Certain Fakes and Uncertain Facts: Jan Jonston and The

Certain Fakes and Uncertain Facts Jan Jonston and the Question of Truth in Religion and Natural History

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“Kutya nehéz úgy hazudni, ha az ember nem ösmeri az igazságot”1

odern scienti2c knowledge is expected to be based on trustworthy Mand authenticated facts. As historians have frequently reminded us, our understanding of trust and authenticity has changed substantially over the last few hundred years.2 3rough history, di4erent social, experimental, and rhetorical conventions have been developed and employed to achieve consensus over what constitutes an undeniable fact.3 Forgers quickly adopted and exploited these conventions to produce fakes that could be

* 3is article was written while the author was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Schol- ars and Writers, the New York Public Library. I would like to thank Marco Beretta and Maria Conforti, Alex Marr, Mario Biagioli, Ann Blair, Isabelle Charmantier, Caroline Duroselle-Melish, Howard Hotson, Elidor Mehilli, Bill Rankin, Simon Scha4er, Claudia Swan, Iryna Vushko, Alan Stewart and the audience of the Columbia University Semi- nar for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, as well as the participants of the F for Fakes conference. 1 “It is deucedly di5cult to lie when you don’t know the truth.” Péter Esterházy. Caelestial Harmonies (New York: HarperCollins, 6##7), !. 2 Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century Eng- land (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, !""7). 3 See, for instance, Steven Shapin and Simon Scha4er, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, !"87); 3eodore Porter, Trust in Numbers: !e Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Lie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, !""9); Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 6##:).

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mistaken for such facts. Yet in what circumstances does science need (or need not) to have recourse to authenticated, trustworthy knowledge and facts? Both in the past and in the present, trust and authenticity have often been a non-issue for scienti2c conversation and debates. Regimes of trust not only change with the passage of time, as historical epistemology teaches us. 4 Sometimes they are simply not needed. When discussing scienti2c facts in the pub, for example, you do not provide all the experimental results to convince your drinking partners.5 You might mention the name of the journal (or, these days, the random blog post) where you have read about the latest tidbit on climate change, evolution, the decimation of gorillas, but this is only done in passing. Your interest lies in keeping the conversation going, on entertaining and surprising your friends. You do not necessarily want to convince them. Wonder, mirth and lively conversation do not require an object that has been truly veri2ed. In this chapter, I argue that such a relaxed attitude to authenticated knowledge might not only be found in public houses, but also in works associated with the mainstream of scienti2c activity. Oftentimes, science can be done perfectly well without knowledge that we hold to be securely veri2ed. Trust and truth do not always matter. As a case study, I present seventeenth-century natural history as a mode of inquiry where authentication and trustworthy knowledge were not necessarily the prime features of the discipline. Many naturalists in this period were interested in collecting uncertain facts: potentially true bits and pieces of knowledge, whose origins and validity they could not (or did not even bother to) ascertain.6 Knowledge claims in natural history did not need to

4 On historical epistemology, see Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, On Historicizing Epistemology: An Essay (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 6#!#); Uljana Feest and 3omas Sturm. “What (good) is Historical Epistemology? Editors’ Introduction.“ Erkenntnis, :7 (6#!#):687–;#6. 5 3is hypothetical example is obviously di4erent from the scenario described in Anne Secord. “Science in the Pub: Artisan Botanists in Early Nineteenth-Century Lancashire.” History of Science, ;6 (!""<):69"–;!7. 6 For the related concept of factoids, see Ann Blair. “Humanist Methods in Natural Philosophy: 3e Commonplace Book,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 7; (!""6): 7

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be authenticated, and no one worried if they were fake or untrue. 3e focus is on the Scottish-Polish physician Jan Jonston, the mid-century author of the last major Renaissance encyclopedia of natural history. Little discussed today, Jonston o4ers a fascinating entry into the natural history of possible facts. His aversion to certain knowledge in natural history did not stem from his ignorance of contemporary regimes of piecemeal authentication. In fact, he could write in both registers: he could discuss uncertain facts without bothering about their truth value, but on occasion he could also make claims to to certainty, establishing the authenticity of his facts with the help of complex rhetorical strategies. Both in his religious writings and in his medical practice, he presented his knowledge claims as if they had been based on bulletproof evidence. 3is should not be surprising. Religion was a matter of life and death for Jonston, whose active years coincided with the calamitous era of the 3irty Years’ War. Church was not the topic of light banter in the pub. AEicted by a variety of illnesses, his aristocratic patron similarly wanted bulletproof remedies, not uncertain speculation. In these two 2elds, authenticated knowledge was crucial. Yet authenticity always brings its double with itself: the possibility and the fear that it is buttressed by fake proofs. Indeed, both in religion and in medicine, Jon- ston resorted to ruses and distortions to present his case in a better light; and some of his contemporaries would eventually accuse him of twisting the truth. I argue that, for Jonston, natural history was di4erent. In this 2eld, certain evidence was not all that important. Unstable (and potentially false) facts were absolutely acceptable, and Jonston felt free to ignore the issue of establishing the truth value of his claims. As a result, the problem of faking proofs did not raise its ugly head. If authenticity did not matter, there was no incentive to falsely boost your evidence. If you decided to make no strong truth claims about natural history, no one would worry about accusing you of falsifying data. 3e rest of this paper compares these two di4erent regimes of evidence, anxious authenticity and relaxed uncertainty, in Jonston’s oeuvre.

?FGH(&G'/+G'&- + I,JKH(G '& GH( L'M( JN O+, How do you make a scienti2c career in the midst of war? Sometimes you fake and twist the truth, sometimes you do not care about the truth, but you most certainly have to rely on patrons, publish a lot, and do your best to sur- vive. 3is is, at least, the answer that the life and works of Jan Jonston seem

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to suggest. He was born into a Scottish immigrant family that belonged to the small, religious group of Moravian brethren in Poland, and lost his parents just before he he turned !7.7 In the same year, the 3irty Years’ War broke out, turning the whole of Central Europe into a battle2eld for the following three decades. Life was not easy in Poland during these days, but Jonston managed to thrive. Despite his 2nancial hardships, he was able to travel widely in Europe, taking degrees at St Andrews, Cambridge and Leiden. He acquired a stable 2nancial position by his thirties, enjoying the support of a well-endowed patron. His medical practice at the court of Rafał and Bogusław Leszczyński brought in a steady source of income, which was supplemented by dowry from two strategic marriages within the scope of a single year. His 2rst wife died within weeks of their mar- riage. Without skipping a beat, Jonston married the Polish royal physician Matthaeus Vechner’s daughter, which brought him the money to consider himself established. As he wrote, “so large a dowry has fallen to my lot that the income from it for just a single year may amply su5ce both to feed the family and increase our wealth, even if I neglect my practice.”8 3e happy constellation of strong patronage and kinship networks might explain why Jonston decided to remain Poland for the rest of his life. On several occasions, he refused to accept professorships abroad, despite invitations from a variety of German and Dutch universities. To satisfy local patrons and to communicate with a broader audience abroad, Jonston engaged in a proli2c, and diversi2ed, publication project from his early twenties onwards. His books include a report of a local prophetess of the Moravian brethren, a guidebook for tutors of noblemen, theological treatises, and textbooks on medicine, civil history, natural history. In all these publications, he carefully crafted his texts to the requirements of the audiences. Accordingly, he couched his presentation of facts and information in a variety of rhetorical styles. As it happens, he laid the most emphasis

7 Elias 3omae, Lampas perenni-luca (Brieg: Johann Christoph Jacob, !9:7), p. 7!. Jon- ston’s best and exquisitely researched biography is Tadeusz Bilikiewicz, Jan Jonston: Żyvot i działalność lekarza (Warsaw: Mianowski, !";!). See also Jan Jonston: Lekarz i uczony XVII wieku. A special issue of Historia nauk biologicznych i medycznych, 68 (!":8); Alojzy Konior, Jan Jonston w )## lecie urodzin ($*#+–"##+) (Leszno: Leszczyńskie Towarzysztwo Kulturalne, 6##;). 8 !e Letters of Jan Jonston to Samuel Hartlib, W. J. Hitchens and Adam Matuszewski, eds. (Warsaw: Retro-Art, 6###), p. !;;.

