Očitá svědectví – Černá Jana (2013)

Tzvetan Todorov stated that the discovery of America is one of the most astonishing encounters in human history, as it announces and establishes our contemporary identity. Analogously, it could be said that it is precisely the encounter with the New World that (co)found the form of modern European science. For knowledge, empirical evidence and eyewitness accounts, rather than authoritative and traditionally accepted texts, become essential for the first time in such an intense manner. The aim of the publication is to show the influence that the exploration of the nature of the New World had on the formation of specific forms of scientific communication and cooperation (expeditions, questionnaires, natural history, botanical catalogs), practiced during the 16th century in Spain, and how it contributed to the transformation of the forms of natural sciences, culminating in a process now referred to as the scientific revolution. The text will take the reader to Renaissance Seville as well as to the lands of New Spain and Peru, into the spaces of universities, botanical gardens, and cabinets of curiosities, among educated physicians, cosmographers, and royal officials, as well as among explorers, navigators, and other curious individuals who were drawn to the wonders of the New World.