Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense
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Table of Contents Biographical notes Introduction Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense Plate index & plates Original drawings Notes Biographical notes AGOSTINO SCILLA (1629-1700) was born in Messina, Sicily, son of notary Giovanni Scilla. During the 1640s, Scilla studied to be an artist at Messina, under the tutelage of Antonio Barbalunga (1600-1649). In 1647 whilst still a teenager he travelled to Rome, where he was apprenticed for 5 years to the painter Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661). Scilla returned to Messina in 1651, to take charge of family affairs after the death of his father. Back in Messina, he assisted with the collection of artworks in the palace of Sicilian nobleman Don Antonio Ruffo (1610-1678). During this time, Scilla also undertook many commissions of artwork for Messina’s palaces and churches, including a fresco for the ceiling of the Sacrament chapel at Siracusa cathedral. Under the patronage of Ruffo, Scilla became friends with the physician and naturalist Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), with whom he studied local sea life. Scilla was a member of the Accademia della Fucina ‘The Academy of the Forge’, founded by Carlo Di Gregorio in 1639. Not only was Scilla an accomplished artist, but he was also an expert on coins and medals and later on fossils. Scilla’s book on the nature of fossils La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso was published in Naples in 1670 and was a reply to a letter on the subject from the Maltese physician and naturalist Francesco Buonamico (1639-1680). Scilla fled Messina in March 1678, after the failure of a French-assisted revolt against the Spanish by the nobility of Messina. He settled in Rome in 1679 where he was elected to the ‘The Academy of St Luca’. Scilla remained in Rome until his death in 1700 at the age of 70. Agostino Scilla Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense Edited with notes by Dan Pemberton & Rosemary Williams Translated by Rodney Palmer, Rosemary Williams & Ilaria Bernocchi Published 2016 by Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ Evaluation copy ISBN pending © Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge 2016 Cover design RobTheodore Introduction First published in 1670 Agostino Scilla’s book La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso has remained relatively unknown except to those with an interest in the history and philosophy of science, or the intersection between material and visual culture in the early modern period. Originally published in Italian at Naples the book was later translated into Latin during the eighteenth century, the only alternative language version until now. A Designation Development Fund grant from Arts Council England has enabled this first English translation to be made with the aim of bringing Scilla’s work to a wider audience. Its purpose is not to be a definitive academic translation of Scilla’s text, rather a resource that can be used to help better understand and interpret Scilla’s collection of natural history specimens for public enjoyment and research. The seeds of ‘La vana speculazione’ were first sown in the late 1660s when Agostino Scilla took an interest in one of the great debates taxing naturalists at that time: whether fossils were of organic or inorganic origin. Scilla wrote to Paolo Boccone (1633-1704), a Sicilian naturalist visiting Malta, asking him to collect Maltese rocks and fossils to send to him for study. He wanted to see if they provided evidence confirming his belief that fossils had an organic origin and had once been parts of living creatures. Boccone asked the Maltese physician Giovanni Francesco Buonamico (1639- 1680) to reply to Scilla’s enquiry (Morello 1989). Buonamico wrote to Scilla hoping to convince him that fossils formed in the ground through a process of spontaneous generation and had never been parts of living things. Scilla disagreed with Buonamico publishing his reply as ‘La vana speculazione’ in 1670. Scilla used his artistic skills to produce illustrations of fossils and parts of living sea creatures for his book. Specimens were carefully selected that would help the reader understand more clearly what he wrote. He illustrated the teeth of sharks and tests (shells) of sea urchins to show the similarity between the parts of living creatures and fossils. He also illustrated crushed, broken and jumbled up fossils, as evidence that fossils did not grow in the ground. Scilla first made drawings of his specimens in pencil; these were then transferred and engraved onto copper printing plates. As engraver he chose his friend Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635-1700) (Findlen 2012) the foremost illustrator of Roman antiquities of the time. Scilla’s partnership with Bartoli resulted in some of the earliest accurate illustrations of fossils. This translation combines digital versions of the plates from the first edition of ‘La vana speculazione’ with Scilla’s original drawings. Scilla has some remarkably modern insights for the time, particularly