments.
In Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood, Tara Nummedal reconstructs the extraordinary career and historical afterlife of alchemist, courtier, and prophet Anna Zieglerin. She situates Anna's story within the wider frameworks of Reformation Germany's religious, political, and military battles; the rising influence of alchemy; the role of apocalyptic eschatology; and the position of women within these contexts. Together with her husband, the jester Heinrich Schombach, and their companion and fellow alchemist Philipp Sommering, Anna promised her patrons at the court of Wolfenbüttel spiritual salvation and material profit. But her compelling vision brought with it another, darker possibility: rather than granting her patrons wealth or redemption, Anna's alchemical gifts might instead lead to war, disgrace, and destruction. By 1575, three years after Anna's arrival at court, her enemies had succeeded in turning her from holy alchemist into poisoner and sorceress, culminating in Anna's arrest, torture, and public execution.
In her own life, Anna was a master of self-fashioning; in the centuries since her death, her story has been continually refashioned, making her a fitting emblem for each new age. Interweaving the history of science, gender, religion, and politics, Nummedal recounts how one resourceful woman's alchemical schemes touched some of the most consequential matters in Reformation Germany.
What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors... more What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living as alchemists in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Holy Roman Empire. As purveyors of practical techniques, inventions, and cures, these entrepreneurs were prized by princely patrons, who relied upon alchemists to bolster their political fortunes. At the same time, satirists, artists, and other commentators used the figure of the alchemist as a symbol for Europe’s social and economic ills.
Drawing on criminal trial records, contracts, laboratory inventories, satires, and vernacular alchemical treatises, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire situates the everyday alchemists, largely invisible to modern scholars until now, at the center of the development of early modern science and commerce. Reconstructing the workaday world of entrepreneurial alchemists, Tara Nummedal shows how allegations of fraud shaped their practices and prospects. These debates not only reveal enormously diverse understandings of what the “real” alchemy was and who could practice it; they also connect a set of little-known practitioners to the largest questions about commerce, trust, and intellectual authority in early modern Europe.
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Apr 1, 2007
Central European History, Mar 1, 2009
In recent years, historians of science have come to appreciate the profound impact of Europeans’ ... more In recent years, historians of science have come to appreciate the profound impact of Europeans’ colonial endeavors on their understanding of nature in the early modern period. As they confronted “new worlds” in the Americas and elsewhere, Europeans scrambled to understand, catalog, and exploit the natural objects they found there for commercial, political, social, and intellectual profit. Old World knowledge was often inadequate to the task, and as a result, early modern Europeans developed not just new ideas to fill in the gaps, but also newepistemologies, empirical practices, and institutions that contributed in profound ways to what is still most often known as the “Scientific Revolution.” In some cases, Europeans also saw the peoples they encountered abroad as an important source of useful knowledge. This notable interest in the foreign and exotic did not go unrivalled, however. As Alix Cooper argues in this innovative new book, interest in the local, indigenous nature of Europe was just as intense and just as productive in the early modern period. As European “‘stay-at-home’ authors” (p. 11) directed their attention to the “humble,” “lowly” plants and minerals in their own backyard, Cooper shows, they developed important new genres, methods, and formats for cataloging nature, from the pocket-sized lists that characterized the local flora to the regional mineralogy and more comprehensive territorial natural histories. The authors of these texts, most often learned physicians, engaged a variety of audiences, from local medical students and university officials in the sixteenth century to the princely court and other scholars in the Republic of Letters in the seventeenth century and a broad public in the eighteenth century. Authors shaped their catalogs of nature in particular ways to reach out to these different audiences, emphasizing the practical utility of herbs in local flora for medical students, for example, or highlighting the “natural wealth” in territorial mineralogies aimed at cameralist officials at court. Together, these authors and audiences documented Europe’s indigenous nature as fully as exotic new species in faraway lands. In doing so, they developed techniques that would have a lasting impact on the practice of natural history. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is Cooper’s attention to the way in which Europeans rhetorically “framed their relationships with their own Central European History 42 (2009), 143–191. Copyright # Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association Printed in the USA
Renaissance Quarterly, 2007
Renaissance Quarterly, 2009
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006
Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt&g... more Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt> *vvr-a?? ^av^-av^v^- ALCHEMY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE TARANUMMEDAL fft^.JS-^ STjSSJB^ ftFjSSJBft SfjCSjJBft vf^. Page 2. ...
Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire
Spuren der Avantgarde: Theatrum alchemicum, 2016
Speculum, Oct 1, 2003
Page 1. 1348 Reviews illustrating Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10007 (Vitr. 5,2), fol. 147v, offe... more Page 1. 1348 Reviews illustrating Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10007 (Vitr. 5,2), fol. 147v, offers the paleogra pher, codicologist, and art historian a solid reproduction from which to make some prelim inary assessments about ...
Early Science and Medicine, 2009
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2006
Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt&g... more Page 1. ;a> «**. a> ^\v;-i> Vi-v; -awt-v; ■siv^iv-siv^v*; vt> *w; vrr -tv; vr-~w wt> *vvr-a?? ^av^-av^v^- ALCHEMY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE TARANUMMEDAL fft^.JS-^ STjSSJB^ ftFjSSJBft SfjCSjJBft vf^. Page 2. ...
University of Chicago Press eBooks, Mar 29, 2013
Ambix, Nov 1, 2013
In his musings on the Last Days, printed posthumously in Table Talk, Martin Luther turned to the ... more In his musings on the Last Days, printed posthumously in Table Talk, Martin Luther turned to the subject of alchemy. “The science of alchymy I like well, and, indeed, ‘tis the philosophy of the ancients,” he reportedly told his companions. While Luther welcomed “the profits it brings in melting metals, in decocting, preparing, extracting, and distilling herbs, [and] roots,” he was drawn to it in the context of his faith as well. “I like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is exceedingly fine, touching the resurrection of the dead at the last day,” he observed.
Early Modern Women-an Interdisciplinary Journal, Mar 1, 2021
I n the past decade or so, we have come to understand more and more about women involved in alche... more I n the past decade or so, we have come to understand more and more about women involved in alchemy in early modern Europe. Thanks to a number of published and ongoing research projects, we now know that women were patrons, authors, and practitioners, as well as laboratory assistants and managers. We also know that they read, excerpted, and collected alchemical knowledge in household collections of recipes, known as receipt books. 1 This important research has con-1 On historical women who practiced alchemy, see the essays in Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture, ed.
The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia …, 2001