Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man who Knew Everything

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Paula Findlen
Psychology Press, 2004 - 465 páginas
First published in 2004.Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) -- German Jesuit, occultist, polymath - was one of most curious figures in the history of science. He dabbled in all the mysteries of his time: the heavenly bodies, sound amplification, museology, botany, Asian languages, the pyramids of Egypt -- almost anything incompletely understood. Kircher coined the term electromagnetism, printed Sanskrit for the first time in a Western book, and built a famous museum collection. His wild, beautifully illustrated books are sometimes visionary, frequently wrong, and yet compelling documents in the history of ideas. They are being rediscovered in our own time. This volume contains new essays on Kircher and his world by leading historians and historians of science, including Stephen Jay Gould, Ingrid Rowland, Anthony Grafton, Daniel Stoltzenberg, Paula Findlen, and Barbara Stafford.-
 

Contenido

Kirchers Rome
51
Reverie in Time of Plague Athanasius Kircher and the Plague Epidemic of 1656
63
Kircher and His Critics Censorial Practice and Pragmatic Disregard in the Society of Jesus
79
QuasiOptical Palingenesis The Circulation of Portraits and the Image of Kircher
105
The Sciences of Erudition
131
Copts and Scholars Athanasius Kircher in Peirescs Republic of Letters
133
Four Trees Some Amulets and the Seventytwo Names of God Kircher Reveals the Kabbalah
149
Kirchers Chronology
171
Magnetic Language Athanasius Kircher and Communication
263
Publishing the Polygraphy Manuscript Instrument and Print in the Work of Athanasius Kircher
283
Private and Public Knowledge Kircher Esotericism and the Republic of Letters
297
The Global Shape of Knowledge
309
Baroque Science between the Old and the New World Father Kircher and His Colleague Valentin Stansel 16211705
311
A Jesuits Books in the New World Athanasius Kircher and His American Readers
329
True Lies Athanasius Kirchers China illustrata and the Life Story of a Mexican Mystic
365
Athanasius Kirchers China Illustrata 1667 An Apologia Pro Vita Sua
383

The Mysteries of Man and the Cosmos
189
Athanasius Kircher Giordano Bruno and the Panspermia of the Infinite Universe
191
Father Athanasius on the Isthmus of a Middle State Understanding Kirchers Paleontology
207
The Angel and the Compass Athanasius Kirchers Magnetic Geography
239
Communicating Knowledge
261
Understanding Kircher in Context
405
Bibliography
421
Notes on Contributors
447
Index
451
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Paula Findlen is Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History and Director of the Science, Technology and Society Program at Stanford University. She is the author of Possessing Nature and coeditor of Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, published by Routledge.

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