engleski

Private letters, public interest: the published correspondence of “Friends of natural science” Alberto Fortis, Ignaz von Born and Count Franz Joseph Kinsky

The practitioners of the eighteenth-century natural sciences created a powerful international communicative network and a community. They were building up extra-regional communication of correspondents, who seemed to be working "on different pieces of the same puzzle", called Nature. This characteristic of natural history confirmed not only its social usefulness, but also its sociability. On the other hand, the pursuit of the regional natural sciences could inspire patriotic feelings because it was focused on the particular as opposed to the universal. "Regional science" was grounded on compiling information about local and regional environment, on collecting samples of natural products, on describing useful inventions, and finally on making an "inventory of useful knowledge" which would serve for the improvement of regional industry and agriculture. The correspondents in naturalist networks were supposed to present mineralogical, geological and meteorological observations, as well as descriptions of geographical features, mineral waters, as well as lists of useful and harmful plants and animals. Their travel accounts included not only naturalist remarks ; this genre also aimed to depict the social, economic and cultural conditions of the surveyed land, whose critical tone was sometimes intended against the existing social (feudal) order. The “friends of nature” advocated equal rights for all regardless of birth and rank and their communication was unburden with social hierarchy. In my paper I will analyse the narrative dimensions of the published correspondence between the Italian naturalist Alberto Fortis and Count Tomo Bassegli from Dubrovnik (1783) and between the scientist Ignaz von Born and Count Francis Joseph Kinsky from Bohemia (1775-6, 1783-4). All correspondents were linked with friendship and family ties and their private letters and interests, among others in volcanoes, gained public relevance also through the process of translation.

correspondence, natural science, Central Europe, Enlightenment

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