From the publisher's website:
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymo... more From the publisher's website:
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymous literary and scientific family as an entry point into the complex and rapidly changing world of early modern France. Today, the Perraults are best remembered for their canonical fairy tales, such as "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots," most often attributed to Charles Perrault, one of the brothers. While the writing of fairy tales may seem a frivolous enterprise, it was, in fact, linked to the cultural revolution of the seventeenth century, which paved the way for the scientific revolution, the rise of "national literatures," and the early Enlightenment. Rabinovitch argues that kinship networks played a crucial, yet unexamined, role in shaping the cultural and intellectual ferment of the day, which in turn shaped kinship and the social history of the family.
Through skillful reconstruction of the Perraults’ careers and networks, Rabinovitch portrays the world of letters as a means of social mobility. He complicates our understanding of prominent institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, Versailles, and the salons, as well as the very notions of authorship and court capitalism. The Perraults shows us that institutions were not simply rigid entities, embodying or defining intellectual or literary styles such as Cartesianism, empiricism, or the purity of the French language. Rather, they emerge as nodes that connect actors, intellectual projects, family strategies, and practices of writing.
Sébastien Le Clerc was born into a family of goldsmiths in Lorraine, and received classical artis... more Sébastien Le Clerc was born into a family of goldsmiths in Lorraine, and received classical artisanal training. Yet over the course of a highly successful career as an engraver, he also became a widely published scientific author. This paper argues that geometrical skills played a key role in the dual development of Le Clerc’s career, and in his striving for recognition as a man of letters, as well as an engraver. By a detailed study of the geometrical skills displayed in Le Clerc’s two geometrical publications, this paper revisits the thorny question of the relations between scholars and artisans in the early modern period. Rather than a dependence on his hands-on, bodily experience, it was Le Clerc’s skill in geometry that lent support to his aspiring scholarly career.
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 2023
[ahead of print version] Historians have long debated the origins of modern science in early mode... more [ahead of print version] Historians have long debated the origins of modern science in early modern Europe. Recently, however, scholars pointed to our need to understand how the ‘new philosophy’ became a sustained movement, which did not dissipate over the course of a few generations, as had previous scientific renaissances in other civilizations. This article suggests that the mediations of the printed book allowed a broader public to engage with the astronomical ideas at the core of scientific transformations.
This article examines the interactions that the world of the book generated between authors at the ‘core’ of early modern science and ‘amateurs’ who were interested in recent cosmological discussion around the notion of the ‘system of the world’. It argues that this concept served simultaneously to discuss mathematico-physical problems, to make claims for authorship, and to provide cultural orientation, which made it amenable to appropriation and dialogue across a range of genres. The new social interactions around the ‘system of the world’ allowed a heavily mathematical science to become a viable and sustainable cultural phenomenon, a veritable building-block of a new scientific culture at the heart of modern European modernity.
Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, 2019
While recent studies have refocused our attention on the role of the court in the emergence of th... more While recent studies have refocused our attention on the role of the court in the emergence of the bureaucratic state, this study seeks to integrate the archival aspects of this process with the informal archival practices of the Parisian elites that staffed the royal bureaucracy. By focusing on three cases related to the venality of office – at first blush, a clear example of highly regularized and documented market transactions – it places the formal documents in the context of memoirs and private collections of documents generated by the Perrault, d’Ormesson and Lamoignon families. Studying the private documentary practices of these families as part of the broader phenomenon of “court capitalism”, this article stresses the relations between formal and informal ways of archiving the court. Relations of power with the court formed the basis for action on the part of urban elites, and their documentary practices should be part of our understanding of the wide gamut of ways the court was archived, as it became a centre of attention of French elites.
Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714) was the most renowned engraver of Louis XIV's France. For the hist... more Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714) was the most renowned engraver of Louis XIV's France. For the history of scientific publishing, however, Le Clerc represents a telling paradox. Even though he followed a traditional route based on classic artisanal training, he also published extensively on scientific topics such as cosmology and mathematics. While contemporary scholarship usually stresses the importance of artisanal writing as a direct expression of artisanal experience and know-how, Le Clerc's publications, and specifically the work on cosmology in his Système du monde (1706–1708), go far beyond this. By reconstructing the debate between Le Clerc and the professor Mallemant de Messange on the authorship of this ‘system of the world’, this article argues that Le Clerc's involvement in publishing ventures shaped his identity both as an artisan and as a scientific author. Whereas the Scientific Revolution supposedly heralded a change from the world of ‘more or less’ to the ‘world of precision’, this article shows how an artisan could be more ‘precise’ than the learned scholar whose claims he disputed, and points to the importance of the literary field as a useful lens for observing the careers of early modern scientific practitioners.
