Brendan Dooley | University College Cork (original) (raw)
Books by Brendan Dooley
Description Through the lens of a history of material culture mediated by an object, Angelica's B... more Description
Through the lens of a history of material culture mediated by an object, Angelica's Book and the World of Reading in Late Renaissance Italy investigates aspects of women's lives, culture, ideas and the history of the book in early modern Italy.
Inside a badly damaged copy of Straparola's 16th-century work, Piacevoli Notti, acquired in a Florentine antique shop in 2010, an inscription is found, attributing ownership to a certain Angelica Baldachini. The discovery sets in motion a series of inquiries, deploying knowledge about calligraphy, orthography, linguistics, dialectology and the socio-psychology of writing, to reveal the person behind the name. Focusing as much on the possible owner as upon the thing owned, Angelica's Book examines the genesis of the Piacevoli Notti and its many editions, including the one in question. The intertwined stories of the book and its owner are set against the backdrop of a Renaissance world, still imperfectly understood, in which literature and reading were subject to regimes of control; and the new information throws aspects of this world into further relief, especially in regard to women's involvement with reading, books and knowledge. The inquiry yields unexpected insights concerning the logic of accidental discovery, the nature of evidence, and the mission of the humanities in a time of global crisis.
Angelica's Book and the World of Reading in Late Renaissance Italy is a thought-provoking read for any scholar of early modern Europe and its culture.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Straparola and Late Renaissance Publishing
2. The Trials of Literature in an Age of Censorship
3. A Woman's Hand
4. Angelica and her Book
5. Reading and Gender
6. Book Conservation and the Digital Turn
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
The IRC-funded EURONEWS initiative is about exploring the information connectedness of premodern ... more The IRC-funded EURONEWS initiative is about exploring the information connectedness of premodern European society by examining the regular circulation of news in a vast range of pre-newspaper networks. The manuscript newsletters in question are located largely in some 200 file folders in Florence. Researchers responsible for a selection of these will be working closely with the EURONEWS team, the State Archives in Florence, as well as the Medici Archive Project, to implement a systematic extraction method for making sense of the whole mass of documentation and connecting the dots in an expanding pattern of exchanges stretching from Florence to Warsaw, from Paris to Madrid, from the Netherlands to Britain, Ireland and the American colonies. Our ultimate goal, made feasible for the first time by this funding, is to reconstruct the fascinating news environment of an entire lost world, early modern Europe, at the birth of news.
Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathema... more Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathematician and polymath George Boole.
George Boole (1815–1864), remembered by history as the developer of an eponymous form of algebraic logic, can be considered a pioneer of the information age not only because of the application of Boolean logic to the design of switching circuits but also because of his contributions to the mass distribution of knowledge. In the classroom and the lecture hall, Boole interpreted recent discoveries and debates in a wide range of fields for a general audience. This collection of lectures, many never before published, offers insights into the early thinking of an innovative mathematician and intellectual polymath.
Bertrand Russell claimed that “pure mathematics was discovered by Boole,” but before Boole joined a university faculty as professor of mathematics in 1849, advocacy for science and education occupied much of his time. He was deeply committed to the Victorian ideals of social improvement and cooperation, arguing that “the continued exercise of reason” joined all disciplines in a common endeavor. In these talks, Boole discusses the genius of Isaac Newton; ancient mythologies and forms of worship; the possibility of other inhabited planets in the universe; the virtues of free and open access to knowledge; the benefits of leisure; the quality of education; the origin of scientific knowledge; and the fellowship of intellectual culture. The lectures are accompanied by a substantive introduction by Brendan Dooley, the editor of the volume, that supplies biographical and historical context.
book published by Johns Hopkins, 1999
Fake news and propaganda accompany the birth of news, creating theoretical and practical insight ... more Fake news and propaganda accompany the birth of news, creating theoretical and practical insight into mentalities and behaviors
Papers by Brendan Dooley
International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World, 2016
The Renaissance Romance of Don Giovanni de' Medici and Livia Vernazza, 2014
Description Through the lens of a history of material culture mediated by an object, Angelica's B... more Description
Through the lens of a history of material culture mediated by an object, Angelica's Book and the World of Reading in Late Renaissance Italy investigates aspects of women's lives, culture, ideas and the history of the book in early modern Italy.