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on convincing his readers when discussing the religious visions of a young aristocratic woman from Bohemia. Common agreement on religious truth was the ultimate dream of everyone in the troubled, post-Reformation world of early modern Europe. In his religious works, Jonston subscribed to the same dream, and deployed complex rhetorical strategies to establish the validity of his claims. His case reveals how the establishment of consensus was not only an issue for early modern natural philosophy, but for other 2elds of knowledge making, as well.9 While historians of science have analyzed in great detail how consensus was achieved in early modern natural philosophy, we know much less about the rhetorical, social and experimental strategies for attempting to come to agreement in matters of religion. Yet, as we shall see, it was just as di5cult to agree on who was a true prophet as it was to determine what facts air pumps produced in an experimental setting.10 In October !96:, baroness Christina Poniatowska began to prophesy. She 2rst predicted the dreadful persecution of her fellow Moravian brethren, followed by the death of the persecutors, the marvelous liberation of the church, and its glorious reinvigoration. 3en her visions began to appear on November !6. She looked up towards the sky, where she saw a bunch of twigs bound together, like a broom, with their tip pointing towards the south. Frightened of the vision, she fell violently ill. Within a few days, she was given up for dead by all. Her respiration stopped, her pulse could not be felt, and her eyes no longer moved. 3e doctor exclaimed: “Here, my art ends.”11 Yet, at this point, the baroness began to walk, and putting her hands high up in the air, exclaimed: “My God, my God, I give you thanks for letting me contemplate the vision of eternal life in this mortal frame.”12

9 For a comparative project on certainty in religion and natural philosophy, see Ian MacLean. “Certainty and Uncertainty in Early Modern 3eology and Natural Philoso- phy.” In Simo Knuttila and Risto Saarinen, eds. !eology and Early Modern Philosophy, $,,#–$-,# (Helsinki: 3e Finnish Academy of Sciences, 6#!#), pp. !#;–!!8. 10 Shapin and Scha4er, Leviathan and the Air-Pump. See also Simon Scha4er. “Piety, Physic, and Prodigious Abstinence.” in Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds. Religio medici. Religion and Medicine in Seventeenth Century England (Aldershot: Ashgate, !""9), pp. !:!–6#;. 11 “Hic mea ars cessat.” Jan Amos Comenius, Historia revelationum Christophori Kotteri, Chritinae Poniatoviae, . . . (s. p., !97"), p. ;<. 12 “Deus mi, Deus mi, gratias Tibi ago quod me in mortalitate hac aeternae vitae imaginem contemplari facis.” Comenius, Historia revelationum, ;<.

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3e baroness’ visions created quite a stir in the midst of the 3irty-Year War that rocked Europe in the 2rst half of the seventeenth century. Start- ing with a rivalry for the Czech crown between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Elector Palatine Frederick V, this religious war soon engulfed the entirety of Central and Eastern Europe. For the members of the Moravian Brethren, threatened in their homeland as the Habsburgs gained an upper hand in Bohemia, Poniatowska could provide especially important guide- lines about the immediate future of their church in the midst of war.13 In her visions, she appeared to speak about the damnation of Burgrave Adam Waldstein and Prince Karl of Lichtenstein, the two fervent supporters of Habsburg catholicization, making clear God’s wrath about the persecution of the Moravians.14 But her visions went beyond taking sides in a war. 3ey could potentially illuminate the ultimate end of history, and the role of the 3irty-Year War in it. Was this war simply the sign of the corruption of modern times? Did it also signal the temporary rise of the Antichrist before the imminent coming of Christ? Or did it only portend the millenial rule of saints, and the reformation of the church, which would have pushed back the Second Coming with another thousand years?15 Such questions lay heavily on the mind of reformed theologians in the age, and Poniatowska’s visions could help them 2nally 2nd a satisfactory answer.16 3e Czech educational visionary Jan Amos Comenius, for example, converted to millenarianism in no small part thanks to Poniatowska, realizing that the rule of saints and the coming of a new, reformed empire was inevitable.17 He became a patron of the visionary baroness, and took her with himself to the Polish town of Leszno. Yet the larger public and even the smaller community of the Moravian brethren were divided about the

13 On the Moravian brethren, see Craig D. Atwood, !e !eology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 6##"). 14 Comenius, Historia revelationum, :<. 15 On millenarianism, see Richard Popkin et al., eds. Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, < vols. (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 6##!); János Kvacsala [Jan Kvacala], «A XVII. századi chiliasmus történetéhez,“ Protestáns Szemle, 6 (!8"#):<68–<7#; Howard Hotson. Paradise Postponed. Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of Calvinist Mil- lenarianism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 6###). 16 See, for example, the case of Johann Heinrich Alsted, as discussed in Hotson, Para- dise Postponed, !78. See also Howard Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted $,..–$*+.: Between Renaissance, Reformation, and Universal Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6###). 17 On Comenius, see Milada Blekastad, Comenius: Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komenius (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, !"9").

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authenticity of Poniatowska’s visions. Why would you trust a sixteen-year- old girl, exhibiting the symptoms of sickness? Could not her visions come from a physical abnormality, such as the obstruction of menstrual blood? Was it maybe her unbridled power of imagination that got out of control? Did the devil play tricks with her? Or was she indeed divine? 3roughout Christianity’s history, similar doubts plagued the reception of visionaries, and only a few of them would eventually win the approval of the church. Any sign of divinity could also be interpreted as the symptom of diabolic possession. As historians of religion have amply documented, the inquisitional processes of investigating heresy and sainthood emerged together in the !;th century, a clear acknowledgment of the thin boundary between the two categories. Women especially were thought prone to fall victim to the devil, or to the Right of imagination, lacking the strong and masculine control of reason. 3e inquisition therefore deployed complex legal strategies to separate heretics from the holy, treating female spirituality as potentially divine, but inherently suspect.18 From the !7th century onwards, a Rurry of treatises hoped (and failed) to establish trustworthy criteria of discernment that one could employ to determine whether a visionary was inspired by God or by the devil, or simply simulated either divine or diabolic possession.19 3is issue was still alive in the !:th century, when Francis Bacon argued in his New Atlantis that members of Solomon’s House also mastered the skill of discernment “between miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts.”20 Jonston entered the history of Poniatowska as part of the male team that led a similar project of authenticating the baroness’s visions. 3is was a novel task for Protestants who could not rely on the traditions of the Catholic Inquisition, and often claimed that miracles had actually ceased

18 Dyan Elliott, Proving Woman: Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culure in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 6##<); Tamar Herzig, “Witches, Saints, and Heretics: Heinrich Kramer’s Ties with Italian Women Mystics,” Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft, ! (6##9):6<–77. For a quali2ed assessment of the relationship between saints and witches, see also Richard Kieckhefer. “3e Holy and the Unholy: Sainthood, Witchcraft, and Magic in Late Medieval Europe,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6< (!""<):;77–;87. 19 Moshe Sluhovsky, Believe not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 6##:). 20 Francis Bacon, New Atlantis, in !ree Early Modern Utopias, Susan Bruce, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, !"""), pp. !<8–!89, !9#. See also Peter Harrison, “Miracles, Early Modern Science, and Rational Religion,” Church History, :7 (6##9):<";–7!!.

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after Christ.21 3e team therefore decided to come up with its own blend of medical examination, biblical exegesis and reliance on credible witnesses. Comenius, Jonston and their colleagues aimed to convince their local patron Rafał Leszczyński, the elders of the Moravian Brethren, and the contemporary public of Europe through a medical consilium, the publication of an account of Poniatowska’s visions, and open discussion at the conclave of the Moravian church.22 Much of our knowledge of these events comes from a short account printed soon after Poniatowska’s visions, the Relations d’une jeune /lle, and a retrospective, expanded version of the Relations, the Hemerologium revelationum from !9;6.23 3ese accounts display a variety of rhetorical strategies to convince readers about Poniatowska’s divinity. Jonston was strongly involved in the publication of both versions. He was responsible for printing and, in all probability, preparing the anonymous manuscript of the Relations d’une jeune /lle, to which he contributed a named testimony. While the Hemerologium revelationum bore Comenius’ name, Jonston spent some time with the author in Leszno in !9;!, and surely discussed the shape and composition of the book with his friend. 24 In these two works, Comenius and Jonston used narratives of conversion stories to convince readers about Poniatowska’s authentic claims to divinity, emphasizing how, opponents of the visionary came to accept her prophecies over time. Universal consensus on Poniatowska’s divinity might

21 On the complex relationship of protestantism to miracles, see Philip M. Soergel, Miracles and the Protestant Imagination: !e Evangelical Wonder Book in Reformation Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 6#!6); Moshe Sluhovsky, “Calvinist Miracles and the Concept of the Miraculous in Sixteenth-Century Huguenot 3ought,” Renaissance and Reformation, !" (!""9):7–67; D. P. Walker, “3e Cessation of Miracles,” in Hermeticism in the Renaissance, Ingrid Merkel and Allen Debus, eds. (Washington: Folger, !"88) pp. !!!–!6<; and Robert Scribner, “Incombustible Luther: 3e Image of the Rerformer in Early Modern Germany,” Past and Present, !!# (!"89):;8–98. 22 [Jan Amos Comenius and Jan Jonston], Relation tres-veritable et miraculeuse, d’une jeune /lle de Boheme (Geneva: Pierre Aubert, !96"). 23 I am citing its !97" edition, which was included in Comenius, Historia revelationum. 24 On the relationship between Jonston and Comenius, see S. Wollgast, “Johann Johnston. Seine Verbindung zu Comenius und seine Stellung in der Wissenschaft,” in P. van Vliet and A. J. Vanderjagt, eds. Johannes Amos Comenius ($,0"–$*-#): Exponent of European Culture? (Amsterdam: KNAW, !""<), ";–!!7. While Jonston called Comenius a friend in !9;6, their relationship eventually soured by the !97#s, when Comenius called Jonston “my secret enemy.” Jan Amos Comenius to Samuel Hartlib, January 9/!9 !977, !e Hartlib Papers -/-"/+B, translated by William Hitchens, www.hrionline.ac.uk/hartlib.

