Science in the vanished Arcadia : knowledge of nature in the Jesuit missions of Paraguay and Rio de la Plata / by Miguel de Asúa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Asúa, Miguel de.

Contributor:

Thea Marie Garfield Fund.

Series:

History of science and medicine library

History of science and medicine library. Scientific and learned cultures and their institutions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jesuits--Missions--Paraguay.

Jesuits.

Jesuits--Missions--Río de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay).

Missions.

South America--Río de la Plata.

Religion and science.

Jesuits--History--17th century.

History.

Jesuits--History--18th century.

Paraguay.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 385 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2014]

Summary:

In Science in the Vanished Arcadia Miguel de Asúa provides the first modern comprehensive account of Jesuit science in the missions of Paraguay and the River Plate region during the 17th and 18th centuries. Focusing on individual Jesuits and underlining the relationships of their work to the religious goals of the Society of Jesus, the book covers the discipline of natural history, cartography, medical botany, astronomy and the topics pursued by the former missionaries in their Italian exile. Based on Many so far unexplored manuscripts and a vast corpus of primary sources, the book argues the existence of a tradition of research on nature consistent with universal Jesuit science and at the same time original in its articulation of Western learning and aboriginal lore on nature. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Natural Histories 25

1 The Jesuit Natural Histories of Paraquaria 29

2 Textual Organization 36

2.1 Organizing 36

2.2 Listing 40

2.3 Naming 46

3 The Natural Histories 55

3.1 Lozano and the Wondrous Nature of Paraguay 55

3.2 Paucke: "I Tell What I Have Seen" 61

3.3 Sánchez Labrador's Catalogue of the Natural World of Paraquaria 68

4 Writing on Nature in Paraquaria 80

4.1 A Jesuit Genre of Writing 81

4.2 Theatrum naturae 86

4.3 The Jesuit Works and Eighteenth-Century Natural History 88

4.4 Native Lore on Nature 92

2 Herbals 96

1 Jesuits Medicine and Pharmacy in Eighteenth-Century Paraguay and Rió de la Plata 99

2 The Major Works 113

2.1 Montenegro 113

2.2 Aperger 115

2.3 A Jungle of Herbals 117

2.3.1 Manuscripts Containing Montenegro's Materia medica misionera 119

2.3.2 Manuscripts Containing Versions of Montenegro's Materia medica misionera attributed to Aperger 123

2.3.3 Manuscript History 125

2.4 Montenegro's Herbal European Pharmacopoeia and Guaraní Plant Lore 126

2.4.1 Identification of Plants 130

2.4.2 Pictures 131

2.4.3 Montenegro's Materia medica misionera, the Guaraní and the "Galenization" of Native Herbal Lore 134

2.5 Jesuits and Guaraní Healers 138

2.6 A Medical Handbook for the Missions 141

3 The Lost and Minor Works 147

3.1 A Guaraní receptarium 148

3.2 Medicinal Botany in the Paraguay Natural 150

3.3 The English Surgeon 151

3.4 A Book of surgery 157

4 The Herbal Tradition in Paraquaria 159

3 Maps 164

1 Quiroga 174

2 Astronomical Instruments 177

3 Charting Patagonia 179

3.1 Quiroga's Maps and Observations 181

4 An Expedition to the Mato Grosso 185

5 The Chair of Mathematics 187

6 The Sources of the Paraguay River 189

7 Maps and Politics 194

8 Maps and Mission 199

9 Maps of the Productive Structure of the Missions 202

10 Jesuits, Natives, and Maps 204

4 The Heavens 211

1 The Stars Lead to Kircher 212

1.1 Comets and Eclipses 213

1.2 The Mission by the Lake Nahuel Huapi 219

2 Buenaventura Suárez SJ 222

2.1 Suárez's Telescopes 226

2.2 Observations from the Mission of San Cosme 228

2.3 A Lunar Calendar 232

2.4 Suárez and the Royal Society 235

2.5 Longitude 242

2.6 Teaching of Astronomy in Cordoba 247

2.7 Theory 251

2.8 The Guarani as Instrument Makers 253

3 Missionary Astronomy 257

5 Science in the Italian Exile 259

1 Juárez's Vatican Garden of the Indies 261

1.1 The Osservazioni 269

1.2 Juárez's Botanical Outlook 275

2 Spiders and Electric Fish 279

2.1 Jesuits and Electric Fish 283

2.2 The Immediate Background of Termeyer's Experiments

2.3 A Fishy Anatomy 288

2.4 Experiments among the Mocovi 290

2.5 A Fluid Discussion 292

2.6 An American Postscript 295

3 Looking at the Heavens through Someone Else's Eyes 29

3.1 The Cadiz Quadrant 300

4 The Cultural Transplant 307

6 A Last Word 310

1 Empirical Reference 310

2 Science and Religion 314

3 Science and Native Lore on Nature 315.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-363) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Thea Marie Garfield Fund.

ISBN:

9789004256767

9004256768

OCLC:

878667598

Publisher Number:

99959794873