Inside a badly damaged copy of Straparola's 16th-century work, Piacevoli Notti, acquired in a Florentine antique shop in 2010, an inscription is found, attributing ownership to a certain Angelica Baldachini. The discovery sets in motion a series of inquiries, deploying knowledge about calligraphy, orthography, linguistics, dialectology and the socio-psychology of writing, to reveal the person behind the name. Focusing as much on the possible owner as upon the thing owned, Angelica's Book examines the genesis of the Piacevoli Notti and its many editions, including the one in question. The intertwined stories of the book and its owner are set against the backdrop of a Renaissance world, still imperfectly understood, in which literature and reading were subject to regimes of control; and the new information throws aspects of this world into further relief, especially in regard to women's involvement with reading, books and knowledge. The inquiry yields unexpected insights concerning the logic of accidental discovery, the nature of evidence, and the mission of the humanities in a time of global crisis.
Angelica's Book and the World of Reading in Late Renaissance Italy is a thought-provoking read for any scholar of early modern Europe and its culture.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Straparola and Late Renaissance Publishing
2. The Trials of Literature in an Age of Censorship
3. A Woman's Hand
4. Angelica and her Book
5. Reading and Gender
6. Book Conservation and the Digital Turn
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
The IRC-funded EURONEWS initiative is about exploring the information connectedness of premodern ... more The IRC-funded EURONEWS initiative is about exploring the information connectedness of premodern European society by examining the regular circulation of news in a vast range of pre-newspaper networks. The manuscript newsletters in question are located largely in some 200 file folders in Florence. Researchers responsible for a selection of these will be working closely with the EURONEWS team, the State Archives in Florence, as well as the Medici Archive Project, to implement a systematic extraction method for making sense of the whole mass of documentation and connecting the dots in an expanding pattern of exchanges stretching from Florence to Warsaw, from Paris to Madrid, from the Netherlands to Britain, Ireland and the American colonies. Our ultimate goal, made feasible for the first time by this funding, is to reconstruct the fascinating news environment of an entire lost world, early modern Europe, at the birth of news.
Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathema... more Lectures, many never before published, that offer insights into the early thinking of the mathematician and polymath George Boole.
George Boole (1815–1864), remembered by history as the developer of an eponymous form of algebraic logic, can be considered a pioneer of the information age not only because of the application of Boolean logic to the design of switching circuits but also because of his contributions to the mass distribution of knowledge. In the classroom and the lecture hall, Boole interpreted recent discoveries and debates in a wide range of fields for a general audience. This collection of lectures, many never before published, offers insights into the early thinking of an innovative mathematician and intellectual polymath.
Bertrand Russell claimed that “pure mathematics was discovered by Boole,” but before Boole joined a university faculty as professor of mathematics in 1849, advocacy for science and education occupied much of his time. He was deeply committed to the Victorian ideals of social improvement and cooperation, arguing that “the continued exercise of reason” joined all disciplines in a common endeavor. In these talks, Boole discusses the genius of Isaac Newton; ancient mythologies and forms of worship; the possibility of other inhabited planets in the universe; the virtues of free and open access to knowledge; the benefits of leisure; the quality of education; the origin of scientific knowledge; and the fellowship of intellectual culture. The lectures are accompanied by a substantive introduction by Brendan Dooley, the editor of the volume, that supplies biographical and historical context.
book published by Johns Hopkins, 1999
Fake news and propaganda accompany the birth of news, creating theoretical and practical insight ... more Fake news and propaganda accompany the birth of news, creating theoretical and practical insight into mentalities and behaviors
International Exchange in the Early Modern Book World, 2016
The Renaissance Romance of Don Giovanni de' Medici and Livia Vernazza, 2014
The American Historical Review, 2000
The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 117th Series (1999) 1. R... more The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science 117th Series (1999) 1. Richard K. Marshall, The Local Merchants of Prato: Small Entrepreneurs in the Late Medieval Economy 2. Brendan Dooley, The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in ...
The Catholic Historical Review, 2008
European History Quarterly, 2013
https://www.euronewsproject.org/2021/04/28/irish-beef/ The Irish were making trouble again, or so... more https://www.euronewsproject.org/2021/04/28/irish-beef/ The Irish were making trouble again, or so it seemed. The year was 1666, and relations between the Irish and the English, only recently becalmed following the close of the tumultuous Cromwellian period, were being roiled by a new crisis, this one having to do with large landowners and their exports. The beef? This time, of the bovine kind.....
Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2017
The Renaissance Romance of Don Giovanni de' Medici and Livia Vernazza, 2014
The Renaissance Romance of Don Giovanni de' Medici and Livia Vernazza, 2014
Journal of the History of Ideas, 1999
The English Historical Review, 2002
News Networks in Early Modern Europe
The STEAM Revolution, 2018
American Historical Review, 2001
American Historical Review, 1996
... its mushrooms, 1700 194 23 From Muller's diary, 19 November 1700 208 24 Marsigli&... more ... its mushrooms, 1700 194 23 From Muller's diary, 19 November 1700 208 24 Marsigli's bronze of Neptune ... a formal history but an account of someone who lived through the age of Louis ... the sovereign Popes wished to remodel the government on a more absolute pattern: it was ...
Catholic Historical Review, 2011
ABSTRACT Fortunately, a re-evaluation of the role played by the historian and reformer Ludovico A... more ABSTRACT Fortunately, a re-evaluation of the role played by the historian and reformer Ludovico Antonio Muratori in the Italian pre-Enlightenment has not had to wait for the completion of the national edition of his correspondence, but has accompanied this ongoing editorial venture, which is now in its thirty-fifth year and still has some twenty-nine volumes to go. The editors of the most recent installment, covering somewhat more than one letter of the alphabet, have adhered scrupulously to the project's high standards and strict criteria. They have looked far and wide to add material supplementing the main body of documents that exists in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. In the case of letters by Muratori himself, rather than simply reprinting those published by Matteo Cámpori at the beginning of the twentieth century (14 vols., 1901-22), they have corrected the transcriptions against the originals wherever possible and have added any recently discovered letters. They provide detailed introductions to each correspondent, ranging from mini-dissertations up to eight pages long (for the more important figures) to short paragraphs (for the lesser-known figures), along with explanatory footnotes. The appendices round out the collection, adding letters not to or from Muratori himself but clearly intended for his perusal. The letters here constitute a particularly challenging portion of the series, including no fewer than seventy-one correspondents from all over Europe, referring to every period of Muratori's long career—from the early studies on poetry and good taste to the later ones on legal and political reform to the immense masterworks on medieval and modern history—during a key period in Italian and European culture: from the War of the Spanish Succession and the rise of Frederick II to the papacy of Benedict XIV. They show the difficulties of obtaining and confirming knowledge in a regime of bibliographical fragmentation and the trials of publishing in a regime of censorship, experienced not only by Muratori himself for the Annali d'Italia and other works in various states around Europe but also by Francesco Algarotti, author of a layman's manual on Newtonian philosophy, and many others. They convey a sense of the debate on witchcraft and the spread of Jansenism, as well as the attempts of intelligent Europeans to come to terms with the first classics of the French Enlightenment. Highlights include the 169 letters exchanged with Angelo Maria Querini—antiquary, Vatican librarian, and eventually a cardinal based in Brescia and Rome. These contain much about Querini as priest and prelate, publishing his periodical bulletins to members of his diocese, with words of edification and church news, in the midst of a tireless search for information about local literary history and lore. Another highlight is the series of 114 letters by Giovanni Giuseppe Ramaggini, to whom none by Muratori survive. Although a minor figure, Ramaggini spent much of his career in the retinue of various prelates in Rome and eventually as a secretary to the reforming minister Karl Firmian, who would become the Austrian plenipotentiary in Milan. His long communications to Muratori give an intensely reflective account of intellectual developments at the time, from some of which Ramaggini remained aloof, closing his mind to the more radical contributions such as La Mettrie's L'homme machine of 1748 ("such monstrous abortions of human ingenuity!" p. 258). Fewer in number but important because of the reputation of the sender are the letters by Emmanuel de Richecourt, Tuscan grand duke Francis Stephen's regent in Florence; Bernardino Ramazzini, the father of occupational medicine; Luigi Riccoboni, actor and author of a manual on theater performance; Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Jesuit author of a history of poetry; and Giambattista Recanati, author of an early anthology of women poets. Overall, we are reminded that the innovative trend of the eighteenth century did not only arrive at the conclusion suggested by Jonathan Israel but also at the one proposed by Franco Venturi, and it is encouraging to see more of this story come to light.
Journal of Modern History, 1988
The Catholic Historical Review, 2003
humanities 393 university of toronto quarterly, volume 74, number 1, winter 2004/5
The Catholic Historical Review, 2002
Easter from antiquity and Pope Gregory's calendar reform in 1582 supported by meridiane resu... more Easter from antiquity and Pope Gregory's calendar reform in 1582 supported by meridiane results on equinoxes. The size of cathedrals and their likeness to a camera obscura made them a powerful locus for meridiane, properly placed holes in cathedral roofs that determined the position ...
