On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio: Texture, Weaving and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century (International Archives of the History of Ideas ... internationales d'histoire des idées, 249) 3031408802, 9783031408809

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International Archives of the History of Ideas  249 Archives internationales d'histoire des idées

Michael Friedman

On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio Texture, Weaving and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées Founding Editors Paul Dibon Jeremy Popkin

Volume 249

Honorary Editor Sarah Hutton, Department of Philosophy, University of York, York, UK Editor-in-Chief Guido Giglioni, University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy Associate Editor John Christian Laursen, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA Editorial Board Jean-Robert Armogathe, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France Stephen Clucas, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK Peter Harrison, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia John Henry, Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Jose R. Maia Neto, University of Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil Martin Mulsow, Universität Erfurt, Gotha, Germany Gianni Paganini, University of Eastern Piedmont, Vercelli, Italy John Robertson, Clare College, Cambridge, UK Javier Fernández Sebastian, Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Vizcaya, Spain Ann Thomson, European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy Theo Verbeek, Universiteit Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands Koen Vermeir, Paris Diderot University, Paris, France

International Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives internationales d’histoire des idées is a series which publishes scholarly works on the history of ideas in the widest sense of the word. It covers history of philosophy, science, political and religious thought and other areas in the domain of intellectual history. The chronological scope of the series extends from the Renaissance to the PostEnlightenment. Founded in 1963 by R.H. Popkin and Paul Dibon, the International Archives of the History of Ideas/Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, edited by Guido Giglioni and John Christian Laursen, with assistance of Former Director Sarah Hutton, publishes, edits and translates sources that have been either unknown hitherto, or unavailable, and publishes new research in intellectual history, and new approaches within the feld. The range of recent volumes in the series includes studies on skepticism, astrobiology in the early modern period, as well as translations and editions of original texts, such as the Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases (1730) by Bernard Mandeville. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before fnal acceptance.

Michael Friedman

On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio Texture, Weaving and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

Michael Friedman Tel Aviv University, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas Tel Aviv, Israel

ISSN 0066-6610 ISSN 2215-0307 (electronic) International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées ISBN 978-3-031-40880-9 ISBN 978-3-031-40881-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

This research was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 461/21). The author also acknowledges the support of the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Gemany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2025—390648296.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank and acknowledge the many scholars who helped me in the process of writing this book. First, I am extremely grateful to Wolfgang Schäffner, who encouraged me to pursue the research for this book at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity’ at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, where the frst parts of the book were written. The ‘Weaving’ Research Area at ‘Matters of Activity’ was also a unique source of inspiration. The numerous conversations with Ellen Harlizius-Klück were extremely helpful and illuminating, and I warmly thank her for this. The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at the Tel Aviv University is where the major part of the research was conducted, and I am grateful for the pleasant and stimulating talks and research environment. Moreover, my various conversations with Thomas Morel and Angela Axworthy on trading zones, artisanal knowledge and mathematics in the early modern period were extremely stimulating. Elizabeth Mercier, Gudrun Bernhardt and Benjamin Carter helped greatly to prepare the transcription and translation of Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio and bring it to its fnal form. Suzanne Lassalle transcribed Leibniz’s note on the stocking frame—I thank all of them warmly. With regard to my numerous conversations with various scholars over the years, I would also like to thank Renen Amir, Mark Emanuel Amtstätter, Rita Bake, Yoav Beirach, Ori Belkind, Andrea Bréard, Michaela Breil, Stephanie Bunn, Leo Corry, Davide Crippa, Vincenzo de Risi, Sophie Desrosiers, Elisabeth Egger, Myfanwy Evans, Snait Gissis, Niklaas Görsch, Heinrich Hetzer, Ernst Höntze, Nurit Israeli, Rotraut Kahle, Sandra Kastner, Robert Kinnl, Karin Krauthausen, Christina Leitner, Stephan Meier-Oeser, Christoph Meinel, Ohad Nachtomy, Ricardo Nemirovsky, Osvaldo Ottaviani, Carola Piepenbring-Thomas, Siegmund Probst, David Rabouin, Edgar Ring, Ruth Ronen, Angelika Seppi, Justin E. H. Smith, Klaus Tidow, Charlotte Wahl, Stephan Waldhoff, Eric Vandendriessche, Hubert Weitensfelder and Daniel Wendt. If I have forgotten anyone here, I deeply apologize. I also thank Elisabeth Rädler for her extremely helpful support during the last stages of preparing the manuscript.

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Acknowledgments

It goes without saying that the research on weaving and textile practices in the 16th and 17th centuries could not have been accomplished without the enormous help from the various museums and archives that I have visited in the last few years. First, I thank Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, where Jungius’ Nachlass is to be found. The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek  – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek in Hanover also helped me greatly in my research. The visits to Textiles Zentrum in Haslach were extremely helpful, and gave me an understanding of how important it is to take into account embodied knowledge. I also thank the Staatliches Textil- und Industriemuseum in Augsburg, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Volkskundemuseum and the Technisches Museum—both in Vienna, the Stadtmuseum of Erlangen, the Technisches Museum der Bandweberei in Großröhrsdorf, the Historisches Museum in Basel and the Staatsarchiv in Hamburg. I also acknowledge the support of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity. Image Space Material’ funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Gemany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2025 – 390648296. This research was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 461/21). Last but certainly not least, I thank Michael Lorber for his help and boundless support during the various writing processes of this book. The research and completion of this work would not have been possible without him.

Contents

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Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 On Jungius, His Nachlass and Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Texturæ Contemplatio: Structure, Content and History of Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Texturæ Contemplatio Between the Two Narratives? . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 On Texture and Weaving Metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 The Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Historical, Scientific and Philosophical Background of Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Textile Practices, Looms and Textile Artisans in the 17th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Global developments in the textile industry: the stocking frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Global developments in the textile industry: the ribbon loom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Local developments, unique machines, specifc notations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Natural Philosophers and Textile Practices in the 17th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Prologue in the 16th century: from Recorde’s foundation of “Geometrye” to de Alcega’s Libro de geometria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 The 17th century: Bacon and Descartes. Weaving between empiricism and rationalism . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Hartlib’s “petit mystere” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 Gassendi’s “woven atoms”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 5 10 14 20 22 24 24 29 31 37 42 47 58 62 69 76 79

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2.2.5

Hooke and Power: textiles through the magnifying glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.6 Comenius, Boyle, Locke: metaphysically unfolding the notion of ‘texture’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.7 The end of the 17th century: the (too) many ramifcations of ‘texture’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

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81 89 93 97 98

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 On the structure of the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . 3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Appendix: Glossary of German and Latin textile-related terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105 107 110

On Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Textual Analysis of Texturæ Contemplatio: Order, Form and Variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 The current physical arrangement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Macro- and micro-changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 Conclusion: structuring and restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Mathematical Refections and Empirical Investigations . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Jungius and the role of mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 How should one practice geometry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 A geometry of weaving in Texturæ Contemplatio? . . . . . . . 4.2.4 Jungius and the structure of materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.5 Optical investigations: microscope, optics and diagrammatic observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.6 Conclusion: ‘textura’ as a rhizomatic notion . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Jungius on Artisanal Practices I: Classifcation and Terminology of Weaves and Textiles . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Classifcation of textile practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Invented and unclear terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Jungius on Artisanal Practices II: Artisans in Practice. . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Places of weaving and weavers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 The practical aspects of artisanal practices: weaving and knitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Before (preparing the loom) and after (the fabric is ready) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Citations, Implicit Excerpts and Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 Explicit citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Implicit references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.3 Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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233 234 238 243 243 245 252 255 274 282 287 289 289 291 295 298 301 303 306 308 313 314

Contents

4.6 Conclusion. A Precarious Rhizome: Weaving as a Site of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.1 Texturæ Contemplatio as precarious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.2 From ephemeral traces to durable theorems? . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.3 Texturæ Contemplatio as a collection of facts? . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.4 Who trades and what is traded in the ‘trading zone’? . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

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After Jungius: Leibniz on Textiles, Weaving and Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Leibniz on Jungius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 1675–1678: Combinatorics, “Geometria Amoenior” and the abstraction of “materia” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 1678–1685: Copying Texturæ Contemplatio and Other Notes on Textiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 From 1687 onward: an unfulflled wish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Leibniz on Tunics and Stockings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Leibniz on Folded Tunics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Leibniz on the Stocking Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3 Leibniz on the Ribbon Loom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Rereading Texturæ Contemplatio: a Fabric Unraveled . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Appendix: Leibniz’s Notes on the Stocking Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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316 317 322 325 326 330 330 337 339 341 341 346 356 359 361 364 371 375 376 378 379

Conclusion: A Fabric Rewoven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Chapter 1

Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

Abstract This chapter presents the introduction of the book: On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio. Texture, Weaving and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century. It presents the aims and motivations of the book, as well as the research questions and sources. It also presents the accepted narratives concerning weaving and mathematics in the 19th and the 20th century, continuing to survey Jungius, his Nachlass as well as his unpublished manuscript Texturæ Contemplatio. The chapter also unfolds the three epistemological frameworks with which one may analyze Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio: the mathematization of nature, the ‘trading zones’ between mathematicians, natural philosophers and artisans, and the transfer of metaphors.

