Science in the Vanished Arcadia: Knowledge of Nature in the Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and Rio de La Plata

403 Pages·2014·6.958 MB·English

by  Miguel Asua

Science in the Vanished Arcadia
Scientific and Learned
Cultures and
Their Institutions
Editor
M. Feingold
(California Institute of Technology)
VOLUME 11
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/slci
Science in the Vanished Arcadia
Knowledge of Nature in the Jesuit Missions of
Paraguay and Río de la Plata
By
Miguel de Asúa
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, “Carte du Paraguay et des Pays voisins: sur les mémoires des
espagnols et des portugais et en particulier ceux des RR.PP. de la Compagnie de Jésus” (1756), Museo Mitre
(Buenos Aires), reproduced with permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Asúa, Miguel de.
 Science in the vanished Arcadia : knowledge of nature in the Jesuit missions of Paraguay and Rio de la
Plata / by Miguel de Asúa.
  pages cm. — (Scientific and learned cultures and their institutions, ISSN 2352-1325 ; VOLUME 11)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-25676-7 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-25677-4 (e-book) 1. Jesuits—
Missions—Paraguay. 2. Jesuits—Missions—Rio de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay) 3. Religion and
science. 4. Jesuits—History—17th century. 5. Jesuits—History—18th century. I. Title.
 BV2290.A88 2014
 500.88’27153089—dc23
2014012955
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2352-1325
isbn 978 90 04 25676 7 (hardback)
isbn 978 90 04 25677 4 (e-book)
Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
To María Natividad
∵

Contents
Acknowledgements  xi
List of Maps and Figures  xv
Abbreviations  xvii
Introduction  1
1 Some Historiographical Remarks  4
2 The Jesuits in Paraguay and the River Plate  8
3 A Brief Survey of Events  13
4 Life in the Reductions  19
1 Natural Histories  25
1 The Jesuit Natural Histories of Paraquaria  29
2 Textual Organization  36
2.1 Organizing  36
2.2 Listing  40
2.3 Naming  46
3 The Natural Histories  55
3.1 Lozano and the Wondrous Nature of Paraguay  55
3.2 Paucke: “I Tell What I Have Seen”  61
3.3 Sánchez Labrador’s Catalogue of the Natural World of
Paraquaria  68
4 Writing on Nature in Paraquaria  80
4.1 A Jesuit Genre of Writing  81
4.2 Theatrum naturae  86
4.3 The Jesuit Works and Eighteenth-Century Natural History  88
4.4 Native Lore on Nature  92
2 Herbals  96
1 Jesuits Medicine and Pharmacy in Eighteenth-Century Paraguay and
Río de la Plata  99
2 The Major Works  113
2.1 Montenegro  113
2.2 Aperger  115
2.3 A Jungle of Herbals  117
2.3.1 Manuscripts Containing Montenegro’s Materia medica
misionera  119
viii contents
2.3.2 Manuscripts Containing Versions of Montenegro’s Materia
medica misionera attributed to Aperger  123
2.3.3 Manuscript History  125
2.4 Montenegro’s Herbal. European Pharmacopoeia and Guaraní
Plant Lore  126
2.4.1 Identification of Plants  130
2.4.2 Pictures  131
2.4.3 Montenegro’s Materia medica misionera, the Guaraní and
the “Galenization” of Native Herbal Lore  134
2.5 Jesuits and Guaraní Healers  138
2.6 A Medical Handbook for the Missions  141
3 The Lost and Minor Works  147
3.1 A Guaraní receptarium  148
3.2 Medicinal Botany in the Paraguay Natural  150
3.3 The English Surgeon  151
3.4 A Book of surgery  157
4 The Herbal Tradition in Paraquaria  159
3 Maps  164
1 Quiroga  174
2 Astronomical Instruments  177
3 Charting Patagonia  179
3.1 Quiroga’s Maps and Observations  181
4 An Expedition to the Mato Grosso  185
5 The Chair of Mathematics  187
6 The Sources of the Paraguay River  189
7 Maps and Politics  194
8 Maps and Mission  199
9 Maps of the Productive Structure of the Missions  202
10 Jesuits, Natives, and Maps  204
4 The Heavens  211
1 The Stars Lead to Kircher  212
1.1 Comets and Eclipses  213
1.2 The Mission by the Lake Nahuel Huapi  219
2 Buenaventura Suárez S.J.  222
2.1 Suárez’s Telescopes  226
2.2 Observations from the Mission of San Cosme  228
2.3 A Lunar Calendar  232
contents ix
2.4 Suárez and the Royal Society  235
2.5 Longitude  242
2.6 Teaching of Astronomy in Córdoba  247
2.7 Theory  251
2.8 The Guaraní as Instrument Makers  253
3 Missionary Astronomy  257
5 Science in the Italian Exile  259
1 Juárez’s Vatican Garden of the Indies  261
1.1 The Osservazioni  269
1.2 Juárez’s Botanical Outlook  275
2 Spiders and Electric Fish  279
2.1 Jesuits and Electric Fish  283
2.2 The Immediate Background of Termeyer’s Experiments  285
2.3 A Fishy Anatomy  288
2.4 Experiments among the Mocoví  290
2.5 A Fluid Discussion  292
2.6 An American Postscript  295
3 Looking at the Heavens through Someone Else’s Eyes  296
3.1 The Cádiz Quadrant  300
4 The Cultural Transplant  307
6 A Last Word  310
1 Empirical Reference  310
2 Science and Religion  314
3 Science and Native Lore on Nature  315
Appendix  319
Bibliography  321
Index  365