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Early Modern Fire offers new perspectives on the history of fire in early modern Europe (ca. 1600–1800). Far from the background role that scholarship has traditionally assigned to fire, the essays in this volume demonstrate its centrality to understanding the entangled histories of science, technology, and society in the pre-industrial period.
Analysing case studies ranging from alchemy to cooking and from firefighting to fireworks, the contributors show that the history of fire is not only one of change and progress, but also of continuity, characterised by the persistence of traditional know-how, small-scale innovation, and the coexistence of different paradigms.
Contributors: Gianenrico Bernasconi, Catherine Denys, Hannah Elmer, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Olivier Jandot, Cyril Lacheze, Andrew M.A. Morris, Cornelia Müller, Bérengère Pinaud, Stefano Salvia, Marco Storni, Marie Thébaud-Sorger, and Simon Werrett.
Analysing case studies ranging from alchemy to cooking and from firefighting to fireworks, the contributors show that the history of fire is not only one of change and progress, but also of continuity, characterised by the persistence of traditional know-how, small-scale innovation, and the coexistence of different paradigms.
Contributors: Gianenrico Bernasconi, Catherine Denys, Hannah Elmer, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, Olivier Jandot, Cyril Lacheze, Andrew M.A. Morris, Cornelia Müller, Bérengère Pinaud, Stefano Salvia, Marco Storni, Marie Thébaud-Sorger, and Simon Werrett.
Gianenrico Bernasconi, Ph.D. (2009, University of Paris 1-Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) is associate professor and “directeur de recherche” at the Université de Neuchâtel. He is the author of
Objets portatifs au siècle des Lumières (Paris: 2015) and co-editor of several other volumes.
Marco Storni, Ph.D. (2018, ENS Paris-Università di Bologna) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He is the author of Maupertuis. Le philosophe, l’académicien, le polémiste (Paris: 2022; prize of the Fondation Del Duca-Institut de France 2023).
Marco Storni, Ph.D. (2018, ENS Paris-Università di Bologna) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He is the author of Maupertuis. Le philosophe, l’académicien, le polémiste (Paris: 2022; prize of the Fondation Del Duca-Institut de France 2023).
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
Introduction: the Early Modern Fire
Gianenrico Bernasconi and Marco Storni
1 Purity, Purification, and Fire in the Seventeenth-Century Chymical Texts of Nicaise Le Febvre and Michael Sendivogius
Hannah Elmer
2 'Atoms of Fire': Galileo’s Unachieved Theory of Heat and the Beginnings of Thermometry (c.1603–1638)
Stefano Salvia
3 Without a Thermometer: the Technical Knowledge of Heat in the Early Modern Age
Marco Storni
4 Working with Fire: Remedy Making from the Shop to the Garden in the Apothecaries’ Guild (Eighteenth Century, Paris)
Bérengère Pinaud
5 The Kitchen Fire (Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century)
Gianenrico Bernasconi
6 Fire Mechanics: Inventors and Promoters of Heating Systems (Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century)
Olivier Jandot
7 ‘The Manner of Conducting Fire’: Firing Architectural Terracotta in the Modern Era, between Know-How, Wood Shortage, and Innovations
Cyril Lacheze
8 John Smeaton’s Fire Engine Trials
Andrew M.A. Morris
9 The Outbreak of Fire: Inventions, Materials, and Combustion Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century
Marie Thébaud-Sorger
10 What Firefighting Tells Us about Eighteenth-Century Urban Police
Catherine Denys
11 Organising the Chaos: Firefighting in Upper Lusatia in the Early Modern Period
Cornelia Müller
12 Spectacle, Enthusiasm, Objectivity – Managing Fire as an Emoterial
Simon Werrett
Conclusion: the Technicity of Fire in Modern Europe – a Historiographical Crossroads
Liliane Hilaire-Pérez
Index Nominum
List of Figures
Notes on the Editors
Notes on the Contributors
Introduction: the Early Modern Fire
Gianenrico Bernasconi and Marco Storni
Part 1: Fire in Early Modern Science
1 Purity, Purification, and Fire in the Seventeenth-Century Chymical Texts of Nicaise Le Febvre and Michael Sendivogius
Hannah Elmer
2 'Atoms of Fire': Galileo’s Unachieved Theory of Heat and the Beginnings of Thermometry (c.1603–1638)
Stefano Salvia
3 Without a Thermometer: the Technical Knowledge of Heat in the Early Modern Age
Marco Storni
4 Working with Fire: Remedy Making from the Shop to the Garden in the Apothecaries’ Guild (Eighteenth Century, Paris)
Bérengère Pinaud
Part 2: Early Modern Fire Technologies
5 The Kitchen Fire (Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century)
Gianenrico Bernasconi
6 Fire Mechanics: Inventors and Promoters of Heating Systems (Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century)
Olivier Jandot
7 ‘The Manner of Conducting Fire’: Firing Architectural Terracotta in the Modern Era, between Know-How, Wood Shortage, and Innovations
Cyril Lacheze
8 John Smeaton’s Fire Engine Trials
Andrew M.A. Morris
Part 3: Fire in the Urban Space
9 The Outbreak of Fire: Inventions, Materials, and Combustion Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century
Marie Thébaud-Sorger
10 What Firefighting Tells Us about Eighteenth-Century Urban Police
Catherine Denys
11 Organising the Chaos: Firefighting in Upper Lusatia in the Early Modern Period
Cornelia Müller
12 Spectacle, Enthusiasm, Objectivity – Managing Fire as an Emoterial
Simon Werrett
Conclusion: the Technicity of Fire in Modern Europe – a Historiographical Crossroads
Liliane Hilaire-Pérez
Index Nominum
Postgraduate students and academics interested in the history of science and technology, economic history, environmental history, history of material culture, social history, and early modern cultural history.
Keywords: heat, alchemy, thermometry, Galileo Galilei, apothecaries, cooking fire, Nicolas Gauger, architectural terracotta, John Smeaton, firefighting, fireworks, artisanal knowledge, urban police, purification, remedy making.
Keywords: heat, alchemy, thermometry, Galileo Galilei, apothecaries, cooking fire, Nicolas Gauger, architectural terracotta, John Smeaton, firefighting, fireworks, artisanal knowledge, urban police, purification, remedy making.