In a note dated to June 1619, the logician, natural philosopher and mathematician Joachim Jungius writes that if one considers the contact, arrangement and position of threads of a fabric, then while these characteristics give the fabric its specifcity and structure, they in fact no longer exist when the fabric itself is torn and dissolved.1 This description comes in the framework of Jungius’ theory of materials, and more specifcally, his theory of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts. Thirty years later, in another note dated to 1649, Jungius describes the properties of velvet, of “sinuous threads” and of threads which he terms “porcalia” and “sulcalia.”2 During these 30 years, Jungius prepared, but never published, a manuscript which is now known as Texturæ Contemplatio. The manuscript itself, now preserved at the

Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Exercitatio II de principiis hypostaticis, ad cap. 3” (NJJ : Wo. 23), fol. 6r [55], § 26. 2 Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), fol. 44r. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_1

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Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

Leibniz Library in Hanover,3 is not strictly speaking an autograph by Jungius, but a posthumously reorganized copy of a collection of notes that Jungius wrote between 1621 and 1649, which were later copied by his students. This set of notes, written in Latin and German, consists of around 60 pages and is partially a description of a number of different weaves and weaving techniques, partially a more ‘scientifc’ examination of fabrics, partially an examination of artisanal procedures, and partially an attempt to present weaves as geometrical, assigning to them ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’. From this very short presentation, it is already clear that Jungius had a sincere interest in textiles, artisanal practices and textile-related processes; one may assume that one of Jungius’ goals when preparing these notes was to consider fabrics and the processes of their preparation from a variety of perspectives, some of which we may call today ‘scientifc’; for example, observing them with a microscope or with a magnifying lens, attempting to uncover a ‘geometrical’ structure, and developing a theory of materials which uses textiles as exemplary. If we take Texturæ Contemplatio as the main collection of notes containing Jungius’ refections on textiles, then besides the obvious inquiry concerning the content of Texturæ Contemplatio, two types of questions arise. First, what were the social conditions and the artisanal milieu in which Jungius’ interest in textiles and texture was couched? What were the relations between artisans, mathematicians and natural philosophers, when these notes were written? Was, for example, Jungius’ attempt at a ‘geometrization’ of weaves an exception in the landscape of natural philosophy at that time, or were other scholars also interested in examining fabrics as objects of scientifc inquiry, potentially exemplifying the emergence of modern science, in experimenting with, and observing them? The second type of question concerns the publication of Texturæ Contemplatio and the possibility of transmission of artisanal knowledge. Texturæ Contemplatio (as well as Jungius’ other notes) may be considered to lay out a complex set of refections which aimed to bring together the realm of textile artisanal knowledge with the new discourse on the natural world in the 17th century, i.e., bringing together the hand and the mind, or ‘art’ and ‘nature’. It may also be considered to embed and appropriate textile products and practices, such as weaving or knitting, in the emerging mathematical, experimental and empirical philosophy. The question hence arises, why was Texturæ Contemplatio never published? This manuscript was copied not only by Jungius’ students (probably in preparation for publication) but also by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who insisted again and again till the end of the 17th century that this manuscript should be edited, extended and eventually published. To reformulate: if Texturæ Contemplatio represents an inventive encounter of textile-based artisanal knowledge and natural philosophy, I aim here to inquire in which ways was this encounter fertile or productive, prompting the emergence of new knowledge, as 3 The manuscript, which from now on will be referred to as Texturæ Contemplatio, is in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek  – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Martin Fogel collection of Zettelkasten, folder: Ms XLII, 1923: delta 28. Online: http://digitale-sammlungen.gwlb.de/ resolve?id=DE-611-HS-3665327

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Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

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well as its reorganization and codifcation; Or—at the opposite end—one may also ask in which ways was this encounter a precarious one, in the sense that the notes taken on artisanal knowledge could not be presented within a predefned, stable system, which led to their marginalization or their consideration as incomplete or useless. Was artisanal knowledge considered transmittable or rather, unapproachable? These sets of questions will frame the discussions presented in this book. As such, this book aims to unfold whether and how textiles, textile- and weaving instruments, as well as the notion of ‘texture’  — a notion which was one of the central notions during the 17th century, employed by various natural philosophers — constituted an arena in which encounters and meetings (real or imaginary) between craftworkers and artisans of textiles on the one side, and humanists and natural philosophers on the other, took place. Such an arena could be presented under the two main narratives of the so-called ‘Scientifc Revolution’ of the early modern period: on the one hand, that the essential trait of the ‘Scientifc Revolution’ was the novel mathematization of nature, a narrative represented by, for example, Eduard J. Dijksterhuis or Alexandre Koyré; on the other, that this ‘Scientifc Revolution’, as claimed, for example, by Edgar Zilsel, was shaped due to the “superior craftsmen,” that is, due to the artisanal culture of the 16th and 17th centuries. But the above encounters and meetings, and specifcally, the story behind Texturæ Contemplatio and its copies, are more complex and cannot be easily classifed entirely under either of these narratives (or both) without distorting the historical turn of events. A step back is perhaps needed, as one may wonder, why even start to examine the textile crafts during the 17th century as such an arena? As Lewis Mumford (1967: 144) notes, between the 15th and 18th centuries, “the [European] textile industries recorded the greatest number of improvements.”4 While I will review these improvements and advances in Sect. 2.1, one should note that in fact, Mumford compares the weaving industry with the mining industry, when he notes that the advances in the textile industry occurred “along with mining” (ibid.). Mumford stresses that “the mine is nothing less in fact than the concrete model of the conceptual world which was built up by the physicist of the seventeenth century” (1967: 70), thereby incorporating the new methods of science of the early modern period. This is what stands in the background of Mumford’s question: “Did the mine acclimate us to the views of science? Did science in turn prepare us to accept the products and the environment of the mine?” (ibid.) While I do not intend to answer Mumford’s questions, it is clear that they are a call to investigate mines and mining as an arena where scholars and artisans might have met and where trading zones, exchanges of knowledge and the emergence of new insights about the natural world took place. Pamela O. Long (2011) and Thomas Morel (2023), to give two examples, indeed show that mines were such an arena during the early modern period. But if the textile industry advanced during this period as rapidly as the mining industry, one can indeed pose

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See also (Bohnsack 1981).