The Catholic Historical Review, 2002
Not that Alphonsus was unacquainted with the basic ideas that were chal-lenging traditional ways ... more Not that Alphonsus was unacquainted with the basic ideas that were chal-lenging traditional ways of thought. Although he may not, as Andrea Battistini suggests, have understood the novelty of Giambattista Vico, and he probably knew the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch ...
Journal of Religion, 1988
Isis, 2010
... Brendan Dooley. ... Drawing from a Neapolitan tradition dating at least to Giordano Bruno and... more ... Brendan Dooley. ... Drawing from a Neapolitan tradition dating at least to Giordano Bruno and informed by the insights of Francesco Imperato and Ulisse Aldrovandi, Colonna combines typical philological and observational approaches into a powerful method of doing natural ...
International Journal of The Classical Tradition, 2009
Four-year PhD fellowships beginning in September 2019 available in Digital Arts and Humanities at... more Four-year PhD fellowships beginning in September 2019 available in Digital Arts and Humanities at University College Cork in Ireland, in connection with the EURONEWS research project. Application deadline June 15 2019
Scholarships available for study at University College Cork in Ireland, in Renaissance Studies, D... more Scholarships available for study at University College Cork in Ireland, in Renaissance Studies, Digital Arts and Humanities, Area Studies, Media Studies, etc. Contact Brendan Dooley, b.dooley@ucc.ie
Love and affection may appear to exist only in some timeless realm where the greatest literature ... more Love and affection may appear to exist only in some timeless realm where the greatest literature engages with the themes that are closest to the center of human existence. Or else, like all feelings and emotions, they may seem to be hardwired into the human brain along with other effects studied by psychologists and neuroscientists. But they have a history-one which has compelled recent historians of the family, of women, of society to apply new methods to newly discovered sources. 1 This history comprises not only the shifts in meaning that terms like "love" have undergone over the course of centuries, and changes in the contexts in which love has been expressed or not expressed, or changes in the institutions where love may be found. It is also made up of cases of single individuals or couples notable because of the wealth of documentation available about them, or else because of who they were, or else for both of these reasons. The case I am presenting here is thus doubly interesting. They were a couple infamous in their time and later immortalized by Gabriele D'Annunzio. 2 From their 13-year relationship, the last three lived in matrimony, the letters that have survived offer some of the most eloquent testimony regarding the history of love and emotion that we have from the Renaissance period. 3 They epitomize the theme of appetite-in politics, art, living, and much else, between then and now.
(**) At a certain point in a letter describing the siege of Ostende in 1604, Don Giovanni de' Med... more (**) At a certain point in a letter describing the siege of Ostende in 1604, Don Giovanni de' Medici, hero of various engagements in Flanders and later in Friuli, gives his brother the grand Duke of Tuscany the following account: "arriving at the platform from the highest point we observed the enemy's retreat, a thing well worth seeing, as it was carried out with such elegance and regularity that it seemed to be painted." To be sure, the vantage point above the action, shared with his highness The Archduke Albert of Austria, commander of the Spanish forces against the United Netherlands, was highly privileged, especially considering the many rows of trenches at ground level, and pits more filled with brackish water than with sappers attempting to mine the forts' foundations, in weather friendlier to frogs than to human beings. Yes, from afar, the battle seemed painted and the stench of singed or rotting horse or human flesh hanging in the mist sickly combined with the whiff of culverin-and harquebus-shot, could almost seem sweet. But for Don Giovanni war and art were not two distinct poles of the beautiful and the ugly, combined, whenever there was the chance to climb above the footsoldiers' shoulders, so to speak, and observe battles that are no longer battles but ant-like movements across the vast screen of a landscape. No, art and warfare were two sides to the same coin. (**) When not pursuing one he pursued the other, and sometimes he pursued them in tandem, or in various combinations – as when, during this very siege, on breaks from the action, he scrounged around or had his servants scrounge around the artists' studios and impresarios shops in Flanders and even in the enemy Holland to find the best painters for executing a series of 17 battle paintings, for which the grand duke's instructions were very precise: They were to be in the shape of lunettes, and " painted with joy and with gracious colors, " and the subjects were to be " various military enterprises, and various armed engagements, that have occurred. " (**) They were to hang in the salon of the grand Duke's new so-called hunting lodge, the Fernandina, in Artimino, outside Florence, a vast 100-plus room mansion designed to provide a temporary resting place on grand ducal trips where mass killings were supposed to take place – not of humans, except by accident, but of wild boar and deer in the vicinity. The spilling of blood was a normal accompaniment to life at whatever end of the social scale in the violent society of the late Renaissance, and the thematization of violence entered art as easily as art entered violence. No wonder Peter Paret, in his suggestive survey, notes that "as a significant historical force, and to those who encounter it, a singular personal experience, war occurs often enough to be a common subject in art." (**) Just how common or since when, no-one knows. The earliest visualization of war is thought to be the Narmer Pallette in the Cairo Archeological museum from the 3rd millennium BC, supposedly depicting the struggle to unite lower and upper Egypt under King Narmer, and also containing some of the earliest known hieroglyphics. The theme includes King Narmer waving the rod of authority but pretty much looking like he's going to slam it on the head of the submissive enemy there in the left-hand image; and on the flip side of the stone (image to the right) you have an array of dead bodies stacked one on top of the other. At least a few recurrent ideas in war art are represented here.