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well have been lacking, but soon everyone would agree with Jonston and Comenius, or so their reports implied. In the beginning of her su4erings, for example, even Poniatowska’s own father, Julian Poniatowski, renounced her and refused to visit her during what everyone expected to be her 2nal illness. When Poniatowski 2nally came to visit her on December 69, he was reluctant to approve, and scolded her heavily for indulging in her visions. Yet it took him only one day to change his mind. On the day of his arrival, Christina told him she would have a vision the next day. “What shall I see then?,” the father asked, and she responded, “3e hand of God over me, a humble worm.”25 And, indeed, when she fell into her trance on the next day, December 68, the father immediately converted. As the Relations wrote,

“Her father [. . .] wrote her on several occasions, in a highly sever manner, to make her stop, and 2nally, he came to visit her himself. He saw her, examined her diligently, if this was not some sort of fantasy or dream, and, after seeing her extasies 2ve times, 2nally confessed that this was the 2nger of God.”26

Even skeptical witnesses could not resist the truth of Poniatowska’s visions, and, as the Relations suggested, soon all the doubters would convert in the footsteps of Poniatowski. 3e rhetorical structure of these accounts was also carefully crafted towards providing an authenticated version of Poniatowska’s visions. 3e Hemerologium revelationum and, to a lesser extent, the Relations both employed the literary technology of virtual witnessing, as described by Steven Shapin and Simon Scha4er.27 3e Relations started with a 2rst- person narrative by Poniatowska, describing her own visions up to January !#, !968, and then continued with the authors’ descriptions of later visions in excruciating detail. 3e narrator provided the exact date and time of each of Poniatowska’s ecstasies, stating, for instance, that “on February !, !968, old style, around 7 pm, she was in her room, sitting on a chair, in good health and disposition. She fell into extasy, and stood up with a

25 “ille, Quid ergo videbo? Illa, Manum Dei super me vermiculum.” Comenius, Historia revelationum, ;". 26 “Son pere, ayant appris ces choses, lui en a escrit à plusieurs fois, et fort seuerement, pour l’en destourner : et en 2n, est venu lui mesme la visiter, et l’a veuë par cinq fois en extase, a 2nalement confessé que c’estoit le doit de Dieu.” Relations d’une jeune /lle, 8. 27 Shapin and Scha4er, Leviathan and the Air-Pump.

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jump.”28 3e Hemerologium revelationum used a similar strategy of Rooding the reader with particulars, and also mentioned the name and social status of those witnessing Poniatowska’s visions. On February ", for example, the authors specifed that “several theologians, noblemen, and other honorable people of both sexes” were present during the visions of Poniatowska, while on January !;, they wrote that, Baron Sadovius and several others also witnessed the 6;rd vision of the Baroness. And, for the morning of December ;#, Jonston and Comenius presented a verbatim transcription of Poniatowska’s words, interspersed with a description of her actions, noting whenever she folded, extended, or lowered her hands, and when she clapped. After uttering “Quomodo vis,” the Relations thus reported that she began to blush, she lowered her face and covered it with her hands, saying, “Verba tua sunt vita.”29 Jonston also became embroiled in the authentication of Poniatowska through medical examination. Soon after the prophetess’ arrival in Leszno, Count Leszczyński assembled a collegium medicum to determine the cause of Poniatowska’s visions. 3e medical team consisted of Marco Eugenio Bonacinna, the count’s physician, the imperial physician Mathias Borbo- nius, and the Polish royal physician Matthaeus Vechner, Jonston’s future father-in-law, as well as the judge Johann Georg Schichtling and the theologian Jacob Wolfagius. 3e committee was supposed to make a verdict after Comenius, Jonston and two other witnesses “recounted historically what they have seen, heard and observed.”30 As the Hemerologium revelationum grudgingly admitted, the committee 2rst decided that, in all probability, the visions were caused by the obstruction of yellow bile and menstrual Row. If male witnesses could not convince the collegium medicum, a miracle was in order. Poniatowska soon became ill and had a new vision. She refused to take medications, and announced that she would recover on her own by 3ursday. And, indeed, on Tuesday, after a series of epileptic seizures and ecstasy, she became healthy and normal in the matter of minutes. Seeing the quick and miraculous recovery, Bonacinna quickly “acknowledged that this was supernatural.” Clearly, Poniatowska was divine.

28 “Le !. Feurier, styl ancien, !968. Enuiron les cinq heures apres midi elle estoit en la chambre, assise sur une chaire, en bonne santé, & disposition. Elle tomba inopinément en extase, et se leua de sursaut.” Relations, 7!. 29 “Quomodo vis. Atque hic rubore faciei contracto vultum submisit, manibusque amplexans dixit, Verba tua sunt Vita.” Comenius, Historia revelationum,

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A conversion from a team of renowned physicians was a major coup for Comenius, Jonston and Poniatowska, and the Hemerologium revelationum o4ered a detailed description of it. 3ere was only a minor problem with it. 3ere was no consensus that it actually happened. While the Hemerologium revelationum presented the conversion as a proof of Poniatowska’s truth, others argued that her supporters carefully altered the event’s details.31 As Comenius and Jonston provided more and more details to establish the authenticity their account, it became ever easier for distractors to charge them with faking at least some of the evidence. In a private letter, published only at the end of the seventeenth century, Matthaeus Vechner claimed that Comenius “feigned” many of the details of the medical examination, and was wrong about the examiners’ change of heart.32 Poniatowska’s visions were surely “singular, but only minimally inspired by anything divine.”33 Vechner also proclaimed that the Hemerologium revelationum falsely reported on what he himself had said, and asked in the end rhe- torically: “Is this the good faith of the historiographer?”34 3e answer was clearly no. 3e Relations and the Hemerologium revelationum were the prod- uct of Poniatowska’s enthusiastic supporters who, in their quest for broader acceptance, carefully crafted a strategical narrative that relied on somewhat distorted evidence in boosting their claims for credibility.

>J,-'&- *(S'/'&( “After you have read this little piece of paper [. . .], burn it.”35 Credibility did not only matter in religion. It was also essential for Jonston’s medical practice, where the renowned naturalist did not shy away from forgery to satisfy his patron’s demands for novel medications. Soon after his involvement with the Poniatowska a4air, Jonston embarked on a grand tour of Europe with Bogusław Leszczyński, the son of Count Rafał. In

31 W. Bickerich. “Ein ärtzliches Gutachten über Christina Poniatowska,“ Zeitschrift der Historischen Gesellschaft für die Provinz Posen, 67 (!"!#):!::–!":. 32 “Deinde hemerologus vester (fortasse ut majorem autoritatem scripto conciliaret), 2ngit collegium medicum ad hanc causam disceptandam fuisse convocatum.” “Erinnerung,” Monatliche Unterredungen einger guten Freunde von allerhand Bücher, 7 (!9";):!!8–!<6, !;". 33 “Singularis autem, alicujus aEatus divini minimum.” “Erinnerung,” !;#. 34 “Haec bona Fides Historiographi?” “Erinnerung,” !<#. 35 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e letters of Jan Jonston, !6<.

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order to gain the trust and friendship of young Bogusław, Jonston decided to resort to ruses and white lies. It was not an easy task to manage an aristocrat’s temperament and feelings while on travel. 3e count was aEicted by “intestinal blackages, . . . , tinnitus a4ecting his hearing, colic pains, tertian ad quartan fevers, to which is added the fear of dropsy and his family’s congenital arthritis,” and expected a cure from Jonston, who picked up his medical degree halfway through the tour.36 Bogusław was especially worried about his hearing, and Jonston decided to consult all major medical authorities in Europe. He got in touch with the natural philosopher and alchemist Sir Kenelm Digby, the English ambassador Sir 3omas Roe, and the intelligencer Samuel Hartlib, asking them for a trustworthy drug, but to no avail. 3e only solution was, therefore, to make one up. Bogusław Leszczyński was apparently most impressed by the secret remedy of an English physician, and was willing to o4er four pounds for it. But Jonston was skeptical about the English medication, which proved hard to acquire, anyway, and wanted to save those four pounds (or potentially pocket it himself). So he decided to sell a trusted, Italian recipe to the Count under the guise of the English secret. He asked Hartlib in a private letter to pre- pare an English version of the Italian prescription, for a mixture of donkey urine, guaiac wood, castor, wild mint, lemon juice, and galban gum, and to send the English version back as if it had come directly from London.37 In order to deceive Leszczyński, who knew Englishmen to be money-oriented, Jonston asked Hartlib to write that he had paid four pounds for the secret, and also to burn the original letter. 3anks to the ruse, Jonston could score several points with the young aristocrat. Bogusław would believe that his tutor acquired the desired medication, his ears would actually feel better because of the e5cacy of the Italian drug, and, in the process, Jonston’s travel budget would receive a boost of four pounds. As this curious episode reveals, Jonston was committed to generat- ing trustworthy knowledge not only in the 2eld of religion, but also in medicine. If the young Leszczyński preferred an expensive and foreign prescription over his own tutor’s remedies, Jonston was ready to go ahead and forge a letter of authenticity for such a social placebo. 3e exploitation of social conventions for the purposes of forgery was, of course, nothing

36 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e letters of Jan Jonston, !6#. 37 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e letters of Jan Jonston, !68.

