Artificial apertures: The archaeology of Ramazzini'sDe fontiumin17th-centuryEarth historiography

This is a study of Bernardino Ramazzini'sDe fontium mutinensium(1691) as an artefact that reveals how disparate historiographical approaches were shaped by the culture of the new science, when novel investigative practices and a new instrument-mediated vision transformed the historical imagination in a similar way, creating a common 17th-century experience of history. In England,De fontiumwas valued as a refutation of Thomas Burnet's popularSacred Theory of the Earth, which Ramazzini dismissed as unoriginal poetic feigning rather than history. It was also vital to the development of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's unique ideas on Earth history in theProtogaea, and his historicist metaphysics, which would resonate through the 18th century. Yet both Burnet's poetic history, as well as the empirical approach showcased inDe fontium, were equally useful tools in Leibniz's struggle to develop a science of history. Examining traces ofDe fontiumpredominantly from these three aspects underscores important changes in historical thinking and historiography that occurred in the late 17th century.