Historians usually treat Versailles as a site of courtly interaction, or as a source for courtly ... more Historians usually treat Versailles as a site of courtly interaction, or as a source for courtly “taste.” This article, however, examines processes that connected Versailles to the wider world, arguing for a model of Versailles’s role in the cultural politics of the monarchy, which stresses appropriations by men of letters and supplants “top-down” models of cultural absolutism. It explores the symbolic and material uses of Versailles in the social and intellectual ventures of the Perraults, a family of Parisian men of letters. While acting as authors, members of royal academies, or aides to Colbert, the Perraults used Versailles as a source of exotic animals for scientific dissection, a depository of manuscript texts, a weapon in literary struggles, and a site of sociability. As the Perraults appropriated Versailles, they used their access to the palace for their own devices, unrelated to the goals of a state-run propaganda machine; yet these appropriations brought Louis XIV’s grandeur to new publics.
From the publisher's website:
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymo... more From the publisher's website:
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymous literary and scientific family as an entry point into the complex and rapidly changing world of early modern France. Today, the Perraults are best remembered for their canonical fairy tales, such as "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots," most often attributed to Charles Perrault, one of the brothers. While the writing of fairy tales may seem a frivolous enterprise, it was, in fact, linked to the cultural revolution of the seventeenth century, which paved the way for the scientific revolution, the rise of "national literatures," and the early Enlightenment. Rabinovitch argues that kinship networks played a crucial, yet unexamined, role in shaping the cultural and intellectual ferment of the day, which in turn shaped kinship and the social history of the family.
Through skillful reconstruction of the Perraults’ careers and networks, Rabinovitch portrays the world of letters as a means of social mobility. He complicates our understanding of prominent institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, Versailles, and the salons, as well as the very notions of authorship and court capitalism. The Perraults shows us that institutions were not simply rigid entities, embodying or defining intellectual or literary styles such as Cartesianism, empiricism, or the purity of the French language. Rather, they emerge as nodes that connect actors, intellectual projects, family strategies, and practices of writing.
Sébastien Le Clerc was born into a family of goldsmiths in Lorraine, and received classical artis... more Sébastien Le Clerc was born into a family of goldsmiths in Lorraine, and received classical artisanal training. Yet over the course of a highly successful career as an engraver, he also became a widely published scientific author. This paper argues that geometrical skills played a key role in the dual development of Le Clerc’s career, and in his striving for recognition as a man of letters, as well as an engraver. By a detailed study of the geometrical skills displayed in Le Clerc’s two geometrical publications, this paper revisits the thorny question of the relations between scholars and artisans in the early modern period. Rather than a dependence on his hands-on, bodily experience, it was Le Clerc’s skill in geometry that lent support to his aspiring scholarly career.
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 2023
[ahead of print version] Historians have long debated the origins of modern science in early mode... more [ahead of print version] Historians have long debated the origins of modern science in early modern Europe. Recently, however, scholars pointed to our need to understand how the ‘new philosophy’ became a sustained movement, which did not dissipate over the course of a few generations, as had previous scientific renaissances in other civilizations. This article suggests that the mediations of the printed book allowed a broader public to engage with the astronomical ideas at the core of scientific transformations.
This article examines the interactions that the world of the book generated between authors at the ‘core’ of early modern science and ‘amateurs’ who were interested in recent cosmological discussion around the notion of the ‘system of the world’. It argues that this concept served simultaneously to discuss mathematico-physical problems, to make claims for authorship, and to provide cultural orientation, which made it amenable to appropriation and dialogue across a range of genres. The new social interactions around the ‘system of the world’ allowed a heavily mathematical science to become a viable and sustainable cultural phenomenon, a veritable building-block of a new scientific culture at the heart of modern European modernity.
Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, 2019
While recent studies have refocused our attention on the role of the court in the emergence of th... more While recent studies have refocused our attention on the role of the court in the emergence of the bureaucratic state, this study seeks to integrate the archival aspects of this process with the informal archival practices of the Parisian elites that staffed the royal bureaucracy. By focusing on three cases related to the venality of office – at first blush, a clear example of highly regularized and documented market transactions – it places the formal documents in the context of memoirs and private collections of documents generated by the Perrault, d’Ormesson and Lamoignon families. Studying the private documentary practices of these families as part of the broader phenomenon of “court capitalism”, this article stresses the relations between formal and informal ways of archiving the court. Relations of power with the court formed the basis for action on the part of urban elites, and their documentary practices should be part of our understanding of the wide gamut of ways the court was archived, as it became a centre of attention of French elites.
Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714) was the most renowned engraver of Louis XIV's France. For the hist... more Sébastien Le Clerc (1637–1714) was the most renowned engraver of Louis XIV's France. For the history of scientific publishing, however, Le Clerc represents a telling paradox. Even though he followed a traditional route based on classic artisanal training, he also published extensively on scientific topics such as cosmology and mathematics. While contemporary scholarship usually stresses the importance of artisanal writing as a direct expression of artisanal experience and know-how, Le Clerc's publications, and specifically the work on cosmology in his Système du monde (1706–1708), go far beyond this. By reconstructing the debate between Le Clerc and the professor Mallemant de Messange on the authorship of this ‘system of the world’, this article argues that Le Clerc's involvement in publishing ventures shaped his identity both as an artisan and as a scientific author. Whereas the Scientific Revolution supposedly heralded a change from the world of ‘more or less’ to the ‘world of precision’, this article shows how an artisan could be more ‘precise’ than the learned scholar whose claims he disputed, and points to the importance of the literary field as a useful lens for observing the careers of early modern scientific practitioners.
Historians usually treat Versailles as a site of courtly interaction, or as a source for courtly ... more Historians usually treat Versailles as a site of courtly interaction, or as a source for courtly “taste.” This article, however, examines processes that connected Versailles to the wider world, arguing for a model of Versailles’s role in the cultural politics of the monarchy, which stresses appropriations by men of letters and supplants “top-down” models of cultural absolutism. It explores the symbolic and material uses of Versailles in the social and intellectual ventures of the Perraults, a family of Parisian men of letters. While acting as authors, members of royal academies, or aides to Colbert, the Perraults used Versailles as a source of exotic animals for scientific dissection, a depository of manuscript texts, a weapon in literary struggles, and a site of sociability. As the Perraults appropriated Versailles, they used their access to the palace for their own devices, unrelated to the goals of a state-run propaganda machine; yet these appropriations brought Louis XIV’s grandeur to new publics.
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Book by Oded Rabinovitch
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymous literary and scientific family as an entry point into the complex and rapidly changing world of early modern France. Today, the Perraults are best remembered for their canonical fairy tales, such as "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots," most often attributed to Charles Perrault, one of the brothers. While the writing of fairy tales may seem a frivolous enterprise, it was, in fact, linked to the cultural revolution of the seventeenth century, which paved the way for the scientific revolution, the rise of "national literatures," and the early Enlightenment. Rabinovitch argues that kinship networks played a crucial, yet unexamined, role in shaping the cultural and intellectual ferment of the day, which in turn shaped kinship and the social history of the family.
Through skillful reconstruction of the Perraults’ careers and networks, Rabinovitch portrays the world of letters as a means of social mobility. He complicates our understanding of prominent institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, Versailles, and the salons, as well as the very notions of authorship and court capitalism. The Perraults shows us that institutions were not simply rigid entities, embodying or defining intellectual or literary styles such as Cartesianism, empiricism, or the purity of the French language. Rather, they emerge as nodes that connect actors, intellectual projects, family strategies, and practices of writing.
Papers by Oded Rabinovitch
This article examines the interactions that the world of the book generated between authors at the ‘core’ of early modern science and ‘amateurs’ who were interested in recent cosmological discussion around the notion of the ‘system of the world’. It argues that this concept served simultaneously to discuss mathematico-physical problems, to make claims for authorship, and to provide cultural orientation, which made it amenable to appropriation and dialogue across a range of genres. The new social interactions around the ‘system of the world’ allowed a heavily mathematical science to become a viable and sustainable cultural phenomenon, a veritable building-block of a new scientific culture at the heart of modern European modernity.
In The Perraults, Oded Rabinovitch takes the fascinating eponymous literary and scientific family as an entry point into the complex and rapidly changing world of early modern France. Today, the Perraults are best remembered for their canonical fairy tales, such as "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots," most often attributed to Charles Perrault, one of the brothers. While the writing of fairy tales may seem a frivolous enterprise, it was, in fact, linked to the cultural revolution of the seventeenth century, which paved the way for the scientific revolution, the rise of "national literatures," and the early Enlightenment. Rabinovitch argues that kinship networks played a crucial, yet unexamined, role in shaping the cultural and intellectual ferment of the day, which in turn shaped kinship and the social history of the family.
Through skillful reconstruction of the Perraults’ careers and networks, Rabinovitch portrays the world of letters as a means of social mobility. He complicates our understanding of prominent institutions, such as the Academy of Sciences, Versailles, and the salons, as well as the very notions of authorship and court capitalism. The Perraults shows us that institutions were not simply rigid entities, embodying or defining intellectual or literary styles such as Cartesianism, empiricism, or the purity of the French language. Rather, they emerge as nodes that connect actors, intellectual projects, family strategies, and practices of writing.
This article examines the interactions that the world of the book generated between authors at the ‘core’ of early modern science and ‘amateurs’ who were interested in recent cosmological discussion around the notion of the ‘system of the world’. It argues that this concept served simultaneously to discuss mathematico-physical problems, to make claims for authorship, and to provide cultural orientation, which made it amenable to appropriation and dialogue across a range of genres. The new social interactions around the ‘system of the world’ allowed a heavily mathematical science to become a viable and sustainable cultural phenomenon, a veritable building-block of a new scientific culture at the heart of modern European modernity.