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Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

similar questions regarding textile craftsmanship and technologies, concerning the interplay between scientifc, mathematical and philosophical practices and the weaving and textile practices. *** Here, however, we may need to take another step back, but in another direction, because the usual narrative about the interlacing of mathematics and computing practices on the one hand, and textile practice on the other, differs somewhat with context, time and place. A still widely accepted narrative in the history of mathematics regarding the relationship between weaving and mathematics is that computer science, inspired by the mechanization of weaving, has its origins in the Jacquard machine, invented in 1804.5 This automatic loom, which uses punch cards to weave any possible pattern, drew on a number of earlier inventions from the frst half of the 18th century, and was, and still is celebrated as a precursor of the computer. This narrative is infuenced primarily by Ada Lovelace’s statement comparing this loom with the calculating engine designed by Charles Babbage: “We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves fowers and leaves” (Lovelace 1843: 696). Against this background, historians of computer science have mostly regarded weaving as a binary activity (Zemanek 1991) consisting entirely of the decision of whether or not to raise a thread (the warp) while drawing another thread (the weft) through. The prevalence of this narrative has led historians to largely overlook the fact that weaving and other textile practices were already regarded in the 17th century by several natural philosophers as incorporating geometrical or, more broadly, mathematical knowledge. However, in recent decades, it has been noted that not only is this narrative highly distorted (Harlizius-Klück 2004; 2024; Schneider 2015; Schneider 2007), but the mathematical theory which is at the basis of weaving with a treadle loom is far more complicated than such a binary activity. In fact, Carrie Jane Brezine (1993; 2008) shows that weaving with a treadle loom may be modeled with matrix multiplication—an algebraic method that was only developed in the 19th century. This is obviously not to imply that weavers from the 17th century ‘unconsciously’ embodied matrix multiplication, which was waiting to be discovered by mathematicians from the 19th century (or historians from the 20th century), but it does indicate the complexity of the embodied artisanal knowledge. However, the distorting prevalence of the above narrative does raise the question: was Lovelace’s statement indeed the frst time that weaving and mathematics (or computation) had been associated? Given the fact that weaving—and textile practices (spinning, knitting or even basketry) in general—are of the oldest cultural techniques in human history, and also of the earliest techniques for which mechanization was attempted during the 16th and 17th centuries, one may assume that there were other, earlier thinkers See for example: (Bohnsack 1993; Schneider 2007). For a critique of this narrative, see: (HarliziusKlück 2017), who calls to consider other looms and weaving machines from the 17th and 18th centuries in Southern Germany and Upper Austria as well (see Sect. 2.1.3.1), when thinking about the relations between weaving and mathematics. 5

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who observed or hinted at an affnity between fabrics and mathematics, or more generally, textiles, texture and the experimental sciences. Jungius was already presented above as one of these thinkers, but one can present—as this book will show— a series of natural philosophers who underlined, in various different ways, how a transfer of knowledge from the artisanal realm of textiles to the emerging new, modern empirical ‘sciences’ took place. Revising this narrative is one of the aims of this book. To identify this earlier point of contact between the two felds that today seem so distant—fabric manufacturing on the one hand and computing, geometry and mathematics (or the domains which would be later called physics, chemistry or biology) on the other—is more than just to push back by over a century before Jacquard the a quo of their contact; it is also to show that, at its inception, the investigation, experimentation and transformation of nature in the early modern period—as well as its ‘mathematization’— occurred hand in hand with a consideration of artisanal knowledge, and with the recognition that the birth of modern science incorporated the embodied knowledge of the artisans. This is the reason why the two narratives of the ‘Scientifc Revolution’ presented above are being questioned and reexamined here. The variety of ways in which the artisan–scholar meetings occurred during the 17th century will be unfolded in the following chapters, focusing on Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio. The following sections will hence return frst to Jungius and his Nachlass (Sect. 1.1), as well as his method of acquiring and documenting pieces of knowledge. Section 1.1.1 concentrates more specifcally on Texturæ Contemplatio’s history of transmission. I then turn in Sect. 1.2 to a brief discussion of the two narratives presented above concerning the emergence of the empirical sciences: the mathematization of nature and the encounters of artisans and natural philosophers. The second narrative will be discussed, not only to explicate why the interest of 17th century natural philosophers in textiles and weaving cannot be entirely framed as resulting from these encounters, but also to show that in the background of this encounter was an implicit conceptual–metaphorical transfer of (textile-related) metaphors and concepts. This is to be seen frst and foremost in the 17th century, with the notion of ‘textura’ or ‘texture’, as will be discussed in Sect. 1.2.1. I then present, in Sect. 1.3, a few of the main questions that this book aims to answer, as well as the structure of the book.

1.1

On Jungius, His Nachlass and Texturæ Contemplatio

Who was Joachim Jungius? Joachim Jungius (1587–1657) was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher of science.6 He worked in Gießen, Lübeck, and Rostock. In 1606, Jungius entered the University of Rostock to study metaphysics.

6 On Jungius’ life and work, see: (Guhrauer 1850; Wolhwill 1887; Kangro 1968; Meinel 1982, 1987; Wollgast 1993: 423–470).

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He matriculated at the University of Gießen in 1608 and a year after his graduation, he was appointed there to the chair of mathematics. From 1629 until 1657, he was a rector in Hamburg. Mostly known today for his book on logic, Logica Hamburgensis (1638), his understanding of mathematics was also infuential during the 17th century. Indeed, in a manner similar to Descartes, but several years before Descartes explicitly expressed his views concerning mathematics, Jungius, in his inaugural lecture in Gießen, was already emphasizing the importance of mathematics for all areas of scientifc study.7 To look more closely at Jungius’ life, in 1612 he met the educational reformer Wolfgang Ratke (1571–1635) and as a result, two years later, he resigned from his position at Gießen to devote his time to educational reforms. However, in 1616, he decided to study medicine, enrolling again at the University of Rostock, and later obtaining his medical doctorate from the University of Padua in 1618. After fnishing his studies in Rostock and Padua, he practiced medicine in Lübeck from 1619 till 1623. In 1622, he called for the founding of the frst natural science society in northern Europe, in Rostock—“Societa Ereunetica sive Zetetica”—dedicated to promoting empirical studies. Then, between 1624 and 1628, Jungius worked as a professor of mathematics at Rostock; he also briefy taught medicine in 1625 at the University of Helmstedt. After that, he moved to Hamburg for the rest of his academic career where, in 1629, he became, as noted above, not only the rector at the Akademisches Gymnasium, teaching “physica” as well, but he also took over the rectorship of the Johanneum, a Latin school, though he gave up this position in 1640, after the death of his wife Katharina Jungius. Jungius stayed in the rector position till his death in 1657. Jungius’ most famous book, Logica Hamburgensis, published in 1638 (when the frst three books composing it had already been published in 1635), presented late medieval theories and techniques of logic.8 Jungius also published several other books, but not many: he was known for his Geometria empirica (1627), a book on practical geometry, and for his studies on botany and on the corpuscular theory of chemistry. His scientifc investigations were published in several essays and books, including Disputationes de principiis corporum naturalium (1642) and a few years after his death, Doxoscopiae physicae minores (1662). His work was well-known to Samuel Hartlib, Jan Amos Comenius, John Pell and, later, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, all of whom praised Jungius and his work. Jungius was also compared to both Bacon (due to Jungius’ own conception of empiricism) and Descartes (due to

See: Jungius (1929) und Hübner (1996). Although criticized by the Wittenberg theologian Johann Scharf, the book was highly praised; See Risse (1964: 521-2): “Leibniz commended Jungius as one of the best logicians, far surpassing Descartes. He declared the Logica Hamburgensis to be the most important logic of the seventeenth century. This high praise is fully justifed, provided one sees the fullest possible enumeration of defned rules and theorems as the criterion of logic. For Jungius drew together encyclopaedically all the resources of traditional theory more completely than any other logic of his time.” 7 8

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his conception of the role of mathematics), and he knew the works of both scholars,9 although the differences between Jungius’ and Descartes’ philosophies cannot be ignored.10 The book Doxoscopiae physicae minores was not Jungius’ only posthumously published work. Several others include: Historia vitae et mortis (1658), Isagoge Phytoscopica (1678), Harmonica (1678), Historia Vermium (1691), Phoranomica (1699) and Opuscula botanico-physica (1747). All of these works were prepared from manuscripts and notes which were kept in Jungius’ Nachlass, which from 1657 till 1675 was under the responsibility of Martin Fogel (1634–1675); after Fogel’s death, Michael Kirstenius (1620–1678) became responsible for the Nachlass, till his death in 1678; after that, Johannes Vagetius (1633–1691) was in charge of it, but in 1691, a fre destroyed Jungius’ remaining manuscripts, which were stored in Vagetius’ house.11 As a result of this fre, a full account of the complete estate, the missing and burnt writings, their organization, and what else was supposed to be published, is missing. What did this Nachlass, consisting of approximately 150,000 slips of paper (Meinel 1995: 177), look like? I will return below to how Jungius’ Nachlass was formed, collected and organized, but here I will only emphasize that Jungius wrote every single note, single fact or isolated observation on a unique octavo sheet (approx. 16 × 10 cm), named scheda, usually giving it a head rubric, termed titulus (ibid.: 168; Meinel 1984a: xix); when enough schedae on the same subject were collected, Jungius gathered them into a manipulus with a cover and general title. Several such manipuli were eventually united into bundles, fasces—though little is known about the method by which they were organized and stored. Jungius usually wrote longer drafts and lecture manuscripts on quarto sheets (having a size of approx. 25 × 20 cm) and kept them separate from the octavo sheets, i.e., his schedae. He often had his students hand over the transcripts of their lectures and collected them in his fles. In addition, there were manuscripts of other provenance in the Nachlass, which Jungius probably acquired during the course of his lifetime and added to his library. While one can claim that Jungius practiced “nonhierarchical indexing” of those 150,000 slips of paper, notes and transcripts which were “bound and sorted according to the most minute details and building blocks and without registers or indexes, 9 Meinel (1984b: 27) notes that Jungius knew Bacon’s Novum Organum and Historia vitae et mortis in 1630 and, at his death, left behind a whole series of works by Bacon; Meinel also adds that the infuence of Bacon on Jungius is still to be researched. Jungius learned of Descartes’ writings and philosophy in around 1639 from his student Woldeck Weland (Kangro 1969: 179). On how Jungius was equated with Bacon and Descartes, see (Wollgast 1993: 452ff, 459ff). 10 See (Kangro 1968: 233–248). 11 Moreover, in the last decades, modern editions of Jungius’ manuscripts and books have been published: a critical edition of Logica Hamburgensis was published in 1957 (ed. Rudolf W. Meyer), complemented by Joachimi Jungii Logicae Hamburgensis additamenta (1977, ed. Wilhelm Risse). Other modern editions of Jungius’ books include the Praelectiones physicae: Historisch-kritische Edition (1982, ed. Christoph Meinel), Disputationes Hamburgenses (1988, ed. Clemens MüllerGlauser), and Geometria empirica (2004, ed. Bernd Elsner). See also (Rothkegel 2005) for a selection of letters from and to Jungius.

