ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

A Laboratory of Enlightenment: Translation and Circulation of Medical Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Tuscany

• In Event: New Perspectives on Science in the Enlightenment

English Abstract

In recent years, historians of science have begun to take a close interest in translations, considering them as sources for investigating the circulation of knowledge across national boundaries. Within these studies, particular attention has been devoted to the eighteenth century, a period marked by significant changes in publishing and reading practices, when translations became both a remarkable business for publishers and a subject of public debate. Their role in promoting the dissemination of knowledge to readers of diverse social and cultural backgrounds increasingly attracted the attention of governments, academies, and scientific institutions. Drawing on these premises, the paper aims to examine a specific case study: the translation of European medical works in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. During the so-called “Leopoldine age”, Tuscany experienced a profound renewal of medical studies, marked by advances in anatomical and physiological knowledge, and reforms affecting both healthcare and university education. Attention was directed to the training of healthcare professionals, alongside a growing awareness of the need to engage with the latest European medical contributions. Key works from Scottish, English, and French medical schools were systematically translated by professors and physicians “for student use”, following strategies that methodically encompassed both textual and paratextual interventions. The addition of new iconographic materials, prefaces, notes presenting and discussing clinical cases drawn from their own experience allowed translators and publishers to correct or improve original contents, mediating and negotiating between different scientific cultures and making the theories and practices presented in the texts more relevant to the new readers.

Author

• Alessia Castagnino, University of Firenze, Italy