Aturner Br

444 tanto come un semplicistico scontro tra cristianesimo e scienza, ma come un’interazione tra differenti visioni cosmologiche ed antropologiche (‘‘The Shape and Meaning of Earth History’’), ognuna portatrice di specifici valori individuali e collettivi, ed appoggiate a differenti forze sociali. Non a caso, Rudwick mette in rilievo come il creazionismo biblico fosse osteggiato anche in contesti diversi da quello della nascita della scienza moderna, ad esempio nell’aristotelismo padovano di inizio Cinquecento; o come la ‘‘freccia del tempo’’, contrapposta al tempo ciclico della filosofia classica, sia figlia della concezione cristiana della storia (‘‘Geologist’s Time’’). La necessita` di una cronologia assoluta dei mutamenti della Terra era stata posta prima di tutto dai cronologisti cristiani, ansiosi di provare la storicita` del diluvio; del resto, alla fine del Settecento il diluvialismo poteva essere sostenuto da un filosofo naturale influente e competente quale Jean-Andre´ de Luc, posto di fronte all’evidenza di un evento catastrofico avvenuto poche migliaia di anni prima – l’ultima glaciazione, in effetti – ma anche al ripudio dei valori tradizionali da parte dei philosophes che aveva condotto alla catastrofe sociale della Rivoluzione francese (‘‘Jean-Andre´ de Luc and Nature’s Chronology’’). L’interesse di altri articoli e` solo in apparenza piu` circoscritto; in ‘‘The Devonian Controversy’’, ad esempio, l’analisi della polemica passa attraverso la ricostruzione di una ‘‘topografia sociale e cognitiva’’ della geologia negli anni trenta dell’Ottocento, e dei processi di apprendimento e di produzione di conoscenza naturalistica (XIII, p. 197). I saggi in cui si ricostruisce l’adozione di uno specifico linguaggio visuale per la geologia (‘‘The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760-1840’’, ‘‘Encounters with Adam, or at least the hyaenas: nineteenth-century visual representations of the deep past’’) trattano non solo della nuova coscienza di se´ di una disciplina emergente, ma anche dei cambiamenti tecnici ed economici sopravvenuti nella riproduzione di materiale visivo nei primi decenni dell’Ottocento. L’interessante suggerimento metodologico che la classica

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ripartizione delle fonti, edite e inedite, possa essere meno utile della loro analisi sotto forma di ‘‘continuum stretching from the most private to the most public forms of activity’’ (XIII, p. 200), non e` certo limitato nelle sue possibili applicazioni alla storia della geologia. In breve, questi saggi celano lezioni che nell’attuale panorama della storia della scienza meritano di essere attentamente considerate. Il superamento dell’antitesi cristianesimo/scienza in geologia, per citarne una, non e` una concessione al completo relativismo culturale come dimostra la critica senza tentennamenti all’odierno revival creazionista; e in un ambito di studi minacciato dall’iper-specializzazione e dalla frammentazione in piccole comunita` auto-referenziali, quella di Rudwick resta un’opera che ha il merito di poter essere letta con profitto non solo dagli storici della scienza o della geologia, ma dagli storici tout court. IVANO DAL PRETE

ANTHONY J. TURNER, Apre`s Gassendi. Son influence et sa re´putation, essai, avec l’histoire des collections scientifiques et un catalogue des instruments et appareils concernant les sciences exactes appartenant au Muse´e Gassendi a` Digne-les-Bains. Digneles-Bains: Muse´e Gassendi, 2006. 323 pp., ISBN 2-912450-07-1. When the museum at Digne-les-Bains was renamed Muse´e Gassendi in 2003, it (most likely) did not astonish the inhabitants of this French southern city. Going back to the nineteenth-century, it was said (though doubtfully) that paysans near Digne mentioned Pierre Gassendi’s name with a sense of pride. And in 1843, when the Pre´fecture des Basses-Alpes decided to raise a monument to the local seventeenth-century hero, praise and admiration went so far as to suggest that perhaps Gassendi created Newton (‘‘Peut-eˆtre a-t-il cre´e´ Newton’’, p. 47). Although this book reads as a panegyric to Gassendi’s regional fame, it reveals si-