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let alone reference systems” (Krajewski 2011: 17), the inventory made three days after Jungius’ death by Martin Fogel does reveal some form of order. Fogel, the frst administrator of the Nachlass, composed a frst list of Jungius’ manuscripts, listing 330 titles (Meinel 1984a: xxiii).12 While the list refects the haste with which it was compiled, it is not completely without order, since most of the names are listed under various headings which do indicate a certain classifcation, such as: “Logica,” “Physica,” “Medica,” “Politica,” “Historica,” “Philologica,” and “Mathematica.” Nevertheless, the hastiness of the list’s compilation is indicated by the fact that some of the headings are written down twice, and other headings, such as “Octavo” or “Quarto,” refer only to the format and physical shape of the sheets; nevertheless, the list conveys a quite faithful impression of the system and the extent of the notes and manuscripts left by Jungius. One may assume that Fogel, facing the tens of thousands of notes to be found in Jungius’ Nachlass, must have taken the bundles he found as such in order to note down the titles. For the present study, what is interesting is the title of a now missing manuscript: “Texturarum theoria modo sciendi physico inserviens,” listed under “Physica” (ibid.).13 Being the only manuscript whose title contains (a declination of) the word “textura,” one may very well assume that Jungius’ refections on weaving, texture, textiles and textile practices were gathered into this collection. As with most parts of Jungius’ Nachlass, it is unlikely that Jungius intended “Texturarum theoria” to become a text that was structured in any defnite way; rather, it took the form of a collection of notes—one which was later copied and excerpted by Jungius’ students. The original collection of notes was subsequently lost (probably burned in the fre), and what has survived are these copies and excerpts. These were then incorporated into Fogel’s Nachlass, where they were given the title Texturæ Contemplatio. In fact, the full title of the manuscript, probably given by Fogel, is “Texturæ Contemplatio. Auct. Joach. Jung.” If we return to the history of Jungius’ Nachlass itself and its transmission, we already noted that Fogel published several works from the Nachlass, reorganizing the holdings for this purpose. After Fogel’s death in 1675, Leibniz, who already back then highly appreciated Jungius, managed in 1678 to borrow (among others) Fogel’s notes and copies of some of Jungius’ manuscripts. Among these manuscripts was Texturæ Contemplatio. To recall, Michael Kirstenius was the one, after Fogel’s death, who took over the administration of the estate. Presumably with his assistance, the individual fasces of the Nachlass were placed in special covers that could be closed with ribbons, or in disused book covers given new spine titles. Kirstenius’ work on the Nachlass ended with his death in 1678. His successor was Johannes Vagetius, who also tried to arrange the estate and to publish works from it. 12 On how Jungius’ Nachlass was handled by Martin Fogel and his successors, see: (Meinel 1984a: ix–xxxvi). I follow here Meinel’s analysis. 13 As we will see, parts of Texturæ Contemplatio could have been classifed as geometrical, whereas other parts are mere descriptions of working processes with textiles, that is, they consist much more of observations of artisanal work. One may assume that “Texturarum theoria,” once incorporated into Fogel’s Nachlass, was given the title Texturæ Contemplatio after it had been copied.

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Vagetius was the frst to catalogue the Nachlass completely with numbers, so that removed sheets and slips of paper could be returned to their place at any time. Unfortunately, he had taken the greater part of the Nachlass to his home; and on 4 June 1691, his house burned down and with it, almost all of the books and manuscripts stored there. Vagetius himself, while trying to save the estate, died in this fre. Vincentius Placcius (1642–1699), who is mainly remembered for his work De arte excerpendi (1689), was able to ascertain in 1695 that of the original 350 bundles, only 137 were saved. Moreover, four years earlier (in 1691), Placcius noted, in a letter to Leibniz, that of the “approximately 400 bundles,” only the best works had been saved.14 Meinel (1984a: xv) doubts the validity of this claim (that “only the best works had been saved”) and follows Emil Wohlwill, who pointed out that Fogel and Vagetius, who were well acquainted with Jungius’ work, would hardly have wasted so much effort on the various posthumous books published from 1657 until 1691, had they not been the important and main parts of Jungius’ Nachlass which should have been published. As Krajewski conjectures (2011: 17), it may be that Placcius’ “strong vote for the bound form of this storage technology” (i.e., by appropriate libros excerptorum) and his exaggerated lamentation “is a way of warning against lifelong knowledge accumulations that merely gather treasures without being recombined and published as new books.” The above discussion leads us to pose the question: what was Jungius’ method of accumulating knowledge or, reformulating, of writing down pieces of knowledge? Jungius’ notes and slips of paper cannot be considered as heuristic or as a synthesizing instrument, as his “empiricism” was based on the assumption that the conclusions of scientifc inquiry should, as it were, “arise by themselves from dissecting observation alone.” Jungius, according to Meinel, “tirelessly made observations, excerpted, noted, and compiled the notes” (Meinel 1995: 177), but these pieces of knowledge were not classifed from the start in a predefned system. This method of collecting knowledge was not unique to Jungius: the slip of paper was one of the central mediums for writing down information in the 17th century;15 how were these multitudes of notes and slips of paper, with their novelties and data, containing—to follow Lorraine Daston—“small facts,” preserved, collected and organized? I will discuss those “small facts” in Sect. 4.6 but for now, it is important to note that the practices of note-taking were studied extensively by Blair (2010), who traces how knowledge was gained in this way. Blair shows not only how widespread this practice was, but also that in the 17th century, there were already refections on the useful layout of excerpts, considerations of a social approach to collecting notes, and even the acquisition of deceased scholars’ notes. This approach “Jungianae schedae in miserrimo sunt statu. Ex quadringentis ne vix centum restant fasciculi, et hi nullius fere pretii. Optima quaeque perierunt omnia cum exemplis autographa” (Meinel 1984a: xv). Comparing those various statements, while one may fnd an explanation for the difference of the ‘missing’ 50 bundles—i.e., the ones between the 400 and the 350 bundles (ibid.: xvi), it might have been that the Nachlass was reorganized between 1657 and 1691, hence causing the emergence of additional bundles. 15 As already noted by Lorraine Daston (1991, 2001, 2004), Martin Mulsow (2012, 2015), Markus Krajewski (2011) and Ann Blair (2010). 14

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to collecting knowledge, with no prior determination of the method of collection or classifcation, was later adopted by Fogel,16 and consequently by Leibniz; Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, in his short note “Von Leibnitzens Excerpirschrank,” highlights the following: “Leibniz was in the habit of writing his excerpts on special sheets or slips of paper, and it is likely that he adopted this method from Martino Fogelio (who edited the Jungiana) […] Yet his method stems from Joach[im] Jungius. Thus, he also maintained his library according to topical order, without regard for different formats.”17

