Paola Bertucci
Enlightenment; cultural history of technology in the early modern world, cultures of collecting and display; artisanal knowledge, the early modern body, scientific travel, material culture
Selected Publications:
Books:
Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)
- 2019 Louis Gottschalk Prize for best book on eighteenth-century studies, awarded by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Second-prize winner, 2018 John Pickstone prize for best scholarly book in history of science and medicine, awarded every two years by the British Society for the History of Science. Finalist, Kenshur Prize for best book in 18th-century interdisciplinary studies. Shortlist, Pfizer Award for best book in the history of science in a three-year period, awarded by the History of Science Society
Viaggio nel paese delle meraviglie. Scienza e curiosità nell’Italia del Settecento [A Journey in Wonderland. Science and Curiosity in Eighteenth-Century Italy]. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2007
Electric Bodies. Episodes in the History of Medical Electricity (co-edited with Giuliano Pancaldi), Bologna: CIS, University of Bologna, 2001
Articles or book chapters:
“The In/visible Woman: Mariangela Ardinghelli (1730-1824) and the circulation of natural knowledge between Paris and Naples”, Isis 104(2013): 226-49 (winner of the Margaret Rossiter Prize for best article on the history of women in science published in the previous four years, awarded by the History of Science Society)
“The architecture of knowledge: Science, collecting and display in 18th-century Naples”, in Helen Hills, Melissa Calaresu (eds.), New Approaches to Neapolitan Culture c. 1500-1800: The power of place, Aldershot: Ashgate
“Designing the house of knowledge in 18th-century Naples; the ephemeral museum of Ferdinando Spinelli, Prince of Tarsia”, in Jim Bennett, Sofia Talas (eds), Makin Science Public in the Eighteenth Century: The role of Cabinets of Experimental Philosophy. Brill (2013)
“The spectacle of science”, in Filippo Camerota ed., Galileo Museum. Masterpieces of science Florence, 2010
“Science in the Domestic Sphere”, Filippo Camerota ed., Galileo Museum, Masterpieces of science, Florence, 2010
“Les Leçons de physique expérimentale de l’abbé Nollet” in Sciences et curiosités à la Cour de Versailles, Châteaude de Versailles, 2010
“Enlightening Towers: Public Opinion, Local Authorities and the Reformation of Meterology in Eighteenth Century Italy,” in Playing with Fire: The Cultural History of the Lightning Rod, P. Heering, O. Hochadel, D. Rhees (eds.), Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 2009.
“Domestic Spectacles: electrical demonstrations between business and conversation”, in Christine Blondel, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (eds.), Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008
“Therapeutic attractions: early applications of electricity to the art of healing” in H.A. Whitaker, C.U.M. Smith, S. Finger (eds) Brain, Mind and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, Boton: Springer, pp. 271-84, 2007
“Sparks in the dark: the attraction of electricity in the eighteenth century”, Endeavour, 31 (2007), 88-93
“Revealing sparks: John Wesley and the religious utility of electrical healing”, British Journal for the History of Science, 39 (2006), 341-62
“Back from Wonderland: Jean Antoine Nollet’s Italian Tour (1749)”, in L. Evans, A. Marr (eds.), Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Aldeshot: Ashgate, pp. 193-211, 2006
“Public utility and spectacular display: the Physics Cabinet of the Royal Museum in Florence”, Nuncius, 21 (2006), 323-36
“Sparking Controversy: Jean Antoine Nollet and Medical Electricity South of the Alps”, Nuncius, 20 (2005), 153-187
“Promethean Sparks: Electricity and the order of nature in the eighteenth century”, in S. Zielinski, S. Wagnermaier (eds.), Variantology1. Diverse Historical Approaches Towards an Archaeology of Media, Technology and the Arts, Cologne: Walther Konig, 2005
“A philosophical business, Edward Nairne and the Patent Medical Electrical Machine (1782)”, History of Technology, 23 (2001), 41-58
“The electrical body of knowledge: medical electricity and experimental philosophy in the mid-eighteenth century”, in P. Bertucci, G. Pancaldi (eds.), Electric Bodies. Episodes in the history of medical electricity, Bologna: CIS, Dipartimento di Filosofia, 2001
Education
D.Phil, University of Oxford
M.Sc in “History of Science: Instruments, Museums, Science, Technology”, University of Oxford
Laurea (B.Sc) summa cum laude in Physics, Department of Physics, University of Bologna