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multaneously a fascinating chapter of Provence’s struggle toward cultural autonomy vis-a`-vis the nation’s capital, Paris. Apre`s Gassendi is Anthony Turner’s second major collaboration with the Muse´e Gassendi. Fifteen years ago, he worked on an exhibition and catalogue celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gassendi’s birth (1592-1655). Turner is a distinguished authority in the field and remains a valeur suˆre for writing such a comprehensive catalogue. In this case, his research has uncovered several primary sources linking Gassendi’s local eminence to the museum’s collections. Turner demonstrates first that during the Enlightenment, Gassendi was defended and used as an icon by some of the most important provincial scholars and institutions. To offset, for instance, the Acade´mie franc¸aise’s 1765 prize essay dedicated to Descartes, the Acade´mie des sciences et de belles-lettres de Marseille established a similar one for Gassendi two years later. This patriotic undertaking by a ‘‘compagnie illustre, jalouse de soutenir la gloire de ce savant [et] l’honneur de la Provence’’ (p. 27) was continued in the nineteenth century by a Catholic revival movement. Owing to his Epicurian atomism, Gassendi was then usually associated with heresies commited by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sensualists and materialists, people like La Mettrie, Helvetius and d’Holbach. Not only was Gassendi’s name cleared of any religious heterodoxy by his nineteenth-century fellow Provenc¸als, its rehabilitation also provided an archetypal example that science and catholicism could fruitfully coexist. Local pride and ideological interest groups thus found in Gassendi an ideal and influential patron. Known mostly to a few scholars and regional patriots, however, Gassendi had to wait the second half of the nineteenth century to actually see his name take a new popular and more powerful meaning. His spirit was clearly present when the Socie´te´ scientifique et litte´raire was established in 1878, which was to a large extent responsible for the creation of the Muse´e de Digne in 1889. Less than a

445 decade later, the Lyce´e de Digne was renamed Lyce´e Gassendi (1897). Concurrently, owing to a national educational reform, science entered the French lyce´es’ curriculum, strongly emphasizing the use of instruments. For this reason a large number of instruments were used for teaching by several lyce´es in Digne, until they were boxed and forgotten in the first decades of the twentieth century. Fortunately, they were slowly rediscovered and moved to the Muse´e Gassendi between 1965 and 2005. The bulk of this book is thus dedicated to the museum’s instrument collection of physics and other exact sciences. All illustrated in color, and given short informed entries, the instruments demonstrate the range of scientific lectures given at that time to French students. The instruments themselves, however, are rather common to such nineteenth-century collections, and consequently do not add anything new and original to the unique essay on Gassendi’s influence and reputation in Provence. The value of this book does not therefore lie upon the description of the instrument collection. It rests rather on the historical role played by Gassendi’s spirit (1) in promoting science and acquiring numerous instruments for the city of Digne’s nineteenth-century lyce´es and (2) in collecting today what is left of them after they had been decommissioned (so to speak) a century ago. For the past 400 years, Gassendi has meant to Provence what Descartes has stood for Paris: a symbol of cultural distinction and intellectual accomplishments. As one observer remarked in the past, ‘‘Digne n’est pas une ville pour les Carte´siens’’ (p. 42) The Muse´e de Digne’s new designation, and its eagerness to spread local scientific accomplishments, is simply the most recent acknowledgment of a long and proud Provenc¸al tradition. This book should remind everyone what the weight of a famous historic name, when used appropriately, can accomplish in establishing, supporting, and ultimately saving the scientific legacy of a region, or a whole nation for that matter. JEAN-FRANC¸OIS GAUVIN