1.1.1

Texturæ Contemplatio: Structure, Content and History of Transmission

As noted above, one of Jungius’ research themes from the end of the 1610s till the late 1640s was the investigation of textiles and textile practices, as well as the notion of ‘texture’. Chapters 3 and 4 will deal extensively with Jungius’ refections on these subjects, which were mainly collected in Texturæ Contemplatio. Sect. 1.2, and especially Sect. 1.2.1 below discuss whether the notion of ‘texture’ could be – as a property of materials – mathematized, or whether it functioned as a metaphor. Here I would like to sketch briefy the general themes of his research on textiles, and moreover concentrate on the history of the transmission of Texturæ Contemplatio, and how it survived, in contrast to the other notes and slips of paper which were burned in 1691. At this juncture, it is already essential to note that the current order of the folios of Texturæ Contemplatio probably does not refect the intended one, as the collection of notes was partially damaged by fooding of the river Leine in Hanover in 1946, and was subsequently reordered.18 To recall: Texturæ Contemplatio is written in Latin and German, and contains around 60 folios.19 The manuscript is partially a description of a number of different On Fogel’s own collection of notes and slips of paper, see: (Marten and Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 35-56). 17 See: (von Murr 1779). Translation taken from (Krajewski 2011: 19-20). 18 See Sect. 4.1 on the order of the folios in Texturæ Contemplatio. 19 Here a side note concerning the terminology and the enumeration of the folios is essential. In this book, I differentiate between a folio and a sheet. A sheet in this case refers to the physical paper on which a text is written and which can be folded, cut or deformed; in any case, folded or not, it consists of only one piece of paper. Any sheet consists of two sides: recto and verso, each of which is termed here a folio. For example, fol. 13r and fol. 13v refer to the two sides of a single sheet numerated as ‘13’. When a sheet is also folded into two (or more, though for Texturæ Contemplatio this is not the case), then due to the numeration of the pages done in the 21st century of Fogel’s Nachlass, each side of the folded sheet is numerated with a different number. For example, the sheet of Texturæ Contemplatio that is numbered 10 is folded in the middle. Its reverse side is numbered 17, which means that fol. 10r is in fact also fol. 17v, and that fol. 17r is in fact also fol. 10v. I will usually refer to the folios in Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio when discussing the content, but sometimes I will refer to the sheets themselves when considering the physicality of the manuscript. 16

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weaving materials, textiles and artisanal practices, partially a more scientifc examination of fabrics (e.g., with a microscope, refecting on the notion of ‘situs’ or on a theory of materials with textiles), and partially an attempt to present weaves as geometrical, assigning to them ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’. The secondary literature hardly mentions either Texturæ Contemplatio or “Texturarum theoria”. Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer (1850: 294) only notes that “Texturarum theoria” is “worthy of admiration”. Emil Wohlwill (1887: 48) conjectures that the “main subject of [Texturarum theoria] (lost since 1691) [is] considerations about the arrangement and behavior of the parts in the composite whole”.20 Kangro (1969: 28) corrects Wohlwill’s conjecture, noting that his “assumption that Texturarum theoria belongs directly to atomistics is not confrmed. Rather, it is an investigation of the fne structure of solids, e.g. of tissues.” Kangro immediately adds that “Texturarum theoria” probably served for “the investigation of the method, after which nature is to be examined (modo sciendi physico inserviens),” taking the investigation of various textures of intertwined threads as a model. Wohlwill’s assumption about “Texturarum theoria” is however not entirely wrong: Jungius did consider the structure of textiles as an explanatory model for the arrangement of parts in materials and for their structure; however, such explanations are not to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio, but rather in other writings. More surprisingly, Texturæ Contemplatio is also hardly mentioned in the secondary literature. Guhrauer (1850: 292–293) highlights the knowledge of “position” (“situs”) to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio,21 and Kangro (1968: 243) notes that Texturæ Contemplatio contains defnitions and theorems for weaves, as well as Jungius’ analysis of various fabrics with a magnifying glass (ibid.: 246). However, neither Guhrauer nor Kangro examine these defnitions or theorems, the meaning of ‘situs’ in the context of Texturæ Contemplatio, or the nature of Jungius’ analysis. While the content of Texturæ Contemplatio will be examined in depth in Chap. 4, what is essential to stress now is its composition. By examining the secondary literature, it may be possible to deduce that there was no defnite structure—for either Texturæ Contemplatio or “Texturarum theoria”. That is, if Jungius’ manipuli were usually a collection of notes with no specifc predetermined order, how was Texturæ Contemplatio composed? In the case of this manuscript, one does have an idea regarding its copying and composition. Texturæ Contemplatio was probably prepared in Hamburg between 1660 and 1678, when Jungius’ former students, under the direction of Martin Fogel and later Johannes Vagetius, arranged, copied, and transcribed Jungius’ numerous notes (Meinel 1984a: xii–xiv). While the Nachlass existed till 1691, Leibniz borrowed Texturæ Contemplatio from Fogel’s

When I examine Texturæ Contemplatio in Chaps. 3 and 4, we will see that this conjecture is based on other manuscripts of Jungius, but at the same time, one may also assume that Guhrauer and Wohlwill had access to differently arranged manuscripts, because they took their notes before the rearrangement of Texturæ Contemplatio that occurred after the 1946 food. 21 He notes that “Specimina SCIENTIAE SITUS in Texturae contemplatione non possunt non esse admirationi omnibus, ubi praemissis paucis defnitionibus aliquot subjicit theoremata.” 20

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own Nachlass in 1678, and later partially copied it.22 The question then arises: what was the source material from which Jungius prepared his own notes on textiles and textile practices? This question will be thoroughly dealt with in Sects. 4.5 and 4.6, but it should be stressed here that Texturæ Contemplatio draws from various sources: either the originals with which the copiers worked were Jungius’ own observations, refections, and autographs, or they were texts that Jungius dictated to students or lecture transcripts by students, or alternatively, they were texts collected by Jungius from third parties (students or recollections of colleagues). A defnite answer cannot be given only on the basis of an examination of Texturæ Contemplatio, but as we will see, other texts do support the supposition that most, if not all, of the texts found in Texturæ Contemplatio are a copy of Jungius’ own refections. Numerous folios have added rubrics or titles, indicating the subjects, and these are an integral part of Jungius’s writing technique (see Meinel 1995: 168-9); hence, these were most probably taken from the original writings and not added after Jungius’ death. Moreover, while some of the folios are accompanied by signs (which resemble astrological or alchemical ones), which Jungius himself used and his students copied, his notes were not necessarily accompanied by page numbers (ibid.: 168); this suggests that some of the numbers which are occasionally seen in the titles of the various folios were later additions by the scribes. To summarize: Texturæ Contemplatio is not an autograph by Jungius, but rather a posthumously reorganized copy of his collection of excerpts and notes. Since the editing of Jungius’ Nachlass was done by several scribes,23 it is possible that several of them worked on one and the same collection at the same time. To recall, Leibniz himself also borrowed Texturæ Contemplatio in 1678. In the following years, Leibniz copied parts of Texturæ Contemplatio (or had parts of it copied for him); if one compares Leibniz’s copy to Texturæ Contemplatio, one fnds that the former is not a simple copy—it is not only an editing of Texturæ Contemplatio, because it does not contain a copy of all of the folios of Texturæ Contemplatio; but it is also a reordering of those folios that it does contain. Moreover, Leibniz’s copy contains sections which do not appear at all in Texturæ Contemplatio, though they certainly deal with related topics. This may very well mean that some folios originating from Texturæ Contemplatio or from “Texturarum theoria” were lost or not put back in their original position. But here, it is again essential to recall that Texturæ Contemplatio itself is already a reordered and restructured text; and hence, the statement concerning Leibniz’s reorganization should be taken as a relative one. ***

Leibniz’ ‘copy’ of Texturæ Contemplatio is to be found in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, LH 38, fol. 26v–40v. Hereafter, this collection of notes will be abbreviated as: LH 38. 23 The prominent scribes were Fogel, Christian Buncke, Johann Philipp Maas and Michael Kirstenius (Meinel 1984a: xiv). 22

