Scienza ed arte sono attività squisitamente umane che hanno nei secoli intrecciato le proprie storie nello sforzo di conoscere, esprimere e manipolare il reale. Il presente volume, che mira a ricostruire alcune tappe di questo percorso congiunto, raccoglie una scelta dei contributi presentati nel corso delle varie edizioni dei Seminari del martedì, tenutisi, dal 206 al 2012, presso il Seminario di Storia della Scienza dell'Università degli Studi di Bari

Voci di un’epidemia di vampirismo scoppiata nell'Europa dell’est si diffusero rapidamente nel XVIII secolo. Le discussioni sui revenants en corps, comportando spinosi problemi di ordine teologico e scientifico, posero cattolici e protestanti gli uni contro gli altri. Al diavolo era concesso così tanto potere sui corpi morti? Quale differenza vi era tra un fantasma e un vampiro? E quale tra il corpo di quest’ultimo e quello incorrotto di un santo? Sono queste le domande alle quali l’arcivescovo di Trani Giuseppe Davanzati cercò di rispondere con una Dissertazione sopra i vampiri.

Rumours about vampire epidemics in Eastern Europe reached the west throughout the 18th century. Discussions on revenans en corps brought up complex theological questions which had long divided Catholics and Protestants. These included the nature of ghosts and the possible role played by the Devil. Additionally, vampires, similarly to Catholic saints, seemed not to be subject to putrefaction. Giuseppe Davanzati, Archbishop of Trani, in the Kingdom of Naples, decided to write a dissertation in which, with the help of theological and natural-philosophical arguments, he set forth the Catholic point of view on the issue. His position, doctrinally in line with that of the Holy Roman Church, presented a colour typical of the cultural outpost in which he operated.

This article reconstructs the 19th century history of events regarding a few female wax anatomical models made in Florence. More or less faithful copies of those housed in Florence’s Museum of Physics and Natural History, these models were destined for display in temporary exhibitions. In their travels through Europe and the United States, they transformed the expression “Florentine Venus” into a sort of brand name used to label and offer respectability to pieces of widely varying quality.

Nicholas of Myra, a bishop who lived between the 3rd and 4th centuries, is considered to be the historical character on which the legendary figure of Santa Claus is based. His bones, brought to Bari, in the Italian region Apulia, in 1087, are known in the Christian world for a particular trait: that they exude a substance, considered miraculous by some, called manna. This paper aims to reconstruct the philosophical-natural debate on the origins and nature of this liquid in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the way in which early modern science questioned and indirectly influenced (being in its turn influenced by) the conceptualization of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius, a phenomenon that has been taking place at regular intervals in Naples since the late Middle Ages. Beginning in the 17th century a debate arose that divided Europe between supporters of a theory of divine intervention and believers in the occult properties of the blood. These two theoretical options reflected two different perspectives on the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. While in the 17th century emphasis was placed on the predictable periodicity of the miraculous event of liquefaction as a manifestation of God in his role as a divine regulator, in the following century – in order to differentiate miracles from the workings of nature, which were deemed to be more normative – the event came to be described as capricious and unpredictable. The miracle of the blood of Saint Januarius provides a window through which to study how the natural order was perceived in early modern Europe at a time when the continent was highly fragmented, with dichotomies dividing north vs. south, Protestantism vs. Catholicism, learning vs. ignorance, etc.