Peiresc's Europe: Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century [Hardcover]

Peter N. Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0300082525 | ISBN-13: 978-0300082524

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637) was, during his lifetime, one of Europe's most famous men. This book is the first in English to portray this extraordinary man as well as his whole circle, including Pope Urban VIII, Galileo, Peter-Paul Rubens, and Hugo Grotius, and many others. Looking through the lens of Peiresc's life, Peter N. Miller brings into focus the entire early seventeenth-century world of learning.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (15801637) was, during his lifetime, one of Europe's most famous men. A friend of Pope Urban VIII and Galileo, of Peter-Paul Rubens and Hugo Grotius, of Tommaso Campanella and Marin Mersenne, Peiresc played an important role in the intellectual culture of his time. This book is the first study in English of this extraordinary man, as well as a vivid portrait of his whole circle. Looking through the lens of Peiresc's life, Peter N. Miller brings into focus the early-seventeenth- century world of learning-its people, places, and ideas. Drawing on the extensive Peiresc archive (more than 100,000 pieces of paper), Miller brilliantly evokes the lives of antiquaries, philosophers, theologians, and politicians of Peiresc's day, only some of whom remain known today. He explores the age in which Peiresc's toleration and sociability, his political action and cosmopolitanism, and his serious scholarship without dogmatism were identified as a set of virtues and practices by which to live. Peiresc's notion of scholarship as a moral exercise, the sweep of his interests, and the cross- Continental reach of his intellectual life show with new clarity what it meant to be a man of learning during the decades around 1600.

About the Author

Peter N. Miller is Professor of Cultural History at the Bard Graduate Center, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300082525
• ISBN-13: 978-0300082524
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,030,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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