Introduction: A Consideration of Lay Knowledge in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

the original statement that history is the mother of truth is merely an elogio retorico de la historia because the author is 'ingenio lego' but when Menard writes these same words, he does so as the contemporary of William James, aware that historical truth es lo que juzgamos que sucedio (Borges 57). At the end of the lengthy monologue listing his literary works by name at the beginning of Book 4 of the Viaje del Parnaso, Cervantes makes an extraordinary and risible claim to pure heavenly, rather than material, inspiration: Tuve, tengo y tendre los pensamientos, / merced al cielo que a tal bien me inclina, / de toda adulacion libres y exentos (4.58-60). [...]according to Cervantes, his genius is unadulterated by lying, fraud or deceit: Nunca pongo los pies por do camina / la mentira, la fraude y el engano, / de la santa virtud total ruina (4.61-63). [...]he says: Tu mismo te has forjado tu tura Apollo's cautionary words to Cervantes reveal a cultural economics in which literary fortune is like economic wealth: some are born with it, some gain it gradually, and some earn it for themselves. Concurrently, historians of science in Spain, following the lead of Jose Maria Lopez Pinero, have investigated the domains of medicine, astronomy, anatomy, and the Spanish institutions that gave form to a systematic educational system designed to prepare navigators, cartographers, engineers, miners, and doctors who would be engaged in imperial enterprises such as transoceanic voyaging, mapping of previously uncharted coastal lands, collecting and categorizing unknown plants and animals, and mining and refining ores.