with regards to what we would now call the sciences of taphonomy and comparative anatomy. Scilla’s observations on the graded bedding of sediments in the mountains around Messina (page 126) and other geopetal indicators such as shell infills (page 140) are particularly remarkable for the time, given that the superposition of rock strata had only recently been demonstrated by Nicolaus Steno in 1669. Acquired by Dr John Woodward (1667-1728) in 1717, Scilla’s specimens and his drawings found their way to the University of Cambridge after Woodward’s death in 1728. Woodward’s collection formed the nucleus around which the Sedgwick Museum developed, but remains preserved intact in its original early eighteenth century secretaire style collector’s cabinets. For this translation we have tried to follow the pagination of the 1670 edition as closely as possible, page numbers are given in bold in square brackets. In the translated text ‘shells’ is used for Scilla’s term ‘Conchiglie’. This is the literal translation, although it is clear that Scilla means the ‘bivalved’ shells of both bivalves and brachiopods. ‘Turbinate shells’ is used for ‘Turbinetti’ and similar terms. This seems to apply to fossil shells of marine gastropods and gastropod ‘steinkerns’. ‘Shark’ is used for ‘Lamie’,’Lamia’ etc. Scilla applies this term exclusively to the large serrated fossil teeth of Carcharocles megalodon, presumably a direct comparison with those of the great white shark Carcharodon carcharias. ‘Dogfish’ is used for ‘Canicola’, which Scilla seems to apply to several species of reasonably large shark, such as thresher sharks and cow sharks. We have retained Scilla’s original terms in the plate legends so that the reader has the opportunity to draw their own conclusions concerning Scilla’s terminology. Endnotes are marked to distinguish the author as follows, [A.S.] Scilla’s printed marginalia (references unchecked), [Trans.] translators’ comments, [D.P.] D. Pemberton’s comments. Although this translation is intended as a free resource to be used by students and teachers, Scilla writes in a very entertaining style (if a little cutting at times) and I hope that this book will bring enjoyment, even to those with only a passing interest in the subject. I will leave Scilla himself with the final say: ‘I will therefore conclude this part by saying that if you are an erudite man, familiar with good spelling, you will certainly be able to forgive me and the Printer, correcting the errors perhaps of both of us; and if you are otherwise, it will all seem well and good to you, and I do not wish to give you the additional obligation of excusing me.’ Dan Pemberton, Cambridge, in our Museum, 1st June 2016. Selected Bibliography: Accordi, Bruno. 1977. Contributions to the History of Geological Sciences: Agostino Scilla, painter from Messina (1629-1700), and his experimental studies on true nature of fossils. Geologica Romana 17: 129-144 Di Geronimo, Italo. 2014. Agostino Scilla paleontologo. Fossili e filosofie tra ’600 e ‘700. Societa Messinese di Storia Patria. Messina Findlen, Paula. 2012. Agostino Scilla: A Baroque Painter in Pursuit of Science. In Science in the age of Baroque. International Archives of the History of Ideas 208. Ed. O. Gal and R. Chen- Morris, 119-159. Dordrecht: Springer Findlen, Paula. 2015. The Specimen and the Image: John Woodward, Agostino Scilla, and the Depiction of Fossils. Huntington Library Quarterly 78, 2: 217-261 Morello, Nicoletta. 1989. Giovanni Francesco Buonamico and the fossils: A flood of problems. In Italian scientists in the low countries in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Ed. C.S. Maffioli and L.C. Palm, 131-145. Amsterdam: Rodopi Price, David. 1989. John Woodward and a Surviving British Geological Collection from the Eighteenth Century. Journal of the History of Collections 1: 79-95 Romano, Marco. 2014. ‘The vain speculation disillusioned by the sense’: the Italian painter Agostino Scilla (1629–1700) called ‘The Discoloured’, and the correct interpretation of fossils as ‘lithified organisms’ that once lived in the sea, Historical Biology 26, 5: 631-651 Scilla, Agostino. 1670. La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso. Naples Drawing Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense Letter of reply Concerning the marine bodies that are found petrified in various terrestrial locations by AGOSTINO SCILLA Painter, Member of the Accademia della Fucina, known as the Discoloured, Dedicated to the most Illustrious Sir Don Carlo Gregori, Marquis of Poggio Gregorio, Knight of the Star [†2r] THE AUTHOR TO THE READER Kind reader, I know that I must address some words to you, now that I see my letter published; but I will not follow the style of some, who gladly take the opportunity to disclaim their own errors, laying them on the Printer. I have never known how or why it has become the custom, even for very socially inept people, to insult a gentleman: instead of thanking him at the end of the work that he has provided, they dismiss him as a careless and ignorant sleepyhead; even though all men are so prone to making mistakes that it is impossible to imagine anything easier for, or less unique to, a writer.