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The book under review is a collection of reworked papers in French and Italian (and one in English) from a conference on the man-nature relationship in the Renaissance. The event was organized by the humanities research center Istituto di Studi Umanistici Francesco Petrarca, and the publication is integrated in the book series Caleidoscopio. And kaleidoscopic it is, which has both its good side and its less fortunate aspects. The advantages come from the general structure of the papers: the analysis of individual texts or small groups of texts, mostly verbal but also visual, opens perspectives toward a variety of aspects of the man-nature relationship in the Renaissance world view. This way of proceeding clearly reflects the conference underlying the volume, but it also produces a stimulating rediscussion of the harmonious relationships between the particular and the universal, in conformity with the spirit of many Renaissance thinkers. Another positive side effect is that some room is left for the analysis of less known authors from the periphery of the European Renaissance universe, such as the Polish philosopher Modrevius, two Dutchmen Levinus Lemnius, and Justus Lipsius, or the Italian Marcello Palingenio (see the articles by Danièle Letocha, Jean-Claude Margolin, Jan Papy, and S.F. Ryle). It is, thus, clearly made manifest that the homogeneity of the basic ideas and problems among the intellectuals of the day reached beyond the centers in Paris, Bologna, Milano, etc.
The reader will be rewarded by finding in the collection a wide range of topics gradually take shape: science, magic, philosophy of nature, astrology, poetry, biology, mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, theology, explorers' reports, etc. If the reader does not want to be left entirely alone, good advice would be to begin with Frank Lestringant's fascinating account of the emblematic depictions. On the one hand, such depictions (in this case, of the flying fish), are regarded as unnatural; on the other, as a proof of God's inexhaustibly creative inventiveness. It becomes an example of how even unique and almost incomprehensible signs in the Great Book of Nature have a moral bearing on human life: in the sea, the flying fish is haunted by fish of prey, in the air by birds of prey; like humans it thrives to transcend its proper dwelling place and reach for the celestial paradise, but it does so in vain. Emblematically, it exemplifies the insecurity of human conditions. From this paper, one may proceed to more general papers on philosophy of nature. Jean-Marc Mandosio's stimulating contribution on the reconsidered classification of nature, close to the last gasp of the Aristotelian view of nature, stresses how magic and empiricism form a holistic entity of rational and non-rational contents. Stefano Benassi offers an engrossing account of the notion of virtuality as a part of a conception of nature linked to the process of imagination put into writing. Read in the context of today's trendy 'virtual reality,' this paper is food for thought, and its analysis of imagination and fantasy brings Coleridge to mind. Lestringant's and Mandosio's articles provide a comprehensive picture of how nature is approached in the Renaissance both from without and from within. Papers by T. Albertini and Lionello Sozzi also offer valuable contributions to this overall picture.
The collection's main shortcomings are the lack of a general introduction to the volume, as well as of an index. The individual papers do not provide general considerations regarding two important questions: Why are the boundaries of the Renaissance simply taken to be merely temporal - between 1400 and 1600 (although one paper on Pufendorf is included)? Why are the texts and topics that are dealt with considered more important than what is omitted?
Let us take the first question first. From the time limit alone, it is not clear what "Renaissance" means. But it is obvious that what is said - and said well - in the papers on the emergence of science, for example, appears more relevant when seen in the light of the subsequent centuries, say right until Leibniz, who may be seen as the last major defender of the medieval world view against the plain empiricism of the new sciences. For example, the importance of the use of the vernacular in science is touched upon (Jean Balsamo), but not in its capacity of being a forerunner of the linguistic policies of the Royal Society, Académie Française, and many other new scientific institutions. Another example: the role of the new notion of nature as landscape is not contextualized. On the one hand, nature-as-landscape repeats the classical rustic and bucolic settings and ideals, as it is clearly stated in the papers by Luciano Patette, and Jean-Louis Charlet. On the other hand, it goes unnoticed that nature-as-landscape foreshadows painting and landscape architecture over the next centuries. If the Renaissance is conceived just as a common time frame in accordance with the decimal system, rather than as a meeting place for a series of groundbreaking cultural forces without an identical time horizon, then the understanding of the Renaissance as a complex of formative cultural powers is lost.
One may forget the second question regarding the selection of included topics due the richness of what is dealt with. But we encounter no explanation as to why astronomy is not included; why we do not take a closer look at medicine (e.g., the anatomical theater), or, maybe even more importantly, at the principles of surveying and mapping, town planning, and architecture; why are such important figures as Brahe, da Vinci, Copernicus, to name a few, hardly mentioned? Unfortunately, the rationale is not provided which would have made clear the collection's particular inclusions and exclusions. There is no doubt that the book is a stimulating collection of material, and viewpoints on the essential matter of the man-nature relationship in an era crucial to the cultural transition leading to modernity. But it is not the book about this process.
Svend Erik Larsen
Oostende University