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new in contemporary Europe.38 3e Polish physician’s experiences echo well the courtly culture of seventeenth-century Europe, where gentlemen diligently read Baltasar Gracián’s deeply cynical Art of Worldy Wisdom, and learned from it how to wear the mask of honnêteté, or honesty, without ever betraying their true feelings. While Jonston was not familiar with Gracián, he might have drawn similar lessons from Montaigne’s Essays. In his large library, the French skeptic was practically the only author who did not directly relate to his scholarly interests in history, religion, medicine or science.39 If facts, certainty, religious beliefs and personal career all hinged on social and rhetorical conventions, and these conventions could easily be exploited through forgery, knowledge and trust were based on shallow foundations indeed. 3e only alternative was, then, to abandon all claims to truth. And, once he turned to publishing natural history, Jonston decided to experiment with this strategy.

T&0G+U)( V'0GJ,'(0 3ere were a variety of reasons to be skeptical about the credibility of natural history in the early modern period, and many natural historians decided, at least on some occasions, to give up the quest for authenticating all of their facts. 3ey just shrugged and admitted that their books contained knowledge that could be either true or false, and there was no way to decide. In his encyclopedical works on natural and civil history, Jonston conveniently serves up all the reasons that could justify such a skeptical stance towards processes of authentication. Deep intellectual considerations and the reality of the contemporary printing world both dictated authors to be suspicious of how solid any kind of knowledge could be. And Jonston was highly suspicious, indeed. Consider the bubalus, for instance, whose name, as Jonston claimed, “is at this day an uncertain thing, as also it seemed to be in Pliny his time; nor had it any peculiar sense among the Greeks.”40 3e Polish naturalist decided

38 Jon R. Snyder, Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 6##"). 39 Halina Sadowska, Nieznany rękopis Jana Jonstona: Wykaz pozycji podręcznego księgozbioru (Wrocław: Wrocławska Drukarnia Naukowa, !":7). 40 Jan Jonston, A Description of the Nature of Four-Footed Beasts (London: Moses Pitt, !9:8), x. 3e English text tends to closely follow the Latin, although is sometimes abbreviated. For the Latin, see Jan Jonston, Historia naturalis de quadrupetibus, Frankfurt: Merian, !976.

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that the bubalus probably referred to the African ox, but acknowledged that this was not for certain. As he noted, the renowned Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, whose works Jonston much admired and often copied verbatim, disagreed with equating these two species. 3e Natural History o4ered a similarly uncommitted account of the bufe, an exotic sort of deer. As Jonston wrote, “what for a Bufe this is, whether the Turo, or Rangifer is uncertain. I have given his print here, as near the truth as I could.”41 Maybe, the bufe was a reindeer, maybe it was a turo, or maybe neither. And, while Jonston assigned a higher truth value to the illustration of the turo, the publisher of the Natural History failed to print the promised image. Even trusted observers could not always help. 3e careful evaluation of earlier sources did not always resolve conRicting accounts of an animal. As Jonston wrote about the rhinoceros’ horns, a topic much debated at least since Albrecht Dürer, “Some say, two in his nose, other say, one in his forehead. Some make the horn strait, like a Trumpet, with a black crosse streaked. Some say it is crooked; some Rat; some, turning up.”42 3e Polish naturalist acknowledged that the recent account of Jacobus Bontius, a Dutch physician based in the East Indies, was a valuable contribution to natural knowledge. Since Bontius was able to personally observe several specimens, his words carried authority. But, unfortunately, the Dutch author’s account of the rhinoceros was pitifully short. According to Jonston, Bontius only claimed that a nasal horn looked “di4erent according to their age: in some ash-coloured, sometimes black, sometimes white.”43 No one could determine the exact color of the horn because it changed with time even for the same specimen. Moreover, at least in Jonston’s retelling, Bon- tius’ account o4ered no advice as to the shape, and the number, of the horns. Intended audience played an important role in Jonston’s decision to present natural history as a discipline of uncertain facts, without wasting too much ink on carefully evaluating the available evidence. 3e world of humanist scholarship might have been pedantic, and expected authors to spell out all their reasons for trusting or distrusting any particular source. Yet others cared much less. A colleague of Comenius, Jonston wrote primarily for young students. He hoped 2rst and foremost to excite and enchant them, as opposed to barraging them with bullet-proof facts. His

41 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, 76. 42 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, 7;. 43 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, 7<.

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aim was to paint in broad strokes a sketch of the wonders of God’s creation, as experienced through human history and the exploration of the natural world. One did not necessarily need to write in the language of serious scholarship to convince young readers of the value of academic work. As Jonston wrote to Samuel Hartlib,

I do not write for learned men. In the schools, as I have remarked, there is the utmost contempt for Natural History; by this pleasurable means I intended to give a taste to the young and whet their appetite, so that they might learn to cultivate it. If I had wished to earn praise from men of learning I would have made a more exact relation, taking no account of age.44

Edutainment was also the o5cial policy of Jonston’s actual pedagogical work. In his didactical programme, written as rector of the Leszno gimnasium, he repeatedly emphasized that history needed to be taught in a “most delightful” manner. 45 Otherwise, students would fail to appreciate the beauty and the importance of this discipline. Jonston’s published volumes on natural history were written with a similar audience in mind. As the introduction to his History of Quadru- peds noted, Jonston’s “purpose was to set down things most pleasant, to make young men delight in naturall history.”46 As Gordon Miller has already emphasized, the Polish naturalist’s pedagogical tendencies limited his engagement with the full armory of critical, humanistic philology.47 Yet I would go further than Miller in emphasizing the fundamental epis- temological instability of the Natural History. Jonston’ reasons for making unstable knowledge claims went beyond his intention to entertain readers. 3ey were also based on his understanding of the natural world.

44 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e Letters of Jan Jonston, !;<. 45 Johannes Kvacala, Die pädagogische Reform des Comenius in Deutchland bis zum Ausgange des XVII Jahrhunderts (Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogica XXVI) (Berlin: Hofmann and Comp., !"#8), pp. ;#!–;!6. 46 Jan Jonston, A Description of the Nature of Four-Footed Beasts. 47 Gordon L. Miller. “Beasts of the New Jerusalem: John Jonston’s Natural History and the Launching of Millenarian Pedagogy in the Seventeenth Century,” History of Science, <9 (6##8):6#;–6<;, 6#:. While Miller also discusses Jonston’s readiness to discuss “things doubtfull,” (and emphasizes the Millenarian context of his textbooks), he concludes that Jonston was a moderate humanist critic.

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Part of the reason why even humanist philology could not cut through the forest of uncertain facts was the baEing biodiversity of Earth. Animals could come in all colors and shapes, and it would make little sense to claim with certainty that the hippopotamus was 2ve cubits tall, if, the following week, an Italian would report that its height was only three and a half feet.48 And this was true for all quadrupeds (if not for all animals), and not only for the hippopotamus. As Jonston wrote in his introduction, quadrupeds were

of a middle nature between the airy and the waterish, are for the most part covered with hair, sometimes with shells, and do go upon four feet. [. . .] In all the rest there is a manifold and incomprehensible varietie, which, if you should well consider, would strike you with astonishment.49

It was very hard to make general statements when animals were marked by in2nite variability, especially across geographical regions. 3e lion, for instance, was intimately related to a host of similar animals, as Jonston claimed, such as the mitzli, the quamitzli, the macamitzli, the cuitlamitzli, the tlalmitzli, and the cacamitzli, all American species 2rst described by Nieremberg’s Historia naturalis.50 Foxes were also “of diverse colours, sizes, and nature.”51 Jonston’s Natural History declared that Egyptian foxes were smaller than Greek ones, but the Peruvian ones were even smaller. As for color, European foxes might have been red, in most instances, but the foxes of the North were black, white and glistening, and white ones were especially prevalent in Sweden, Norway and Nova Zembla. If this was not enough, Jonston also informed readers that the foxes near the Caspian Sea had been successfully domesticated, and wrote a separate entry on Indian foxes and the fox-like creatures of America. Clearly, uncertainty and variability were built into a system that was marked by God’s omnipotence. It was not only particular facts that were marked by uncertainty. Jon- ston’s classi2cational system was also provisional and unstable. 3e scholarship has long debated whether Carolus Linnaeus conceived of taxonomy

48 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, 9#–9!. 49 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, !. 50 On the complex visual world of Nieremberg, see Jose Ramon Marcaida, Juan Eusebio Nieremberg y la ciencia del Barroco. Conocimiento y representacion de la naturaleza en la Espana del siglo XVII, Doctoral dissertation (Madrid: Universidad Autonoma, 6#!!). 51 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, x.

