Nicolaus Steno (1638–1686) was a renowned anatomist in his lifetime. He reformed the anatomical understanding of glands, argued that the heart was a muscle, renamed the so-called female testicles as ovaries, and developed a mathematical model for understanding muscle contraction—discoveries that were fundamental to the fields of anatomy and physiology.

However, other aspects of Steno’s life have come to define him: his claim that mountains’ strata reveal the history of the Earth and his conversion to Catholicism as a practicing scientist. This excessive attention to his geological discoveries and to asking whether science and religion are compatible, the author argues, has obscured his significant accomplishments as an anatomist. The book thus restores Steno to his rightful place as a crucial figure in early modern science.
 
Using Steno’s extensive travels as a framework, this book depicts him as an active participant in the Republic of Letters. The author traverses Leiden, Paris, Copenhagen, Florence, and Rome as he follows Steno in his sojourns through different scientific academies, courts, and artisanal workshops. There he developed new friends, some of whom were women, with whom he researched and exchanged ideas. Drawing on Steno’s books, correspondence, and novel archival material, the author invites us to approach Steno and his accomplishments in anatomy, mathematics, and geology through the eyes of his contemporaries.

Doing so, the author reconstructs the rich and overlapping worlds of scientific disciplines that shaped Steno’s work, revealing the richness of interdisciplinary research in early modern intellectual life. And through Steno, he illustrates larger developments and new networks of significance in mid-seventeenth-century science. By focusing on ideas, scientific genres, institutions, and friendships, the author offers a way others might also productively study science from the early modern period until today.

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

Introduction. The Various Travels of Nicolaus Steno
One. The Uses of Chaos; or, What Did Nicolaus Steno Know?
Two. The Making of a Scholarly Anatomist
Three. Dissecting with Numbers, Machines, and Mixtures
Four. In the Cradle of the Académie des Sciences
Five. Anatomy and Mathematics at the Medici Court
Six. Thinking the Earth with the Body
Seven. Anatomy of a Conversion
Epilogue

Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

Source: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo250748013.html