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The Laboratory as Stage: Giovan Battista della Porta’s Experiments
Ist Teil von
Journal of early modern studies (București), 2014-01, Vol.3 (1), p.15-38
Ort / Verlag
Zeta Books
Erscheinungsjahr
2014
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Alma/SFX Local Collection
Beschreibungen/Notizen
Th is article surveys the vast range of diff erent literary genres to which
Giovan Battista Della Porta (1535-1615) contributed; it thereby encompasses
not merely Porta’s contributions to a specifi c form of science, his numerous
texts on physiognomics and his infl uential Magia naturalis , but also his no less
prolifi c literary production for the theater, since I argue that his scientifi c production
can best be understood when viewed alongside it. In fact, when read
together, these diff erent orientations his work took represent an amazingly
coherent form of early modern thought--although one remarkably diff erent
from later forms of science in that it constitutes a kind of performative natural
philosophy, which I call scienza. Th is article, therefore, presents Porta less as a
forerunner of modern science, instead situating his work for the laboratory as
well as for the stage in the context of a peculiar form of theatricality. In short,
Porta’s magus emerges as a very peculiar kind of stage director--an expert in
the manipulation of appearances and audiences, and a dexterous creator of
marvels. His practice echoes the very modes of dissimulation that were characteristic
for the social comportment of a courtier in Baroque culture. Th e
following article develops these ideas by pointing to some specifi c examples,
namely Porta’s histrionic use of the magnet as described both in the second
edition of the Magia naturalis (1589) and in some of his comedies, and his
method of gathering and displaying fragmented parts of the human body for
his work on palmistry (written between1599 and 1608).