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as an arti2cial system, devised by humans to facilitate understanding the world, or whether it reRected the order of nature as created by God.52 His- torians have come to understand that, while Linnaeus believed that animals and plants were organized into natural classed by God, he also realized that his Systema naturae did not mirror this divine system. Linnaeus’ pro- posed taxonomy was only a convenient system until God’s natural order was revealed. 3e classi2catory system of Jonston was also arti2cial and subject to revision. At the end of the volume on quadrupeds, for example, Jonston discussed a number of species under the heading “certaine outland- ish foure-footed creatures of a doubtfull kind.” 3ese were animals that he could not 2t into his taxonomy. As he wrote,

having through Gods grace 2nished the History of the Foure-footed Beasts, as many sorts as are, as yet knowen, I thought good to adde this appendix about forreigne doubtfull Creatures, which I am yet thinking to what head, or kind to referre.53

Copying straight from the Peter Martyr and Nieremberg’s Historia naturalis, Jonston then discussed brieRy such animals as the Tlacaxolotl, the Cappa, the Howler, the Su, the Peva, the stinking beast, and the Gra4a. Little information was available on this animals. As for the Gra4a, he only knew that it was small-headed, long-necked, with great forefeet, and red spots on a background of white and red. Similarly, Jonston could report on the Peva only that it was “as big as a small cat.”54 No wonder he could not classify it. 3e rest of Jonston’s taxonomy was standing on wobbly feet, anyway. In his volume on quadrupeds, for example, the Polish naturalist used the morphology of feet as the major order of classi2cation. Like other contemporary natural historians, he arranged quadrupeds into the major classes of solid-hooved, cloven-hooved and toed animals. Yet such a system soon reached its limits when it turned out that animals belonging to the same species could sometimes have di4erent feet. 3e goat belonged to the class

52 See Phillip Sloan, ”John Locke, John Ray, and the Problem of the Natural System,” Journal of the History of Biology, 7 (!":6):!–7;; John L. Heller. “3e Early History of Bino- mial Nomenclature,’’ Huntia, ! (!"9<):;;–:#. 53 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, !!!. 54 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, !!6. As for behavior, Jonston added that the Peva barked at the sight of a tiger.

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of cloven-footed animals, yet its Illyrian, Indian and African varieties did not have cloven feet.55 A similar confusion reigned amongst hippopotami. While they were treated amongst the cloven-footed animals, only one of the two hippopotamus illustrations showed the animal with cloven feet.56 3e other hippo proudly displayed its four toes, in accordance with the claims of the recent authors, as Jonston had to admit. Quadruped systematics were in the process of constant revision. 3e Natural History’s provisional system came with the caveat that Europeans would soon be acquainted with more new animal species, which would help reform of contemporary, and imperfect, systems of classi2cation. 3e variability of nature was not the only reason for refraining from presenting bulletproof facts. Jonston might well have embraced uncertain facts, and welcomed revisions to current knowledge, because of the millenarian beliefs that drove his espousal of the case of Poniatowska. As Margaret Jacob argued already several decades ago, the scienti2c revo- lution received strong support from millenarian thinkers, who believed that the growth of scienti2c knowledge was just one sign of the coming, thousand-year-old reign of saints.57 Earlier, Renaissance authors might have emphasized the superiority of the knowledge of the Ancients, but radical protestants took the side of the moderns in claiming that science was ever growing. 3e Revelations and the Book of Daniel o4ered strong evidence that, after the four sinful empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, a 2fth monarchy of saints would precede the Last Judgment. During that millenial reign, all 2elds of knowledge would be reformed and earlier, incorrect, beliefs would stand recti2ed.58 3ere was little chance for certain knowledge, though, before the saints came marching in. Jonston strongly supported the millenarian interpretation of history, and not only in his a4air with Poniatowska. He organized his historical chronology along the scheme of Daniel’s four monarchies, and discussed

55 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, x. 56 Jonston, Description of Four-Footed Beasts, x. 57 Margaret Jacob, “Millenarianism and Science in the Late Seventeenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas, ;: (!":9):;;7–;

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his millenarian beliefs in detail in his Constancy of Nature, which explained why the Ancient world was not superior to seventeenth-century Europe.59 In the 2eld of science, Jonston thought that his contemporaries clearly surpassed the knowledge of earlier philosophers. When you compared the achievements of Lipsius, Keckermann and Bacon with Seneca, Epictetus and Plutarch, the moderns clearly came out as winners. In natural, civil, and ecclesiastical history, the accounts of the Ancients were “full of fables,” but the moderns vastly improved the situation. 3e advent of printing made books “cheaper, more common and more correct,” Jonston argued, and technological innovation knew no bounds, as evidenced by the recent invention of the mariner’s compass, the telescope, and Cornelius Drebbel’s perpetual motion machine.60 Modern Europe bettered the Ancients even in the 2eld of ethics. 3e Romans might have been renowned for their morals, but, in fact, “the cruelty of the Roman people was extreme.”61 As Jonston pointed out, Roman militias murdered one million Jews during the siege of Jerusalem, a clear example of egregious behavior. As a corollary, Jonston could be con2dent that, with time’s passing, his own works would be superseded by better-informed and more complete accounts. Knowledge was always only provisional. Jonston’s rhetorical strategies in the Natural History thus stand in a stark contrast with the approach he took with the Relations d’une jeune /lle. 3ere, his aim was to prove one, crucial fact beyond doubt. For Jonston and Comenius, Poniatowska’s visions were the singular experimentum crucis that determined the future of the Moravian Church, and the whole of humanity. Here, the Natural History’s pedagogical, natural theology aimed at proving God’s greatness through o4ering an encyclopedic list of somewhat dubious facts, each of which could fail without invalidating the general argument. Readers were not expected to read the Natural History cover to cover, nor were they expected to accept all its claims. Even if a number of Jonston’s entries contained false information, the rest still proved God’s greatness in su5cient detail. If a book wanted to evoke wonder and delight through the

59 Jan Jonston, An History of the Constancy of Nature (London: John Streater, !97:). 60 For these issues, see also Vera Keller, “3e ‘New World of Sciences’: 3e Temporality of the Research Agenda and the Unending Ambitions of Science,” Isis, !#; (6#!6)::6:–:;<; and Vera Keller. “Accounting for Invention: Guido Pancirolli’s Lost and Found 3ings and the Development of Desiderata,” Journal of the History of Ideas, :; (6#!6):66;–6<7, which also contains a helpful discussion of probable matters of fact. 61 Jonston, !e Constancy of Nature, !6:.

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overkill of its number of entries, the truth value of each tidbit of knowledge could receive a low ranking. Jonston’s contrasting methodological commitments provide an inter- esting comparison with Isaac Newton. In their recent book on Newton’s chronology, Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold have argued that the English luminary operated with widely di4ering criteria of evidence across a large number of disciplines.62 While experimental evidence, boosted by the careful use of averages, held the place of pride in Newton’s eyes, he was also willing to consider less robust proofs and to hypothesize on those occasions where solid evidence was lacking. Similarly to Newton, Jonston also operated within multiple regimes of evidence, although his methodol- ogy tended to be less revolutionary. While Newton attempted to reform chronology with novel applications of mathematical astronomy, Jonston simply abandoned the exacting methods of humanist philology in favor of more lax attitudes to truth. As he wrote to Hartlib, “it is one thing to seek a Method, another to seek the exact truth.”63 Disagreement and lack of certitude were necessary parts of any system of knowledge.

LH( T&/(,G+'&G1 JN IFU)'0H'&- Intellectual reasons were only half of the story, though, when it came to Jonston’s decision to include uncertain facts in his encyclopedias. While his millenarian ideas may have been paired with a belief in societal and scienti2c progress, his personal experiences revealed that the world of saintly perfection has not come yet. His precarious situation in the midst of the 3irty Years’ War, the lack of agreement on Poniatowska’s divinity, and discord in the scholarly community told him at least that much. While he heralded the printing press as a useful invention in the advancement of knowledge, Jonston must have realized that the world of publishing did not exactly support the production of trustworthy facts. Seventeenth-century printers operated under pressure with short deadlines, and gave low priority to precision and certainty.64 3ese conditions made it literally impossible for Jonston to check for the veracity of every statement in the Natural History,

62 Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold, Newton and the Origin of Civilization (Princ- eton: Princeton University Press, 6#!6). 63 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e Letters of Jan Jonston, !6". 64 Adrian Johns. !e Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, !""8.

