Call for abstracts | Knowledge in Use. Practices and Practitioners in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period (14th-17th centuries)

edited by Francesco Brusori and Raffaele Danna

Submission deadlines: 31 March 2025 (abstract) | 31 March 2026 (article)
Publication date: October 2026

Journal section: Focus [read the section policies | submit]

While the role of so-called ‘practitioners’ has been studied since at least Zilsel’s 1942 work on The Sociological Roots of Science, the engagement of historians of science with works directly written by practitioners is a relatively recent trend (Zilsel 1942; Bertucci 2017; Smith 2022). In parallel, economic historians have grown increasingly interested in the role of knowledge and skill as a key factor of socio economic change. If historians of science have come to see practitioners of the mechanical arts as key contributors to the emergence of processes of knowledge making hinged on experimentation, quantification, and mathematisation, economic historians stress the role of labour and skill in developing, applying, and transferring innovation and technology (Berg 1994; 2007; Mokyr 2017; Kelly and Ó Gráda 2022).

In synergy with the FIS Starting Grant Project Working Knowledge – the Emergence of Practitioners in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2025-2028), this call is aimed at gathering contributions that explore the emergence of knowledge and skill in direct dialogue with practice, from the late middle ages to the early modern period. We are interested, for example, in learning about the ways in which practical mathematicians applied mathematical procedures to an increasingly broad set of practices. Building on recent contributions that have stressed the key importance of studying practitioners’ knowledge on its own terms, we welcome contributions focused on sources written by practitioners themselves. Artisans, artists, practically-minded humanists, engineers, carpenters, weavers, skilled workers, tinkerers, instrument makers, cooks, surgeons, glassmakers, miners, and alchemists are just a few examples of the figures we are thinking of. We are interested in learning about little-known books of arts, handbooks, notebooks, manuals, and books of recipes, both manuscript and printed, written by these figures. We are interested in learning more about how their knowledge developed, and the factors that fostered (or hindered) its communication across physical and social spaces. We are, in a few words, interested in studying knowledge in use – how knowledge developed through its application and its engagement with material practices.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The applications of mathematics and geometry to the mechanical arts and other practices
• Processes of codification of practical knowledge
• Processes and channels of transmission of practical knowledge
• Attempts to governing and policing practical knowledge
• Knowledge in use among underrepresented groups (in terms of gender, race, and other identities)
• Studies on little-known sources written by practitioners
• Studies on under-explored applications of practical knowledge
• Embodied histories of ideas and their connections to practice
• Exchanges between learned individuals and practitioners
• Trading zones

 

Abstracts must include the author’s/co-authors’ name(s), affiliation(s), and email address(es), in addition to a brief CV. Authors are expected to submit 500-word abstracts in English by 31 March 2025 to  Raffaele Danna (rd533@cantab.ac.uk) and Francesco Brusori (francesco.brusori3@gmail.com).

Proposals will be assessed by the journal’s editorial committee and by the editors of the Focus. Selected contributors will be notified by the end of April 2025. Articles are expected to be submitted by 31 March 2026 via the journal website at: gal-studies.museogalileo.it.

 

References:

Berg, Maxine. 1994. The Age of Manufactures, 1700-1820: Industry, Innovation and Work in Britain. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

———. 2007. ‘The Genesis of “Useful Knowledge”’. History of Science 45 (2): 123–33.

Bertucci, Paola. 2017. Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press.

Kelly, Morgan, and Cormac Ó Gráda. 2022. ‘Connecting the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions: The Role of Practical Mathematics’. The Journal of Economic History 82 (3): 841–73.

Mokyr, Joel. 2017. A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Graz Schumpeter Lectures. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Smith, Pamela H. 2022. From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Zilsel, Edgar. 1942. ‘The Sociological Roots of Science’. American Journal of Sociology 47 (4): 544–62.