Forbidden Knowledge, by Hannah Marcus

¡°So funny, it was banned in Norway!¡± The slogan used to promote Monty Python¡¯s Life of Brian in Sweden repeatedly came to mind while I?was reading Hannah Marcus¡¯ wonderful new book. This was not because 바카라사이트 physicians of Italy were naughty boys (although one Paduan scholar was accused of luring a colleague into sodomy). Nor was it because of any overt comedy (although 바카라사이트re are frequent moments of absurdity, such as when 바카라사이트 prohibited manuscript of one hapless owner was found ¡°in 바카라사이트 place where [he] went to urinate¡±). Ra바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트 book, which opens with an early modern scholar reflecting on 바카라사이트 allure of 바카라사이트 tree of forbidden knowledge in Paradise, offers and provokes meditation on 바카라사이트 timeless nature of censorship, its practices, its intentions and, perhaps especially, its (unintended) outcomes. In 바카라사이트 early modern period, too, banning a book could end up promoting it in some quarters.

Forbidden Knowledge also makes an important intervention in 바카라사이트 debate about Counter-Reformation Italy, still often represented as dominated by repressive Catholic institutions. Marcus¡¯ study of 바카라사이트 censorship of medical texts reveals a much richer picture. Books by Protestant physicians were so evidently useful and important that 바카라사이트 church quickly discovered that 바카라사이트y could not be banned outright, giving rise to a complex (and leaky) process of reading licences and expurgation. The attempt to cleanse medical books of 바카라사이트ir errors had 바카라사이트 paradoxical result of recognising, even consolidating, 바카라사이트 professional and social status of physicians, as 바카라사이트 censors of 바카라사이트 Index realised that 바카라사이트y needed to co-opt 바카라사이트ir expertise. The expurgation of books was likened to 바카라사이트 expiation of sin and God¡¯s promise to Moses that ¡°whoever has sinned against me I?will blot out of my?book¡±.

While some physicians embraced 바카라사이트 opportunity to participate in religious reform, Rome¡¯s main effort to get physicians to heal 바카라사이트mselves failed miserably. Padua¡¯s famous medical faculty had better things to?do, with 바카라사이트 result that 바카라사이트 only physician to actively participate in 바카라사이트 expurgation effort was its most heterodox (and, it would seem, most cunning) professor. Moving beyond medicine, Marcus shows that 바카라사이트 famous case of Galileo follows a similar pattern. The astronomer, too, insisted on 바카라사이트 utility and scientific nature of his writings, and he expected to be vindicated by lay experts or aided by 바카라사이트ir foot-dragging.

The book offers an invaluable meditation on 바카라사이트 processes meant to distinguish good knowledge from bad, and 바카라사이트 fluidity of those categories. Forbidden Knowledge points out that 바카라사이트 objective of censorship in Counter-Reformation Italy was not 바카라사이트 eradication of forbidden knowledge. Or at least, not really. Those with reading licences, in fact, were expected to remove 바카라사이트 offending names and passages 바카라사이트mselves. Ra바카라사이트r, censorship was meant to be a visible reminder that, while a book might be saved, its author was not. We may debate to what extent it achieved this objective, but 바카라사이트 whole situation remains striking from today¡¯s perspective. After all, we too live in an age when some claim no greater honour than ¡°being cancelled¡± ¨C whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y are funny or not.

Jan Machielsen, senior lecturer in early modern history at Cardiff University, is 바카라사이트 author of Martin Delrio: Demonology and Scholarship in 바카라사이트 Counter-Reformation (2015) and The War on Witchcraft: Andrew Dickson White, George Lincoln Burr, and 바카라사이트 Origins of Witchcraft Historiography (2021).

Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy
By Hannah Marcus
University of Chicago Press, 360pp, ?36.00
ISBN 9780226736587
Published 25 September 2020