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which was written and published during an astonishingly short time period. He could not have spent much more than 2ve years on completing the text of his seven-volume magnum opus. His medical textbook, the Idea universae medicinae practicae libris VIII, appeared in !9<< and his taxonomy of trees in !9<9, while the the last volume of the Natural History was already out by !97;. And, while most naturalists relied on amanuenses to gather, select, copy and fact check vast amounts of data, Jonston did not have access to such expert help in Poland. As he wrote to Hartlib bitterly in !9<7,

As regards the amanuenses, though I could wish I had no need of any or might supply them myself, yet I see this to be impossible, in part because as it is I must somewhat neglect my medical practice on account of the work, and in part because everything is dear here in Leszno and our wives loudly complain that everything spent on books or the writing of books is a waste of money.65

Correspondence with better equipped naturalists did not remedy isolation in Poland. While the norms of the contemporary Republic of Letters dictated the honest exchange of trustworthy information, Jonston’s encounters with other scholars did not live up to this ideal. 3e Swiss Johann Caspar Bauhin, the son of the famous author of the Pinax, failed to respond to Jonston’s inquiries about the progress on the !eatrum Botanicum. As Jon- ston wrote to him in a reminder, he has

waited in vain for your response to my last letters, either because they have not been delivered because of the many interruptions at places, or because your business has not allowed you [to 2nish it], or because they have perished.66

Jonston had a similarly disappointing experience with the mechanical philosopher Isaac Beeckman in Dordrecht, who was “ill-humored and not communicative,” and did not respond to letters.67

65 Hitchens and Matuszewski, !e Letters of Jan Jonston, !9<7, !;9. 66 “Quia frustra a Te ad meas ultimas seu quod non reddita in tanta locorum intercapedine, seu quod per occupationes hucusque non licuerit, seu quod interierit, responsum, exspecto ideo hasce, cocasione sic ferente, reponere placuit“ Jan Jonston to Johann Caspar Bauhin, !97;, Basel University Library, G I 96. 67 “Rector zu Dort Becmannus . . . morosus et non communicativus. Dn. Ionstonus scripsit aliquoties ad illum proposuit Quaestiones sed non respondet.” Samuel Hartlib,

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Yet all these practical concerns about amanuenses and foreign correspondents were dwarfed by the issue of the publisher. As Sachiko Kusu- kawa and Lorraine Daston have claimed, the relationship between natural historians and their printers was fraught with conRicts throughout the early modern period.68 As a result, some naturalist authors attempted to closely control the work of the publisher and the illustrator to ensure the delivery of a trustworthy produce. Jonston was di4erent. He simply gave up on supervising every aspect of the publication process. While he brought the Relations d’une jeune /lle to the Netherlands in person to ensure its faithful printing, he exercised no such care with the Natural History, and happily accepted the inRuence of publisher and printmaker Matthaeus Merian and his family business over the 2nal version of his encyclopedia.69 Jonston may have come to know Matthaeus Merian either through common friends, or their common interest in millenarian protestantism. From early on, Merian served as the publisher and supporter of Robert Fludd, the English hermetic philosopher that Jonston stayed with in Eng- land. In addition, although Merian was o5cially a member of the Lutheran church, the local authorities charged him with belonging to the followers of Valentin Weigel, and two of his children would later join the Labadists in the Netherlands.70 Merian also published such millenarian protestant authors as the Silesian Johann Dobricius, and, in his private correspondence, he also discussed the four kingdoms of Daniel, and the prophecies relating to the break-out of the 3irty-Year War.71 Jonston probably felt a

Ephemerides !9;< Part <, !e Hartlib Papers "0/"/)+A, www.hrionline.ac.uk/hartlib. 68 Sachiko Kusukawa, Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth- Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 6#!6); Lorraine Daston. “Observation,” in Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Susan Dackerman, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 6#!!), pp. !69–!;;. 69 Matthaeus Merian died halfway through the process of publication, which was com- pleted by his heirs. 70 Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich, Matthaeus Merian d. Ä.: eine Biographie (Hamburg: Ho4mann und Campe, 6##:), p. !9!. 71 On Dobricius, see Wüthrich, Matthaeus Merian d. Ä., p. !99. For the Merian on prophecies, see “Sonsten ist auch wohl zu bedenken, das man eben nicht alle weißagung und propheteiungen, so in dieser zeit an vielen enden, von gelehrten und ungelehrten menschen fürgebracht worden sein soll gantz hinwer4en, oder lästern, den die schri4t uns gnugsam lehret das wir die weißagung nicht verachten sollen, aber wohl prü4en, ob selbe mit dem sinn der schri4t zu stimme.” Merian to Maria Jahn, October !#, !9;:, printed in Matthaeus Merian, Briefe und Widmungen, ed. Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich (Hamburg: Ho4man und Campe, 6##"), pp. 7#–7<.

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strong spiritual kinship with Merian, and even used him as a middle-man to forward letters to him from correspondents in Western Europe.72 Relinquishing full authorial control over his illustrated encyclopedia was probably the only option for Jonston, anyway. Early modern works of natural history fell into the most expensive category of books. While one could buy a Bible for one guilder in the contemporary Netherlands (and the Relations must have sold for even less), an illustrated atlas’s price varied between !7 and ;# guilders. Even a hundred years after publication, Jonston’s Historia piscium was still circulating for the price of !7 guilders.73 Because of the heavy investment cost, publishers tended to control authors more carefully than in the case of cheap books without images. 3e Meri- ans were no exception. Matthaeus Merian enjoyed being the prime mover of a publication project, hiring authors and gathering content on his own. When he decided to publish a third volume to the !eatrum Europeaum, which would o4er an account of events in Europe between !9;; and !9;9, the publisher commissioned the theologian Heinrich Oraeus to author the text. 3ough Oraeus was the nominal author of the text, Merian also participated in the process of gathering materials, and sent a letter to the mayor of Strasbourg, asking for an account of recent events in the city.74 Not that such a controlling, managerial approach ensured error-free volumes. Working at a fast pace, Merian’s standards were not always high. When Johann Caspar Bauhin complained about the typos in his father’s posthumous Vivae imagines corporis humani, Merian had to admit that the text was peppered with typos to the point of embarrassment, and promptly laid all responsibility on the careless printer.75 Jonston experienced even worse setbacks when working with the Meri- ans. On repeated occasions, communication between the author and the publisher seem to have broken down completely. As a result, the visual world of the Natural History became chaotic. 3e volume on the History

72 “Responsoriae si ad Matthaeum Merianum Francofurtum ad Moenum missae fuerint, recte ab eodem ad me curabuntur,” Jan Jonston to Johann Caspar Bauhin, September 9, !9<6, Basel University Library G I 96. 73 Johannes Gesner to Johann II Bernoulli, !:7!, Basel University Library, L I a 9";. 74 Merian to Ammeister und Rat der Stadt Strassburg, October 6", !9;9, Merian, Briefe und Widmungen, p. ;". 75 “Est ist mir gar leidt das der Buchtrucker solches in dem werkh so gros versehen hatt, dessen ich mich nicht vesehen hatte, der Her. D wolle mir solches nicht in unguttem au4nehmen, wie auch das ich seine beide schreiben nicht eher beantwortet habe.” Merian to J. C. Bauhin, April <, !9

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of Quadrupeds, for example, appeared with the wrong set of plates. In his entries, Jonston repeatedly refers to illustrations that do not appear in the volume, and, conversely, the engraving plates tend to show animals that are not discussed within the text. Consider the case of the missing calf. As Jonston wrote at the end of his entry on cattle, discussing monstrous creatures, “you shall here also have the print of a monstrous calfe with two bodies, upright, and with 2ve eares.”76 Yet, however much the reader looks in the Historia quadrupedum, the image does not show up. You need to consult Aldrovandi’s Historia quadrupedum, instead, to 2nd the illustration of this monster.77 Jonston probably wanted to lift the woodcut from Aldrovandi’s work, published just a few decades earlier in Bologna, but the Merians nixed the choice. Similarly, the entry on the European bison ended with the statement “we have added here a 2gure of the head and the bones,” again referring to the image of the bison head from Aldrovandi, but no actual 2gure showed up among the plates.78 In the next entry on the sheep, copying verbatim from Aldrovandi, Jonston also promised an image of the “Colonian [sheep, which is] roughter because kept ever abroad. Wee shall represent their shaggy shape to you.”79 By now, readers had probably given up on expecting a corresponding image. 3is sheep had also gone missing halfway between Poland and Frankfurt. 3e Merians’ decision to replace Jonston’s original illustrations with new engravings was probably driven by the di4ering market strategies of author and publisher. For Jonston, the Natural History’s major selling point was its short and entertaining entries that could delight a student without miring him in the details that Gesner and Aldrovandi provided. For Merian, who was one of the best printmakers of the century, the Natural

76 Jonston, A Description of Four-Footed Beasts, p. ;!, “Monstrum bicorporeum erectum quinque auribus, ut & caput vituli hic etiam expressum habebis,” p. 79. 3e calf’s head is also missing. 3e contemporary English translation tends to be faithful to the original text, although it abbreviates the entries on several occasions. 77 Ulisse Aldrovandi, Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia (Frankfurt: Zunner, !9<:), p. !;:. 78 Jonston, A Description of Four-Footed Beasts, ;6. 3e illustration is probably the one in Aldrovandi, Quadrupedum historia, p. ;9!. 79 Jonston, A Description of Four-Footed Beasts, ;:; the Latin original says: “Colonice dicebantur, hirsutae, quia quae agris colebantur cujus iconem hic damus.” Compare with Aldrovandi’s version: “nam quae hirsutae sunt, Colonicae dicebantur, quia in agris colebantur,” Aldrovandi, Quadrupedum historia, p. <#!, with an illustration of a shaggy sheep on the top of the page.