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I would like to elaborate on how Leibniz even managed to obtain Texturæ Contemplatio from Fogel’s library.24 Fogel himself took some of the copies of Jungius’ manuscripts with him to his own library. After Fogel’s death, Leibniz not only acquired Fogel’s extensive collection of books for the library in Hanover, but also borrowed Fogel’s notes from his widow. Today, some 32,500 notes and slips of paper have survived from Fogel’s library, among them Texturæ Contemplatio. As we will see in Chap. 5, Leibniz was very interested in Jungius’ work, but he could not examine any of Jungius’ original works (or Fogel’s works) until his visit to Hamburg in 1678. After Fogel’s death, Leibniz had managed to persuade his employer, the Duke Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Luenburg, that he should purchase his library from Fogel’s widow. He spent over six weeks in the city, in July and August 1678 (Marten and Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 27), where he met several of Jungius’ students: Placcius, Vagetius and Heinrich Sivers. While in Hamburg, Leibniz also attempted to purchase some of Jungius’ and Fogel’s writings. Although his request was rejected, Leibniz was given permission to borrow 86 manuscript bundles, upon agreeing that these manuscripts would be returned. However, despite repeated requests from Fogel’s family to return the loan, these manuscripts remained in Leibniz’s possession; one of them was Texturæ Contemplatio. Nevertheless, one should emphasize that Leibniz was not able to take the entire collection of Jungius’ notes from Fogel’s estate to the library in Hanover. He took only a fraction of the papers available at the time with him, whereas other notes of Fogel and Jungius, described by Fogel, remained in Hamburg (ibid.: 152). As already noted, Leibniz partially copied Texturæ Contemplatio and also restructured it,25 and this certainly shows his interest in textiles and textile practices. But Leibniz had already stressed in 1675, three years before even borrowing Texturæ Contemplatio, that one should develop a “geometry of tailors”—a “geometria sartorum.”26 This obviously indicates that Leibniz was already viewing weaves and weaving in a geometrical fashion, before he even knew of Texturæ Contemplatio, which may explain his fascination with this manuscript. I will discuss Leibniz’s own reception of Texturæ Contemplatio in Chap. 5, but it should be emphasized that Leibniz—in a similar but not identical fashion to Jungius—was interested in textiles from various points of view over the course of decades. However, it is not clear when exactly Leibniz copied Texturæ Contemplatio. Certainly this happened after 1678, but it seems that the frst time Leibniz copies another manuscript of Jungius which deals with topics which are also discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio is in 1685, as we will see in Chap. 5. This suggests a time frame of seven years

I follow here the account of Maria Marten and Carola Piepenbring-Thomas (Marten and Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 27–34). 25 Though it may very well be that the order of the sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio was different when Leibniz examined it. 26 Note: to refer to Leibniz’s edited works (Leibniz 1923–), I will use the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s miscellaneous works. Leibniz’s reference to “geometria sartorum” is found in: (A VIII2: 126). 24

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during which Leibniz was interested in textiles but had not delved into Texturæ Contemplatio. Why did Jungius and Leibniz have such an interest in weaving and textile practices? Or, more to the point, what were the philosophical and artisanal milieus and circumstances that enabled such an explicit interest to emerge? And what role did the novel conceptions of natural philosophy and the emerging new empirical sciences play? These questions will be answered in the course of this book. But to clarify them, I would like to briefy examine the two narratives concerning the rise of the modern sciences during the early modern period in which these questions can be couched, two narratives which were presented at the beginning of the introduction: the mathematization of nature and the exchanges between artisans and natural philosophers.

1.2

Texturæ Contemplatio Between the Two Narratives?

If we take Jungius’ ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ of weaves as one of the central parts of Texturæ Contemplatio, then one can certainly consider it as supporting the thesis of the 17th century mathematization of nature; although, as we will see, Jungius, like Bacon, was not necessarily attempting to impose a mathematical structure from the start; rather, such mathematization should come at the end, after collecting enough observations. This thesis was—and in certain aspects, still is—one of most infuential in 20th (and 21st) century historiography. But as Sophie Roux argues (2010), one sees in the 17th century not only very little agreement that this mathematization was a unifed or a unifying project, but also a plurality of types of mathematizations— most clearly observed when one examines the encounters between mathematicians, practical geometers, philosophers and humanists, specialized groups of practitioners and artisans (miners, weavers, glass makers, barrel construction, pottery or ars militaris). Or, in the words of Daston, during that century, but also in the centuries that followed, “there were too many versions of the new science, with and without mathematics, […] and too many versions of why nature should be mathematized to warrant any straightforward connection” (Daston 1991: 525). The question that hence arises is how can one characterize the nature of these encounters between artisanal material knowledge and mathematical or scientifc knowledge (theoretical and practical), and more explicitly, what kind of rationality emerged due to this encounter? Was it merely an imposition of a mathematical structure on the observed practices? Or did the artisans indeed teach the scholars? Formulated differently, while the recent scholarship in the history of science on artisanal epistemology,27 as well on the “material turn”28—scholarship which

For example, see the following works: (Smith 2004, 2022; Long 2011; Valleriani 2017; de Munck 2019). 28 See: (Smith and Schmidt 2007; Miller 2013; Smith et al. 2017). 27

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already points to the second narrative noted above—certainly indicates that the knowledge involved in these practices was not easily mathematizable, the encounters between mathematicians, natural philosophers and weavers do raise several particular questions. To what extent did the encounters between weavers, the newly developed textile machines and techniques, and mathematicians prompt new discoveries in mathematics? Could one also suggest that these textile crafts infuenced the way in which mathematics was thought about, i.e., the image of mathematics? And conversely, was a mathematization (or the suggestion of such a future mathematization) of textile practices aimed to bestow a character of ‘mathematicity’ to these practices?29 That is, to follow Morel and Preveraud (2022: 5), is it valid to say that through the transformation and standardization of a “practitioner’s gesture, mathematics allowed access to a form of social legitimization that offered, depending on the case, prestige or rejection of theoretical science”? A few of these questions will be answered in the following chapters. But to view Jungius’ ‘theorems’ as well as his textile-based theory of materials in a broader perspective, one can quote Christoph Lüthy, who notes that once one introduced “experimental and mathematical approaches to the study of natural phenomena, traditional differences between speculative thought and practice, literary study and applied labor became blurred […] everyone who was concerned with some aspect or other of the natural world came to consider himself ipso facto a ‘philosopher.’ This immense extension of the feld of philosophical activity explains also why instruments such as telescopes, prisms, or vacuum pumps came to be regarded as ‘philosophical instruments’” (Lüthy 2000: 165).

Not only the mathematical approach, but also the instruments aimed to increase production, to ameliorate the senses, or to ‘operate’ on or ‘manipulate’ nature. They blur not only the difference between “speculative thought and practice” but also that between the natural and the artifcial. This is where treadle looms and weaving instruments enter the picture: weaving with such a treadle loom—which was already a result of mechanization—pointed clearly to the blurring of this distinction, a blurring which will be seen most clearly when examining Leibniz’s discussion on natural and artifcial weaving machines. Were the textures of natural materials considered to be similar to the textures of woven artifcial fabrics? And if these are structurally comparable, can one transfer the mathematization of one domain to the other? To recall what Mumford noted, and as will be elaborated in Sect. 2.1 (and consequently in Sect. 4.4), the weaving and knitting industry experienced major technological developments during the 17th century. These advances, together with the decisive role played by the “philosophical instruments” during the early modern period, may certainly have enabled a conception of transferring artisanal notions and practices to the empirical disciplines and vice versa. In this framework, one may certainly understand Jungius’ ‘geometrical’ refections. This ‘mathematization of texture’, however, is only part of the story, because it partially ignores the material-embodied knowledge of the artisans. That is, if we Cf. (Smith 2022: 107): “In the sixteenth century, practitioners increasingly set pen to paper with a new model of knowledge in mind, as they sought to formulate a theory of their art, most often simply by associating it with geometry”. 29

