ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Uppsala Studies in History of Ideas 46 JACOB ORRJE Mechanicus Performing an early modern persona Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Geijersalen, Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3P, Uppsala, Wednesday, 3 June 2015 at 10:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in Swedish. Faculty examiner: Professor Thomas Kaiserfeld (Lund University, Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences). Abstract Orrje, J. 2015. Mechanicus. Performing an Early Modern Persona. Uppsala Studies in History of Ideas 46. 233 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9246-5. This thesis studies mechanics as a means of making men, rather than machines. Drawing on Swedish sources from 1700–50, it approaches mechanics as an exercise of a virtuous subject, known to his contemporaries as the “mechanicus”. The mechanicus was a persona, consisting of expectations of the performance of mechanics that were part of the social fabric of the early modern Swedish state. The aim of this thesis is to understand how mechanical practitioners performed in relation to this persona, and how these expectations in turn were changed by actors’ performances. By studying the mechanicus, I take an interest in historical ways of conceiving of mechanics. Previous research on early modern mechanics has tended to relate it to modern phenomena, such as engineers, technology and industrialism, and mechanical practitioners have been considered as agents of change, who brought traditional societies into modernity. Avoiding such long narra- tives, this thesis presents an alternative history. By following mechanical practitioners, who staged themselves as relevant to an early modern state, I seek to understand how mechanics was pre- sented and justified in a pre-industrial society. The thesis is comprised of four studies. First, I discuss how mature mechanical practitioners imagined the exercise of mechanics to make a boy into a mechanicus. These exercises would nur- ture an ideal man, encompassing a range of the expected virtues of a male subject. Second, I study mechanics and geometry at the Swedish Bureau of Mines between 1700 and 1750. I show how, from having initially been associated with the building of machines and subterranean con- structions, such knowledge formed the basis of a community of mathematical men of metals. Third, I analyse the letters exchanged between the mechanical practitioner Christopher Polham- mar and the Swedish king Karl XII, showing how royal patronage of mechanics shaped both men. Finally, I follow the mechanical practitioner Anders Gabriel Duhre, who first succeeded and then failed to present himself as a virtuous mechanicus to the parliament of the Swedish consti- tutional monarchy of the 1720s and 1730s. Taken together, these studies show how men imag- ined, succeeded and failed life as a mechanicus in early modern Sweden. Keywords: mechanics, performance, virtue, persona, mathematics, self fashioning, education, masculinity, age, oeconomy, cameralism, Sweden, eighteenth century, intergenerational relation- ships Jacob Orrje, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Box 629, Uppsala University, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden. © Jacob Orrje 2015 ISSN 1653-5197 ISBN 978-91-554-9246-5 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-251337 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-251337) Printed in Sweden by Kph Trycksaksbolaget AB, 2015 To Lisa and Rasmus Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 9 1. The subject of early modern mechanics .............................................................. 11 Methodological considerations and delimitations ............................................ 12 A social epistemology of early modern mechanics ........................................... 25 Sources and translations ....................................................................................... 36 Chapter outline ....................................................................................................... 37 2. Mechanics – a passage into manhood ................................................................. 39 Age, manhood and the pious subject ................................................................. 42 Imagined intergenerational relationships ........................................................... 47 Mathematical concord ........................................................................................... 51 Crafts and the manliness of hard work .............................................................. 69 Conclusions. The expected transgressions of useful manhood ..................... 77 3. A geometric community takes shape ................................................................... 80 The mining sciences .............................................................................................. 83 Auscultation. The Bureau of Mines as a place of education ........................... 85 Applications to auscultate as self-presentation and identification ................. 88 Mathematical sciences of the state ...................................................................... 97 Becoming a Bureau official ................................................................................ 108 Conclusions. The mathematics of a balanced state ........................................ 121 4. Mechanical correspondence. Relational performances of the monarch and the mechanicus .......................................................................................................... 124 The monarch perceived ...................................................................................... 126 The mechanici, the monarch and the secretary of state ................................ 134 The death of a monarch – reinventing the mechanicus ................................ 155 Conclusions. Interrelated personas ................................................................... 156 5. A mechanicus on the kneeler. Duhre’s balancing act of vice and virtue ..... 158 Becoming a good mechanicus ........................................................................... 160 Duhre’s proposal of mathematical–œconomical redemption ...................... 165 The publications as performance in the parliament of 1723 ........................ 170 The Laboratorium as performance in the parliament of 1726–7 .................... 173 Dirty stories of the bad mechanicus ................................................................. 177 Violent stories of the bad mechanicus ............................................................. 181 Cows and order in the King’s Meadow ............................................................ 188 A morally ambiguous mechanicus in the parliament of 1731 ....................... 191 Epilogue. Œconomical dreams of a bad mechanicus .................................... 193 Conclusions. Integrating the good and the bad mechanicus ........................ 196 6. Conclusion. Performing the mechanicus .......................................................... 199 The mechanicus of the Swedish state ............................................................... 200 Relational performances ..................................................................................... 203 Taking the “modern” out of the early modern ............................................... 205 Glossary ...................................................................................................................... 209 List of illustrations .................................................................................................... 210 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 211 Index of names .......................................................................................................... 231 Acknowledgements Writing a thesis is not only about making a book, but also about creating a researcher. Beyond requiring diligent work, this process of becoming in- volves the accumulation of an ever-growing debt to a number of helpful friends and colleagues. I am immensely grateful to all of you! First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors. My main supervisor Otto Sibum, who encouraged me to ex- plore the history of science already when supervising my Master’s thesis, has over the years generously shared his knowledge in many stimulating discus- sions. I am likewise grateful to my co-supervisor Hjalmar Fors for revealing to me how the knowledge making of the early modern Swedish state can be surprisingly magical. A sincere thanks to both of you, for your encourage- ment, support and wise comments, as well as for your critical questions. In addition, I am thankful to those of you who have read and comment- ed on this thesis at various stages. I am especially grateful to Jens Eriksson, who has read practically every text I have written and provided me with encouraging support all these years, from his desk just next to mine. Thank you also, Andre Wakefield, for your invaluable help before, during and after my Final seminar. I am, furthermore, indebted to all of you who have pro- vided helpful suggestions, comments, criticism and proof reading in the final stages of making this thesis: Annika Berg, Annelie Drakman, Petter Hellström, Lisa Hellman, Klara Goedecke, Måns Jansson, My Klockar Linder, Pia Levin, Anders