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History could become a bestseller because of its engraved images. Jonston’s Natural History was one of the 2rst illustrated encyclopedias of zoology to appear with copperplate engravings, and not with woodcuts. Facing com- petition from the Frankfurt 2rm of the heirs of Nikolaus Bassée, which had already published some of Aldrovandi’s volumes with engravings, Merian probably felt compelled to follow suit with even more impressive illustrations.80 He included only full-size illustrations of quadrupeds in the Historia quadrupedum, which he often copied from renowned artists like Peter Paul Rubens or Adriaen Collaert.81 Illustrations of body parts, such as the calf’s head, were just a bit too pedestrian. Yet why not update the textual cues if the illustrations have been replaced? One can only assume that Merian did not want to delay publication by asking Jonston, or another editor, to rewrite the text, which might even have been typeset at this point. He banked on the assump- tion that no one would bother about carefully checking the entries of the encyclopedia. And he was right. 3e English translation, published two decades later, slavishly copied the Latin text, and did not omit the embar- rassing references to non-existent pictures. Eighteenth-century re-editions of Jonston in Latin also remained faithful to the errors of the original. Both Hendrick Ruysch’s edition from !:!8, and the mid-!8th-century edition from Heilbronn retain the original, and erroneous, text. Jonston had little incentive to publish only truthful statements when nobody even bothered to compare his text with the illustrations. Students probably only learned the textual information that they would be examined upon, and leisurely readers probably only looked at the engravings, without taking the pains to read the scholarly Latin. Similar problems also beset the engravings of the Historia insectorum. For this volume, Jonston again decided to copy Aldrovandi’s images, and, in this case, Merian acquiesced, probably because of the relative lack of contemporary entomological illustrations. While it was easy to replace an old woodcut of a lion with an artful engraving, there were no alternative sources for the Italian naturalist’s little-known spiders and bugs. Yet, even in this case of slavish copying, numerous inaccuracies crept into the volume.

80 I thank Caroline Duroselle-Melish to call my attention to the Frankfurt editions of Aldrovandi. 81 On borrowings in Jonston’s Natural History, see Daniel Margocsy. “3e Camel’s Head: Representing Unseen Animals in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” Netherlands Yearbook of Art History, 9! (6#!!):96–87.

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Some of the erroneous illustrations could be traced back to Aldrovandi. For example, the Italian naturalist had already bemoaned that his illustrator included two pebbles, decorated with a funny human face, among the bedbugs, but nonetheless agreed to the publication of the images.82 Jonston carefully copied out Aldrovandi’s complaints about these images, and then went on to reprint them.83 In other cases, the blame could be safely put on the shoulders of the Merians. On several occasions, the engraver did not do a careful job with the numbering of the images. To give one example, Table I pictured twenty-one kinds of wasps and hornets, but the text only discussed thirteen illustrations for the wasps, and did not say a word about the hornets. Moreover, the illustrations were not numbered, which made it impossible for readers to determine which image referred to which entry amongst the wasps.84 Were you expected to start counting wasps from the top left, or the top right? Or maybe even from the bottom? 3e situation did not get better when Jonston discussed Aldrovandi’s butterRies, either. To save on space, Merian decided to condense eight of Aldrovandi’s tables into one, densely illustrated plate, and even managed to number each specimen. In the process, though, several of the butter- Ries Rew away. Jonston carefully copied Aldrovandi’s discussion of the six butterRies on Table II, for example, but readers could only see 2gures !–; and 7–9 in the 2nished plate. Figure < went missing. And things went only downhill from there. As Jonston himself admitted, the numbering of images went awry here because Figs. 6 and ; referred to the dorsal and ventral view of the same butterRy.85 He failed to mention, though, that the engraver omitted Fig. !, and compensated for the loss by having two Figs. <, two Figs. 7, and two Figs. 9.86 Image and text told two di4erent stories about the world of insects, leaving any pretense at certainty far behind.

82 Ulisse Aldrovandi, De animalibus insectis (Bologna: Bellagamba, !9#6), p. 7<6. 83 “De suis ita Aldrovandus. Ii, quos ego diversis temporibus observavi, di4erunt invicem colore magnitudineque et latitudine, sed pictor deceptus nominis vicinitate exiguum quemdam silicem in quo humana facies expressa est, pro Cimice primo et secundo loco depinxit.” Jan Jonston, Historia naturalis de insectis (Frankfurt: Merian, !97;), p. <#. 84 Jonston, Historia naturalis de insectis, pp. ;6–;;. 3e !9#6 edition of Aldrovandi does not have numerotation, either, but it presents the thirteen wasps in a clear and legible order. Aldrovandi, De animalibus insectis, p. 6#;. 85 “Secundus, qui numero secundo et tertio prone et supine depictus est, ex eodem est genere.” Jonston, Historia naturalis de insectis, p. <8. 86 One cannot charitably assume that these double images are also showing the dorsal and ventral view of the same species, unfortunately. 3e errors probably arise from the fact

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>'-. ! Reindeer and other deer. Jonston, Historia quadrupetum, Tab ;:. Notice the lack of turo. Source: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/jonston.html

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>'-. 6 Hippopotami. Jonston, Historia quadrupetum, Tab <". Look at the feet. Source: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/jonston.html

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>'-. ; Bees, wasps, hornets and cicadas. Jonston, Historia naturalis de insectis, Tab !. Identify all the wasps correctly. Source: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/jonston.html

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>'-. < Aldrovandi’s Butter2ies. Jonston, Historia naturalis de insectis, Tab 7. Look at the system of numbering. Source: http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/ jonston.html

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WJ&/)F0'J& As this paper has argued, Jonston used di4erent regimes of evidence in his long career. When it came to religion, or working with his patrons, he presented himself as if he was adhering to the highest standards of truth, providing fake medications and contributing to embellished narratives to convince his audiences about his expertise in medicine and religion. When it came to natural (and civil) history, though, Jonston abandoned the regime of truth.87 He no longer relied on forgery to present his knowledge as authenticated. Instead, he suggested that historical facts were inherently unstable, and that this was not necessarily a problem. Such a narrative o4ers a contrast to the historiography that emphasizes the importance of establishing certain facts. As Harold Cook, Lorraine Daston, Mary Poovey and Barbara Shapiro have argued, the emerging culture of established, empirically and socially veri2ed facts played an important role in the development of modern science.88 In addition, historians like Anthony Grafton, Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold have dissected in great detail how early modern scholars employed humanist philology, experimental techniques and mathematical prowess to produce incontrovertible evidence in both the human and the natural sciences.89 In the 2eld of natural history, in particular, Brian Ogilvie has brilliantly shown how Renaissance naturalists relied on the techniques of philology to

that Jonston’s engraving is a mirror image of the Frankfurt edition of Aldrovandi (where the numerotation is also confused), with new, additional (and incorrect) notation for the tables. See Ulisse Aldrovandi, De animalibus insectis libri septem (Frankfurt: Hofer and Treudel), !966, Fig. ; facing p. "8. 87 Jonston also published a complete history of the world, whose rhetorical structure is not unlike that of the natural history. 88 Harold J. Cook, Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 6##:); Lorraine Daston, “Baconian Facts, Aca- demic Civility and the Prehistory of Objectivity,” Annals of Scholarship, 8 (!""!):;;:–;9<; Lorraine Daston. “Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe,” Critical Inquiry, !8 (!""!):";–!6<; Mary Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, !""8); Barbara Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England, $,,#–$-"# (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 6###). 89 Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, !"8;–!""<); Buchwald and Feingold, Newton and the Origin of Civilization.

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carefully weigh the evidence of Ancient and modern authors in the process of establishing certain facts about plants and animals.90 Yet, in recent years, we have also seen an emerging interest in cultures that operated with less strongly established facts. As Mark Waddell, Cath- erine Abou-Nemeh and Isabelle Charmentier have claimed, the works of natural philosophers and natural historians can often best be understood as hypothetical accounts of possible, but not veri2ed, facts or factoids.91 In a similar vein, Mary Baine Campbell has explored the intersections of early modern science with literary 2ction to uncover how scienti2c practitioners hypothesized about nature.92 3is chapter has joined these discussions by emphasizing the heuristic value of collecting uncertain, and potentially false, facts without paying too much attention to their truth value. For Jonston, the European encounter with America and Asia revealed that nature’s variability went beyond all expectation. New animals from the various corners of the world upset long-established truths about animals and plants. From the perspective of a protestant millenarian, moreover, knowledge was inherently provisional before the arrival of the millenial rule of the saints. And, in more practical terms, Jonston was working under tight deadlines, and was very much aware that his publisher would reshape his encyclopedia, anyway. Jonston’s divergent attitudes to evidence in the Relations d’une jeune /lle and the Natural History also point towards an important feature of certain facts. I would suggest that Jonston felt compelled to authenticate facts only when these facts were perceived to have agency. Certain facts were always embroiled in a larger set of theoretical or practical issues, which they were supposed to resolve. If one were to embrace Latourian terminology,

90 Brian W. Ogilvie, !e Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe (Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 6##8). 91 Mark Waddell, “3e World, as It Might Be: Iconography and Probabilism in the Mundus subterraneus of Athanasius Kircher,” Centaurus, <8 (6##9):;–66; Catherina Abou- Nemeh. “3e Natural Philosopher and the Microscope: Nicolas Hartsoeker Unravels Nature’s “Admirable Oeconomy,” History of Science, 7! (6#!;):!–;6; Isabelle Charmantier, “L’ornithologie entre Renaissance et Lumières: le ‘Traitté general des oyseaux’ de Jean B. Faultrier (!99#),” Anthropozoologica, <9 (6#!!)::–67; Isabelle Charmantier, M. Greengrass and T. R. Birkhead, “Rewriting Renaissance Ornithology: Jean Baptiste Faultrier’s Traitté general des oyseaux” (!99#), Archives of Natural History, ;7 (6##8):;!"–;;8. 92 Mary Baine Campbell, Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 6##<).

