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Galilæana. Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Focus

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2026)

Writing, transmission, and the politics of knowledge in early modern handbooks of water management and hydraulics

DOI
https://doi.org/10.57617/gal-129
Submitted
9 April 2026
Published
2026-11-01

Abstract

This article analyses six handbooks of water management written by publicly employed hydraulic officials in Augsburg, Barcelona, Bologna, Florence, Naples, and Rouen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So far studied primarily from a local perspective, each of these handbooks has often been described as an exceptional source. By comparing them here for the first time, we argue instead that they formed an emerging genre in early modern Europe. This genre aimed at achieving status for author and discipline alike: by claiming a degree of specialisation and expertise, the hydraulic officials who wrote these six handbooks also claimed a degree of specialisation for their field, water management. We argue that the genre of early modern handbooks of water management has been overlooked in the historiography, and that a focus on it is useful to understand the emergence of increasingly specialised hydraulic experts and their body of knowledge about waters in early modern Europe.

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