De Achttiende Eeuw 33 (2001)
Danny Beckers
'Pieter Nieuwland (1764-1794): natural philosopher, mathematician
and poet'
It has been said that the eighteenth-century Dutch societies could exist because the ideal of the Homo Universalis was no longer tenable. This article modifies this view by showing that the mathematical societies in the Netherlands in fact believed that through a thorough knowledge of mathematics the old ideal could be achieved after all. They did not have the traditional eighteenth-century mathematics in mind, but rather a new form which paid more attention to abstract matters and mathematical proof and was thus seen as more apt for forming the human mind. The ideals of the >new= mathematics find their expression in the works of Pieter Nieuwland.
omhoog
Jan Schillings
'Format and realization of Bibliothèque germanique and Journal littéraire
d'Allemagne: a quantitative approach'
For those interested in Bibliothèque germanique or Journal littéraire d=Allemagne, the policy statement which was first set up by its editors in 1721 and then elaborated in the next year, is an important document. Two decades later the policy was again endorsed by a new group of editors. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that all the plans that had been formulated actually materialized.
My research shows that the editors managed to stick to their main purpose throughout. All efforts were geared to alerting the European Republic of Letters to the achievements of German scholars, which had remained unknown abroad. Editors and contributors were very much aware that their audience consisted of readers outside Germany, and they provided them with an uncharacteristically rich supply of academic and literary news.
In some fields, however, the implementation of the policy remained unsatisfactory. Thus in spite of their promises the magazine never showed any special interest in legal sciences, which was one of the crown jewels of German scholarship.
In this article a detailed description is given of the implementation of the editorial policy. This quantitative approach leads to a clearer picture of the periodical as well as a more precise idea of its place in the contemporary scholarly press.
omhoog
Thomas von der Dunk
'Travels to the East: Jacob Otten Husly and other Dutchmen in Bentheim
and Burgsteinfurt by the end of the eighteenth century'
Tourism is one of the areas of eighteenth-century cultural history which so far has received little attention. The German towns of Bentheim and Burgsteinfurt used to be some of the most popular holiday destinations for Dutch people abroad. One of them was the well-known Amsterdam architect Jacob Otten Husly (1738-1796), who visited both towns, probably in 1792. He used his travel experiences for two lectures he gave at home, in the societies Concordia et Libertate and Felix Meritis. His texts have not survived, but travel reports by contemporaries like the medical doctor and zoölogist Petrus Camper, a friend of Husly's, make it possible to reconstruct his journey.
Burgsteinfurt, a haven of enlightenment in backward Catholic Westphalia, was important to Husly for two reasons. In the first place, this small town functioned in those years as a refuge for Patriots in exile, whose political ideals Husly had championed before 1787. The former law professor Van der Marck of Groningen university, who had been appointed to the local grammar school by Count Ludwig Wilhelm Gelricus of Burgsteinfurt, had become the centre of a club of intellectual exiles.
Secondly, as an architect Husly must have been interested in the so-called Bagno, a park recently laid out by the Count with numerous fantastical follies and other attractions. In the summer, a special band gave public concerts which attracted many vistors from the Republic=s eastern provinces. Husly later used his impressions when drawing up designs for the estate of Joachim Plettenberg at Windesheim near Zwolle.
omhoog
Matthijs van Otegem
'The reception of Descartes in Italy 1700-1720'
This article discusses the reception of Descartes in Italy between 1700 and 1720. It was thought until recently that the first Italian edition of Descartes dates from 1724: an Italian translation of Principia by Giuseppa Barbapiccola. Elsewhere in Europe, Descartes was known much earlier, and several translations had been published in French, Dutch, English and other languages. The apparently sudden introduction of Descartes in Italy in the vernacular is a anomaly in the European Descartes reception as a whole and can be explained only partly by the strong position of the Catholic church, which had included Descartes' works in the Index.
In Naples, some Cartesian influences may be discerned by the end of the seventeenth century. In the private library of Giuseppe Valletta (1636-1714) forbidden books were available, but it was as yet impossible to publish anything on them. This changed shortly after the turn of the century. Bibliographical research in some libraries in Rome has shown that the translation of Principia was in fact not the first Italian Descartes edition, for even though in both Opuscula (1704) and Meditationes (1709) Amsterdam is given as the place of publication, both were actually printed in Italy. Contrary to what happened in other European countries Cartesian philosophy was introduced in Italy in an opposite direction: not from within the universities to society, but vice versa. The two editions with a false titlepage bear witness to this development, which, until now, we knew little about.
omhoog
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