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one could say that, for Jonston, facts had to be veri2ed when they were to become allies in forming a combative network against human and natural enemies. You cared about the truth value of a statement when you used it in a debate to disprove another religion. You cared about the truth value of a statement when it con2rmed your philosophical system. You cared about the truth value of a statement when it contributed to healing your patron. In such situations, facts needed to be securely veri2ed, even if this was achieved only through forgery. When facing opposition to Poniatowska’s vision, Jonston and Comenius immediately applied all their knowledge of rhetoric to write up a convincing narrative. And when trying to impress his patron, Jonston immediately set to forge a letter of authentication about his ear drug. Certain facts thus were neither brief nor particular, because they were deeply entangled within a larger web of arguments. In the process of authenticating Poniatowska’s divinity, Jonston and Comenius thus wrote up lengthy treatises that veri2ed her status and established her signi2cance for world history; and to convince Leszczyński of the e5cacy of his drug, Jonston needed to build an elaborate narrative, full of ruse. Facts without an immediate, direct consequence, however, did not inherently need to be true, and could be stated concisely indeed. Embrac- ing uncertainty could be a highly productive strategy in natural history, where bulletproof facts about exotic animals were few and far between. It was good to be aware of what might be hiding in the deep forests of exotic continents, leaving the 2nal verdict for later explorers. In addition, God’s magni2cence would not be called into doubt if any particular one of his marvels turned out not to exist. After all, who could claim with certainty that God really did not or could not create the animals listed in his Natural History? 3ere was no way to disprove the existence of a species, especially in a world where God was omnipotent. And, in more practical terms, it was much easier to 2ll up the pages of your encyclopedia with entertaining and plausible facts than with less exciting, but securely authenticated evidence. In contemporary cabinets of curiosities, similarly, collectors often exhibited curious naturalia even if they suspected that they were the playful creations of a natural historian. You did not need to stick to reality if your aim was to delight and to evoke wonder. Jonston himself included such fake dragons amongst the illustrations of his Historia draconum, copying Aldrovandi. In so far as the multiple-headed hydra was concerned, he acknowledged that this animal was an invention of the poets. Yet, when it came to the basilisk, Jonston did not draw such a distinction between fake and true specimens.

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He accepted that real basilisks existed, and then o4ered an image based on a specimen prepared from a ray. Although Jonston realized that this specimen was the creation of a natural historian, he still thought that it o4ered a good enough illustration of how the real species might have looked.93 3e dichotomy of fake and true knowledge dissolved in the domain of the plausible and potentially true. Jonston’s abandonment of a regime of truth was only possible because early modern natural historians were not necessarily theory builders. Unlike Francis Bacon, they did not actually attempt to establish a secure system of knowledge, building on the careful comparison of facts. In the Novum Organum, Bacon o4ered a wonderful example of how particular instances could be marshalled to determine the exact nature of heat.94 In such a situation, it was imperative to establish that all evidence was secure, because otherwise, the whole edi2ce of induction failed. Yet such a Baconian programme was never adopted by Jonston, or, indeed by the majority of early seventeenth-century naturalists. In the 2eld of zoology, I would argue, one had to wait for the enrollment of certain facts in service of theory until physicians in the wake of William Harvey began to do experimental research on reproduction and circulation in the framework of comparative anatomy. But until the advent of Harveian anatomy, much of early modern natural history often operated with the relaxed regime of truth that Jonston’s work epitomizes. Cabinets and encyclopedias served to delight viewers and readers, and to instruct them about the wonderful workings of God.95 3ese works could contain potentially useful information for revitalizing a state’s economy, but most early modern collectors and naturalists were often vague about how such real-world applications would work. Content with the potential utility of their uncertain knowledge, they left it to others to work out the exact details of applied natural history. Jonston and his colleagues were interested in providing an abundance of information, listing and describing thousands and thousands of animals, without worrying about the exact referential status of any single entry in their encyclopedias. In the whole of his History of Quadrupeds, Jonston made a clear distinction between true and counterfeit evidence only twice, when he discussed

93 Jan Jonston, Historiae naturalis de serpentibus libri duo (Frankfurt: Merian, !97;), II/;9. 94 Francis Bacon, !e New Organon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 6###), pp. !!"–!69. 95 On cabinets, natural history and natural theology, see Eric Jorink, Reading the Book of Nature in the Dutch Golden Age, $,-,–$-$, (Leiden: Brill, 6#!#)

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medicinal drugs prepared from animals. It was imperative to distinguish between fake and real bezoar stones, because only the true bezoar could cure your various ailments.96 But to delight in pictures of gira4es, and to sing the praise of God, you did not need to know the exact shape of these exotic animals. 3e reception of Jonston’s work appears to con2rm the widespread acceptance of unstable natural history. While the English naturalist John Ray rather vociferously criticized the Jonston (“a meer plagiary & compiler of other mens labours!”), others were much more accommodating.97 After the Restoration, 3omas Browne used it repeatedly to discuss ostriches and identify 2sh in his correspondence, while Nehemiah Grew frequently cited Jonston’s work in his catalog of the Royal Society’s museum.98 While Grew pointed out several of Jonston’s errors (and the lack of correspondence between image and text, on occasion), he nonetheless recommended it to readers because the 2gures were usually “tollerable.”99 Even in the eighteenth century, the Oxonian scholar 3omas Hull excerpted Jonston’s entries on mollusks, together with the more recent works of Martin Lister, Francis Willughby and Edward Lhwyd.100 Jonston’s work also inRuenced the development of Linnean taxonomy. In his youth, the Swedish scholar copied out the Natural History’s entries on insects, and carefully studied its taxonomical structure, summarizing it in a synoptic table in his own hand.101 Moreover, Jonston’s fame did not stop at the boundaries of early modern Europe. 3e Natural History also became the major source of knowledge on European and exotic animals for !8th-century Japan.102

96 Jonston, !e History of Four-Footed Beasts, x. 97 Robert W. T. Gunther, Further Correspondence of John Ray (London: Ray Society, !"68), p. !9#. 98 !e Works of Sir !omas Browne, Geo4rey Keynes, ed. (Chicago: 3e University of Chi- cago Press, !"9<), IV/6#9–6!# for ostriches, IV/;<9 for 2sh. 99 Nehemiah Grew, Musaeum regalis societatis (London: 3o. Malthus, !987), p. "9, discussing the scate, or angel-2sh. 100 Glasgow. MS Hunter !

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Jonston’s Natural History matters today because unstable knowledge systems did not disappear with the emergence of modern science. Di4erent scienti2c disciplines still apply highly divergent regimes of truth. Despite its rhetorics of certainty, achieved through experimental protocols and sta- tistics, for example, contemporary academic research in biomedicine tends to produce uncertain results. As pharmaceutical researchers constantly warn us, one needs to take with more than a grain of salt the knowledge claims that are made by academics in scienti2c journals.103 As they point out with vehemence, academics have a vested interest in publication and gaining credit, and less of an incentive to provide bulletproof evidence for their claims. 3is is not necessarily a problem for the academic community, but becomes a serious issue for pharma researchers who attempt to turn these potentially true claims into veri2ed facts, in order to develop e5cacious drugs. Yet, as the case of Jonston’s Natural History suggested, one need not be surprised and should not be angered by the uncertainty of academic research. One might simply accept the instability of scienti2c knowledge claims, realizing that university-based research can still o4er useful hypotheses and potential avenues of exploration without necessarily delivering certain truth. If uncertainty and hypothetical statements were more accepted as part of the knowledge industry, there might at least be less incentive for producing fake evidence. Just think about the case of Jon- ston, one last time, who quit the enterprise of fabricating evidence when he turned away from writing about prophets and drugs to composing works of natural history.

103 See, for example, Florian Prinz et al. “Believe It or Not: How Much Can We Rely on Published Data on Potential Drug Targets?” Nature Review Drug Discovery, !# (6#!!).

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