“EXCITING NEWS! EVENT, NARRATION AND IMPACT FROM PAST TO PRESENT” The Irish Humanities Alliance ... more “EXCITING NEWS! EVENT, NARRATION AND IMPACT FROM PAST TO PRESENT”
The Irish Humanities Alliance (IHA), in collaboration with University College Cork, presents-“EXCITING NEWS! Event, Narration and Impact from Past to Present” bringing together a broad range of current research in Ireland and abroad, regarding an issue of crucial importance for the understanding of past cultures and our own.
The conference is organised in collaboration with the EURONEWS project, an IRC-funded effort to trace the concept and use of news back to the early modern origins, as Ireland became integrated within a European network of shared experiences. Irish humanities have a key role to play in understanding the wider ramifications of traumatised media space that are fresh as today’s news reporting about BREXIT or COVID-19 and as serious as the recurring nightmares about catastrophic events which have occurred on these and other shores from time to time. Given the current situation with COVID-19, the conference will take place, virtually, on 15-16 March 2021.
To register on Eventbrite, click here:
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/exciting-news-event-narration-and-impact-from-past-to-present-tickets-142895535393?
The Irish Humanities Alliance (IHA), in collaboration with University College Cork, presents- “EX... more The Irish Humanities Alliance (IHA), in collaboration with University College Cork, presents-
“EXCITING NEWS! Event, Narration and Impact from Past to Present,” bringing together a broad range of current research in Ireland and abroad, regarding an issue of crucial
importance for the understanding of past cultures and our own. The conference is
organised in collaboration with the EURONEWS project, an IRC-funded effort to trace the concept and use of news back to the early modern origins, as Ireland became integrated within a European network of shared experiences. The conference will take place on 15-16 March 2021 (either virtually or socially distanced subject to government Covid-19 advice and regulations at that time).
Call for Papers (deadline 30 October 2020)
Proposals should be emailed to Prof. Brendan Dooley b.dooley@ucc.ie by 5pm on Friday 30
October 2020.
Nella prima età moderna la diffusione del libro a stampa e il potenziamento di un circuito europe... more Nella prima età moderna la diffusione del libro a stampa e il potenziamento di un circuito europeo dell’informazione accompagnano singoli e collettività alla scoperta di nuove civiltà e di luoghi lontani e sconosciuti, così come di una natura dalle manifestazioni stupefacenti, inaudite e, talora, funeste.
Non a caso, dunque, si diffuse una variegata gamma di testi a stampa, destinati ad un pubblico in cerca di notizie, casi meravigliosi, occasioni d’intrattenimento e di svago.
Il progetto ERC DisComPoSE - Disasters, Communication and Politics in Southwestern Europe. The Making of Emergency Response Policies in the Early Modern Age [Erc Starting Grant 2017 No 759829] - organizza seminari e lezioni sul tema della lingua di consumo e l'italiano del "sensazionale" fra Cinque e Seicento, promuovendo l'incontro fra studiosi interessati a mettere a fuoco modalità discorsive, tipologie testuali, stili narrativi, scelte lessicali nella stampa "popolare" e negli avvisi pubblici, nel quadro generale della formazione e diffusione della lingua italiana in età moderna.
Tra gli eventi un seminario organizzato dal Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici di Napoli Federico II in collaborazione col Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari dell’Università di Padova.
Per informazioni: info@discompose@unina.it