Sacred Words and Worlds: Geography, Religion, and Scholarship, 1550–1700 (History of Science and Medicine Library 21 : Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions 2)

In early modern Europe, fundamental geographical as well as religious certainties became unstable. At the intersection of the two stood sacred geography. This book examines the scope and content of this early modern scholarly genre, which engaged many of Europe's leading scholars. On the one hand, 'geographia sacra' is analyzed in the context of antiquarian scholarship. Equipped with newly-developed sophisticated tools, scholars compiled, measured, and meticulously documented biblical and ecclesiastical space. On the other hand, this study argues, 'geographia sacra' was never detached from present concerns, and took part in confessional debates over scriptural authority, papal legitimacy, and the authenticity of liturgy. Hence today's interest in the notions of 'sacred space' and spatiality had a lively, controversial, and crucial precedent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, 2 Early modern Geographia Sacra: Themes and approaches The Antwerp polyglot Bible: Maps, scholarship, and exegesis Antiquarian zeal and sacred measurement on the road to Jerusalem The Phoenicians are coming! Samuel Bochart's Protestant geography Putting the Church on the map: Ecclesiastical cartography across the denominational divide Epilogue Appendix: Extant manuscripts of Samuel Bochart. This book examines the scholarly genre of 'geographia sacra' in early modern Europe, tracing its contours, the outlooks and concerns of its practitioners, as well as the intersections of religion and geography in an age that saw dramatic revolutions in both fields.