Emerging from piles of digital articles, reading about digital corporations of all sorts, marvelling at ambitious national digitization projects with exotic names, I was lucky to find a very funny, sincere and touching essay on "how simple, how beautiful in concept, how smart and functional, how versatile the book page" really is. 

In a few paragraphs written for an e-diary which unfortunately has not been updated since 2007, Cécile Alduy* reminds us that there is nothing compared to the simple pleasure of randomly opening a book, turning its pages, reading it in broad daylight (well, Amazon likes to think that their new Kindle, as opposed to the iPad, can be extensively used while sunbathing poolside) :

And my favourite line:

Le livre est poli: jamais il ne vous lancerait: "has unexpectedly quit."

The book is indeed more polite than any browser, it never freezes, dies or disappears; nor does it suddenly become auto-ironic. Something which is happening a lot to the Google Chrome browser. What follows is rather off-topic, but quite funny...

A few hours ago, I got suddenly disconnected from the Internet, so when I tried access the google.com page, I was shown the following text by the Google Chrome browser: 

In a way, this implies that Google Chrome can never encounter any problems, and the careful wording of the error message moves the attention away from what might be a browser problem. While this might work for any other website (Google has enough authority to tell us when a website's gone, moved permanently, closed the business, unexpectedly quit, or disappeared mysteriously in the binary fog), it does sound a lot like involuntary humour when Chrome displays such a text in relation to their own website... Google has left the building.

 

*Cécile Alduy is assistant professor of French at Stanford and the creator of the Renaissance Body Project. The essay quoted above is part of the "Studio" – the "informal" part of the project, containing, apart from this e-diary, an unexpected Youtube video about which I am currently writing a post.

 

I have just come across a very interesting, well written and inspiring blog hosted by the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science. In a recent post, one of the contributing authors reflects on how to "teach curiosity in the history of science":

I would like to offer a few comments and suggestions on this important methodological question. In my opinion, curiosity is not something which can be taught. It is not something one can force on students, but something which needs to be emulated.

I remember how I myself became curious, and ultimately decided to do my doctoral research on issues related to the history of Renaissance medicine and literature: it was, in part, thanks to a course on medical humanities at the University of Geneva during which we were shown images from Charles Estienne's De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres. This work was an anatomical book published by Simon de Colines in 1545 and  contemporary with Vesalius' De Humani corporis fabrica. On some of its very intriguing anatomical plates appear mysterious antiquarian vases...

 

Where do those vases come from? How come they were pictured with so much detail and finesse? 

These curious and unexpected objects were in fact meant to be subtle messages directed to one of the author's mentors & friends, Lazare de Baïf, the french ambassador to Venice. In 1535 Lazare de Baïf had re-published with the help of Charles Estienne a short book on antique vases, De Vasculis libellus. It is thus obvious that Estienne's picturing of the unexpected objects on the anatomical plates served as an erudite "clin d’œil" to Lazare de Baïf. It was also a clever way in which Estienne chose to show a sign of reverence & respect to the older humanist. A quotation in the margin, it worked as a coded intellectual exchange, a cyphered tweet.

Equally important (even though quite common at the time), objects like those vases served as mnemonic devices for the book's redearship, which must have included students in medicine. Those devices got all their attention and helped them rememer better. This relates to the idea that memory was like a chamber in which were stored pieces of information on imaginary shelves. The recalling was eased by the presence of such well identifiable images: a town in the background, an antique ruin, or, in this case, a mysterious vase... They facilitate the process of learning and of remembering, they help contextualise the subject (anatomy), otherwise technical and difficult to memorise. A 16th century medical student might have said to his fellows: hey, remember that dissected body with a vase between its legs? (all this in latin, of course).

That is why I think curiosity cannot be taught, it can be merely be inspired. As a student, I was taken in by the story. Of course, an anecdote like this one will not necessarily help students better understand the history of science, but it would certainly make them more curious and attentive. Just like an antique vase can do when drawn next to a dissected body...

In my view, it is important to ask the right questions, but also to tell the right stories. I think students need a base from where to begin their own curious expeditions. And for that they need to be shown images, told stories. This is what will engage them further to think and explore, then ask the right questions.

 

 

(A Very) Selective Bibliography

Charles Estienne, De dissectione partium corporis humani, 1545, available on Google Books and at the BIUM. High resolution images are to be found on the National Library of Medicine website.

Lazare de Baïf, De Vasculis libellus, a 1536 edition is available on Google Books.

***

J. Céard (éd.), La Curiosité à la Renaissance, Paris, SEDES, 1986.

H. Cazes & A. Carlino, "Plaisir de l'anatomie, plaisir du livre : La Dissection des parties du corps humain de Charles Estienne (Paris, 1546)", Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études francaises, 2003, 55. p. 251-274.

N. Kenny, The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.

In 1652 a German phyisican published a most extraordinary book on melancholy. It went beyond medicine and aimed at gathering together all that was known in connection to this illness:

Malachia Geiger, Microcosmus hypochondriacus, sive de Melancholia Hypochondriaca Tractatus, Monachii, apud L. Straub, 1652. [a digital copy is available at the BIUM digital library]

Hypochondria was considered to be an abdominal illness caused by an overabundance or plethora of black bile. This book gathers around the complex notion of melancholia a multitude of details about medicine, alchemy natural sciences, literature and mythology. It begins as a medicine book and evolves into a much more complex discourse. It represents the German couterpart to Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

Dealing with Early Modern curiosities about medicine and history, not knowing yet for which language I shall settle (French or English), I have  thus decided to use Microcosmus hypochondriacus as the title of my research blog. I'll be back with more details about this book.