Bernd Roling – författare

Despite its enormous extent and impact, the Swedish scholarship produced in the context of Olof Rudbeck''s monumental ''Atlantica'' (4 vols, 1679-1702) has hitherto escaped attention outside Scandinavia. The present volume explores the numerous disciplines that comprised this, one of the last, but grandest appropriations of the classical heritage in early modern times. In the decades around 1700, dozens of scholars all around the Baltic Sea embarked on studies of classical and Norse mythology, material remains and antiquities, of languages, botany and zoology as well as biblical scholarship, in order to reveal the primordial status of ancient Sweden. Fusing together numerous disciplines within Rudbeck''s elaborate and all-encompassing epistemological framework, they gave to a nation that had advanced to the rank of a European superpower a narrative of a glorious past that matched its contemporary pretentions. Presenting case studies stretching from the 17th to the 19th century and across a wide number of fields, this volume traces the extent and longue durée of one of the most fascinating and underestimated episodes in European intellectual history.

Despite its enormous extent and impact, the Swedish scholarship produced in the context of Olof Rudbeck''s monumental ''Atlantica'' (4 vols, 1679-1702) has hitherto escaped attention outside Scandinavia. The present volume explores the numerous disciplines that comprised this, one of the last, but grandest appropriations of the classical heritage in early modern times. In the decades around 1700, dozens of scholars all around the Baltic Sea embarked on studies of classical and Norse mythology, material remains and antiquities, of languages, botany and zoology as well as biblical scholarship, in order to reveal the primordial status of ancient Sweden. Fusing together numerous disciplines within Rudbeck''s elaborate and all-encompassing epistemological framework, they gave to a nation that had advanced to the rank of a European superpower a narrative of a glorious past that matched its contemporary pretentions. Presenting case studies stretching from the 17th to the 19th century and across a wide number of fields, this volume traces the extent and longue durée of one of the most fascinating and underestimated episodes in European intellectual history.

For a long time studies on northern antiquarianism have focused on individual nations. This volume introduces this phenomenon in a transnational perspective. In the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Baltic Sea was at the centre of a culture of debate, whose networks encompassed numerous European centres of learning. When the countries around the Baltic began to explore their own antiquities in this period, the prevailing climate of competition between Sweden, Denmark, Russia and the German countries soon permeated the construction and presentation of their own pasts. Exploring the ancient literatures and monuments of Iceland, Sweden or Denmark, studying runic writings or the Sami tradition, the northern scholars were establishing an individual architecture of history, and so extending the horizon of their emerging nations both geographically and historically. The contributions in this volume provide case studies illustrating the role that scholarship, art and literature played in establishing and maintaining national claims around the Baltic Sea. The variety of methods combined for this purpose makes this book of interest to intellectual historians as well as historians of art and early modern science.

For a long time studies on northern antiquarianism have focused on individual nations. This volume introduces this phenomenon in a transnational perspective. In the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Baltic Sea was at the centre of a culture of debate, whose networks encompassed numerous European centres of learning. When the countries around the Baltic began to explore their own antiquities in this period, the prevailing climate of competition between Sweden, Denmark, Russia and the German countries soon permeated the construction and presentation of their own pasts. Exploring the ancient literatures and monuments of Iceland, Sweden or Denmark, studying runic writings or the Sami tradition, the northern scholars were establishing an individual architecture of history, and so extending the horizon of their emerging nations both geographically and historically. The contributions in this volume provide case studies illustrating the role that scholarship, art and literature played in establishing and maintaining national claims around the Baltic Sea. The variety of methods combined for this purpose makes this book of interest to intellectual historians as well as historians of art and early modern science.

Als Sohn jüdischer Eltern, der als junger Mann zum Christentum übertrat, wurde Paulus Ritius/Paolo Ricci († 1541), der Leibarzt der habsburgischen Kaiser und Freund des Erasmus von Rotterdam und Johannes Reuchlins, zu einem der wichtigsten Vermittler der italienischen Renaissancephilosophie in Deutschland. Seine Übersetzungen aus dem Hebräischen, seine Arbeiten zur Beweistheorie und seine christianisierende Aufarbeitung der Kabbalah vereinigte Ricci zu einer eigenwilligen Philosophie, die der der christlichen Dogmatik eine rationale Rechtfertigung an die Seite zu stellen versuchte und den Forderungen des zeitgenössischen Averroismus, wie er an der Universität zu Padua vertreten wurde, gerecht werden sollte. Riccis Werke, zu deren wichtigsten Autoritäten neben Averroes vor allem Giovanni Pico della Mirandola und Moses Maimonides wurden, brachten ihn in Konflikt mit den deutschen Universitäten und gipfelten in einer öffentlichen Kontroverse um die Weltseele, die Ricci mit dem Theologen Johannes Eck austrug. Zum letzten Vorhaben seines Lebens wurde die Aussöhnung von Katholiken und Protestanten, deren Scheitern Ricci endgültig zu einem akademischen Außenseiter werden ließ.

Riccis bewegtes Leben und seine ungewöhnliche Karriere machen ihn zu einer der faszinierendsten Gestalten des 16. Jahrhunderts. Die Arbeit würdigt seine Schriften und seine Bedeutung für die Geistesgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit umfassend.