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view Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as the various interests of other 17th century scholars, in textiles and texture as an expression of genuine interest in artisanal practices, then these “epitomize the breakdown of ancient ideological boundaries between hand and mind” (Klein 2017: 303). But this breakdown, accompanied by the above-described blurring, did not necessarily prompt a homogeneous mathematically based science, or an overall mathematical treatment of artisanal practices, but rather what may be termed Baroque Science, to follow Gal and Chen-Morris (2013). To explicate, for Gal and Chen-Morris, “‘Baroque’ refers to the very particular set of tensions, anxieties, and paradoxes” which were present during the early modern period; these tensions will be unfolded in the following chapters, but are to be seen both in the way the ‘mathematization of nature’ narrative is presented, and in the ‘artisan–scholar encounters’ narrative. That is, the paradox was, among others, that the “empirical prowess […] [and the] new instruments did not offer direct observation at all; rather than extending and improving the senses, they were aimed at replacing them altogether. […] [They] detached the intellect from its objects.” At the same time, “the new mathematical investigation of nature relied on obscure, artifcial procedures, and in place of divine harmonies it revealed an assemblage of isolated, contingent laws and constants.” The usage of those instruments— mathematical, mechanical, artisanal, as well as the tighter transfer of knowledge between artisans and scholars—not only blurred the distinction between the natural and the artifcial, but at the same time prompted the view that one “could no longer lay claim to direct acquaintance with the objects of nature” (ibid.: 8). Indeed, if Jungius presents ‘theorems’ of artifcial weaves on the one hand, but calls for an investigation of the ‘texture’ of materials on the other, is there a direct acquaintance with such textures, or a clear separation between textures and fabrics of natural and man-made materials? By transforming artisanal knowledge, presenting it as independent of the time and place it was practiced, making it ‘objectifed’, are the mathematicians prompting the emergence of new knowledge?30 To take another example, one can similarly examine Leibniz’s statement from 1695, calling to edit and publish Texturæ Contemplatio, emphasizing that one should begin this manuscript “by giving us defnitions or constructions of all kinds of fabrics […] [since it] would be more useful than one might think, even in physics, because the parts of plants and animals were made by nature, quodam genere texturae”.31 While I will elaborate on Leibniz’s views in Sects. 5.2 and 5.3,32 one might very well ask: how is one to As a side note, the conception that craft practices may be considered as self-contained and decontextualized activities that can be easily mined as a resource either through observational activities or citing older sources is criticized by craft theorists, for example, Glenn Adamson (2013) or Richard Sennet (2008). 31 (A I11: 97–98): “[…] il suffroit qu’il commencat par nous donner des defnitions ou constructions de toute sorte d’etoffes par ordre […] Cela seroit plus utile qu’on ne pense, même en physique, car les parties des plantes et des animaux ont este faites par la nature, quodam genere texturae.” 32 See also the short discussion in Sect. 2.2.7 on how the notions of ‘fber’ and ‘texture’ were employed in the discourse of anatomy from the second half of the 17th century till the beginning of the 19th century. 30

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understand here the mathematical explanation of the texture of plants and animals? These tensions and blurring show that during the early modern period—to follow Pamela O. Long—the sharp “distinction between the ‘scholar’ and the ‘craftsman,’ the separation of ‘theory’ and ‘practice,’ and the distinct categories of ‘art’ and ‘nature’ became anachronistic within certain contexts” (Long 2011: 129). *** Indeed, Long poses the following question at the beginning of her book Artisan/ Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600: “A long-standing issue in the history of science can be framed as a question: Did artisan/practitioners infuence the development of the new sciences? By the expression ‘artisan/practitioners’, I refer to a broadly diverse group of skilled artisans such as weavers and instrument makers” (ibid.: 1). However, curiously enough, Long does not discuss the “weavers” in her book. While I certainly follow her statement that the dichotomous categories: artisan/scholar or experimental/mathematical are distorting for the history of the early modern period, this does not mean that the literate weavers became mathematicians (or natural philosophers) or that the natural philosophers began a second career as professional weavers. Here it is essential to underline the obvious: even though several weavers codifed the weaving processes and wrote books with weaving notation, artisans “did not need written texts in order to learn or transmit knowledge, for craft knowledge was effciently transmitted by means of apprenticeship and disseminated relatively rapidly by the embodied knowledge moving in the artisans themselves.” (Smith 2022: 95) Nevertheless, as weaving notations do appear during this period (as well as in Texturæ Contemplatio), one should ask not only how well spread or used these were, but also concerning their epistemic functions in the weavers’ community: were they mnemonic or recording devices? Or a way to organize the production of fabrics or of knowledge? Returning to Long, she calls to pay attention to the “trading zones,” a term taken from Peter Galison.33 For Long, the “metaphor of the trading zone refers to arenas— symbolic or actual places—where people from different backgrounds who might hold quite different views and assumptions communicate in substantive ways” (Long 2011: 94). In this book, I will discuss whether Texturæ Contemplatio, for example, was the result of such a trading zone or rather enabled its foundation. But as was hinted with the above citation, the transfer of knowledge was mainly oral and embodied; moreover, as we will see in the course of this book, while the world of textile manufacture did infuence the discourse on the natural world, the reverse infuence barely occurred. Indeed, the inquiry of such zones should not be reduced to whether a weaver can conceive that a geometric line is an abstraction of a thread, but rather whether this artisan also beneftted from conceiving his work as See (Galison 1997; Galison 1999). Long revises Galison’s own usage of the term; Galison focuses on the interrelations between theory, observation, instruments and experiments, and also underlines the emergence of pidgin and creole languages, aspects which hardly appear in Long’s account. 33

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geometrical (or from the changing conception of geometry in the 16th and 17th centuries), and whether the mathematicians and natural philosophers regained novel insights from the fourishing weaving industry. As Pamela Smith and Richard J.  Oosterhoff note, there were indeed scholars, humanists and natural philosophers calling to learn from the artisans: Juan Luis Vives, Peter Ramus, Albrecht Dürer, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Nicholas of Cusa, and Ramon Lull—to give only a few examples (Smith 2004: 66ff.; Oosterhoff 2014).34 While it is known, for example, that Nicolas of Cusa praised the artisans’ creations, or that Ramus visited artisans’ workshops in Nuremberg for four days, the question of how well scholars knew the technology, the artisanal procedures and instruments or the chaîne opératoire nevertheless arises. Or, more to the point: are four days enough to learn how to weave, if the craft knowledge was mainly embodied and not necessarily written by the artisans? On the other side of these humanists and mathematical practitioners, one may fnd the “superior artisans” (Zilsel 1942). But these are obviously not identical to the mathematical practitioners, “since these artisans could not, themselves, make the move to create real scientifc knowledge. They needed to work in concert with natural philosophers,” as noted by Cormack (2017: 15).35 This critique on the notion of ‘trading zones’ (and also of the legitimation thesis)36 is also expressed in (Young 2017a: 531), who claims that natural philosophers confated the local knowledge of craft practices and the universal principles of scientia, “situating each within a hierarchical classifcation of knowledge within which craftwork could only appear as knowledge that was undeveloped or unfnished”, thus creating an epistemological gap between the two types of knowledge.37 Here, it might be helpful to refne and nuance several of the notions appearing in the above discussion. First, there were levels of artisanal work and degrees of specialty: tapestry weaving was much more laborious and produced more luxurious fabrics, which could not be compared to knitting a pair of stockings. Weaving and knitting form and force different engagements with space and spatial structures. Examinations of the quality of fabrics with magnifying lenses (by, among others, textile merchants) were conducted long before natural philosophers examined them with the more powerful microscopes. The group of weavers was therefore De Munck (2019: 230) notes that several humanists “debated the question of whether craftsmen had a privileged access to God’s creation […] the artisans’ naïve, unmediated experience of nature was seen as a direct route to God’s wisdom and truth […] The fipside was that artisans could not be seen as the ‘authors’ of a work of art or a product. The real and ultimate creator was always God.” 35 Note as well Robert Halleux (2009: 9): “ce n’étaient pas les mêmes hommes qui écrivaient les livres et qui pratiquaient les arts et métiers.” 36 The legitimation thesis consists of the claim that the development of experimental science in the early modern period involved a legitimation of certain aspects of artisanal practice or craft knowledge. 37 See also (Young 2017b: 73): “writings of experimental philosophers themselves […] often balanced expressions of admiration for the achievements of craft with a clear disdain for the artisanal practices and empirical methods from which they emerged.” 34

