Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture by William Eamon

Abstract

170 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE individual buildings, and the quarries from which the material came. Here Protzen discusses the form and probable uses of the various buildings and examines reasons for their specific configuration. The second part contains the main focus of the study: how the various types of masonry were quarried, transported, dressed, fitted, placed, mortared, and finished. Protzen and his team tried out some of the techniques they postulated in order to convince themselves and us of their plausibility and we share his delight when he finds similar techniques obviously used in other cultures. The final part of the work then discusses construction episodes and proposes a chro­ nology. The book is illustrated by informative and beautiful photographs, some of which could have been reproduced better. These are supple­ mented by the author’s analytical sketches, and many excellent mea­ sured plans, sections, and details, most of them by Robert Batson. Protzen’s analysis uses a combination of historical research methods, including astute Quellenkritik and visual analysis of older drawings and accounts wherever appropriate, archaeological methods of docu­ mentation and analysis (even though his study was restricted entirely to what was visible aboveground), and the observation, drafting, and experimentation of the professional architect looking with a questing and sympathetic eye at the work of bygone colleagues. This makes the work a complex essay in method that could be developed in future studies in the history of building technology. Protzen promises us more, and I hope that he will continue his discoveries in Inca architec­ ture in order at some future point to present us with a complete analysis of their building culture. Tom F. Peters Dr. Peters is professor of architecture and history of technology and director of the Building and Architectural Technology Institute at Lehigh University. His new book, Building the Nineteenth Century, on the development of the modern building pro­ cess and technological thought, is published by the MIT Press. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. By William Eamon. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1994. Pp. xvii + 490; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $49.50. William Eamon’s ambitious study of collections of craft recipes, medicinal formulas, and practical instructions for a great variety of tasks ranges from late antiquity to the 17th century. He concentrates particularly on the first century of printing, when such books enjoyed great popularity. Eamon argues that these books of secrets constitute an essential background to 17th-century experimental philosophy. He elaborates Paolo Rossi’s notion that the venatio, or hunt after the TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 171 secrets of nature, emerged as a new view of scientific activity in the early modern period. As secrets were transformed into commodities, in Eamon’s view, “a new definition of the function of experiments in science” came to the fore (p. 11). The book includes much material previously published as articles, which has been revised and shaped into a more broadly conceived whole. In my view, part 2, “The Secrets of Nature in the Age of Printing,” is both the substantial center of the book and its strongest part. Here, Eamon presents detailed studies of some of the most important “professors of secrets” of the mid- to late 16th century, such as the pseudonymous “Alessio Piemontese,” Leonardo Fioravanti , and Giambattista Della Porta. He successfully expands and elaborates Elizabeth Eisenstein’s thesis of the importance of printing for technical and scientific developments by showing the rich variety of recipe and formula books, their great popularity, and the numer­ ous printed editions and translations in which they appeared. Eamon draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources to elabo­ rate copiously detailed pictures of early modern empirical culture. He argues for the significance of popular interest in medicinal and other kinds of empirical remedies, suggesting that the dissemination of books of secrets and the use of recipes included an experimental aspect that ultimately contributed to the positive valuation of experi­ mentation in 17th-century science. Eamon’s attempt to synthesize this center into a broader picture is less successful, for several reaons. First, “secrets” as a category is rather a...