Ingenuity in the Making explores the myriad ways in which ingenuity shaped the experience and conceptualization of materials and their manipulation in early modern Europe. Contributions range widely across the arts and sciences, examining objects and texts, professions and performances, concepts and practices. The book considers subjects such as spirited matter, the conceits of nature, and crafty devices, investigating the ways in which ingenuity acted in and upon the material world through skill and technique. Contributors ask how ingenuity informed the "maker's knowledge" tradition, where the perilous borderline between the genius of invention and disingenuous fraud was drawn, charting the ambitions of material ingenuity in a rapidly globalizing world.
"Ingenuity in the Making offers a cornucopia of new insights into the ways in which early modern women and men attributed powerful qualities to the processes of nature and the acts of their own bodies and minds. It expands the notion of ingenuity from its narrow definition as intellectual creativity into the much broader realm of mechanical, technical, and perceptual skills, and thus sheds new lig
Christine Göttler, University of Bern
"A rich treasure chamber full of carefully crafted gems of scholarship, this collection brings together abundant and original evidence that concepts of ingenuity in early modern Europe had as much to do with the making and materials of art as with the excellence of intellect. The fascinating case studies assembled in this volume illuminate the polyvalent cultural meanings of materials and of artis