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heterogeneous. Moreover, the physical space in which the artisanal work was being carried out was changing: some fabrics were made at a workshop, others at home. Some were only worn or shown in courts, others were worn by everyone. Indeed, Simon Werrett calls to paying closer “attention to the importance of materials within the domestic setting” (Werrett 2019: 4): pieces of stocking, rags, socks and all sorts of fabrics certainly belong to these household-related objects. Werrett notes that in the early modern period, such objects were “open ended and capable of serving a variety of purposes” (ibid.: 6), and “much experimental activity involved making use of existing things […] especially [at] home […]” (ibid.: 7). The fact that one can experiment with cloths was also noticed by scholars in the 18th century.38 Jungius, to give another example, did his own explorations with stockings, though being of a different character; this is another indication that natural philosophers used cloths and fabrics “for experiment, and in fact the practices surrounding clothing in early modern homes help to illustrate the diverse ways in which material objects might be put to good use” (ibid.: 65–66). Moreover, Jungius’ investigations of stockings and how knitting was practically and manually done show an interest in a practice which certainly cannot be classifed as that of a “superior artisan”; another example would be the examination of fairly simple weaves, which could be woven with a twotreadle loom. This is not to say that Jungius did not examine textile products from ‘high culture’: he also wrote notes on damask weavers, and on caffa, velvet and the feur-de-lis as a decorative symbol on certain fabrics. These studies point to a “process of transition by which the artisanal epistemology was incorporated into a new discourse about nature” (Smith 2004: 20). The question is therefore not only whether natural philosophers were interested in the products of the craftworkers—a question which certainly has a positive answer, as seen above, but also whether those crafts and practices themselves—and not just their end products—were infuential in bringing about the developments of new theories or the emergence of new knowledge. While this question does not have a defnite answer – since craft and artisanal practices were more personal and embodied, where as the new scientifc practices of the 17th century often adopted “a more detached relation to the natural world” (Young 2017b: 75), there was another level at which the transfer of knowledge between these two realms was taking place: the metaphorical–conceptual level.

As Werrett (2019: 64) exemplifes, “in 1759 the former fnancial administrator Robert Symmer argued for a two-fuid theory of electricity based on experiments with his socks. Symmer reported how removing his silk stockings made a ‘crackling or snapping noise’ and in the dark the stockings would emit ‘sparks of fre’.”

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Introduction: Textiles, Texture and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century

On Texture and Weaving Metaphors

The question of why even refect on metaphors when discussing artisanal epistemology and its transfer receives its immediate answer when looking at Texturæ Contemplatio. Is the proper translation of the title “contemplation on weaving” or “contemplation on texture”? Or is ‘textura’ an umbrella notion for various textile practices—knitting, weaving or even plaiting? Does ‘textura’ indicate a refection on the concrete artisanal activities and their products or on the notion and metaphor of ‘texture’? Or both? Here, a short detour is required. Textile and weaving metaphors, and especially how they were interwoven into the language of description of the world and of natural phenomena, have a long history; it is enough to recall that according to Lucretius’ epic poem De Rerum Natura, nature is not to be disintegrated into discrete particles, but is composed of continuous fows, folds, and weaves; Plato’s metaphors of weaving in his dialogues Statesman and Cratylus are also well-known (Harlizius-Klück 2004; Marrucci 2020). I do not aim to unfold the history of this metaphor starting in antiquity till the 21st century; see, for example, Albus (2001) on metaphors in 18th century philosophy, Silver (2020) on the metaphor of ‘texture’, especially during the early modern period, Della (2020) on weaving metaphors accounting for the earth’s mantle and Harlizius-Klück (2014), who details several episodes in the history of the spinning and weaving metaphors. However, one should recall that for these textile images, while migrating predominantly from both the technical and mythical realm into, for example, philosophical discourse—their function may appear at frst as metaphorical, but may very well be not only as rhetoric but also as a catalyst of concepts. This migration can be seen in an exemplary fashion in the equating of ‘text,’ ‘writing’ and ‘weaving’ (texere in Latin) since late antiquity. In the context of our framework, concerning the encounters between textile artisans, humanists and natural philosophers, this migration is frst and foremost to be seen in how the notion of ‘textura’ was integrated and employed in the discourse of 17th century natural philosophy, as I will explicitly show in Sect. 2.2. The history of this notion, so I claim, should not necessarily be analyzed within the history of concepts, but rather within the history of metaphors. This is not to claim that such historical analysis of the concept would not contribute to our historical understanding, since, as Silver notes, ‘texture’ “helped fll in an explanatory gap in atomist accounts of the sorts of properties that only occur in combinations […] [it] names a metaphysics” (Silver 2020: 181, 190). But by considering it as a metaphor and not as a (future) concept, one may follow Hans Blumenberg, indicating that ‘weaving’, ‘texture’ and ‘textile’, among others, are linguistic elements which are necessary for human thought, but are nevertheless irreducible to concepts. That is, texture and weaving metaphors, which were employed during the early modern period, were essential not necessarily (or not only) because of the conceptual gap Silver refers to, but because an epistemological gap between artisanal knowledge and the newly emerging scientifcal-empirical knowledge, a gap in which these metaphors emerge.

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To explicate this one may examine in more details one of Blumenberg’s earlier research directions: metaphorology. This study represents an alternative to the history of concepts, not so much because it deals primarily with metaphors, whereas the history of concepts deals primarily with concepts, but because it suggests that concepts themselves operate on a metaphorical foundation. This mode of operation is not to be understood as implying that concepts are a crystallization of metaphors, but rather that there are fundamental metaphors which guide the emergence and production of concepts.39 For Blumenberg, what needs to be addressed is “the fundamental question of the conditions under which metaphors can claim legitimacy in philosophical language. Metaphors can frst of all be leftover elements, rudiments on the path from mythos to logos […]” (Blumenberg 1960: 9). However, in contrast to the Cartesian understanding of the metaphor, which eventually dismisses it as a dispensable tool, Blumenberg presents absolute metaphors, which “can also […] be foundational elements of philosophical language, ‘translations’ [‘Übertragungen’] that resist being converted back into authenticity and logicality” (ibid.). These metaphors “prove resistant to terminological claims and cannot be dissolved into conceptuality” (ibid.: 11). Absolute metaphors are not to be taken as a substrate which can be transformed into concepts, but function “as a catalytic sphere from which the universe of concepts continually renews itself, without thereby converting and exhausting this founding reserve” (ibid.: 10). Moreover, these metaphors do not have to be expressed explicitly as metaphors (though they can be), but can remain latent, in the background, when other expressions and modes of articulation draw on the semantic feld of these (absolute) metaphors, without the metaphors themselves being explicitly stated as such. While we will see a series of natural philosophers in the 17th century who employed ‘textura’ as both a metaphor and a concept, and hence one may claim that the weaving metaphor functioned as an absolute metaphor, one should nevertheless recall that weaving metaphors mostly refer to artisanal practices. Here also lies the crux of the problem, which emerges when transferring notions as metaphors from the textile artisanal world to natural philosophy. First, those artisanal practices, when integrated into the refections of the natural philosophers, already belonged to a realm of the representational world, hence invoking nostalgic connotations or inaccurate ideas (Harlizius-Klück 2014: 507). This may also explain why for various philosophers in the 17th century, the notion of ‘textura’ underlined the spatial structure of materials, as if weaving was reduced to only the relations of the weft and the warp threads of the end result (the fabric), hence ignoring the complexity of the artisanal processes involved. Moreover, this partial understanding of the notion in natural philosophy may have prompted a misunderstanding of artisanal work itself, as the corresponding technology—and its history—were not even considered. Second, not taking into account the textile instruments themselves and their history (Blumenberg 1960: 11): “[M]etaphorology seeks to burrow down to the substructure of thought, the underground, the nutrient solution of systematic crystallizations; but it also aims to show with what ‘courage’ the mind preempts itself in its images, and how its history is projected in the courage of its conjectures.”

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may also lead not only to a distorted use of the metaphor, but also to its disappearance. For example, Harlizius-Klück (ibid.: 506-507) notes that the presentation of the Jacquard loom as something that can copy any image,40 a presentation based on the binary structure of punch cards, has led to a conception of weaving as purely mechanical and hence to the disappearance of weaving metaphors from the philosophical discourse. Weaving metaphors, and especially the metaphor-laden notion of ‘textura’, played an essential role in the natural philosophy of the 17th century. However, to examine the conceptual–metaphorical encounters between the artisans and the natural philosophers on this level, one should extend Blumenberg’s conception of metaphors, to view them by also including an account of the associated artisanal practices, their contexts of use and the existing technology at that time. The technical, material, embodied and artisanal aspects should be clarifed not only for the metaphor-based notions but also for the artisanal-based metaphors. This conceptual–metaphorical framework accompanies the various discussions on textiles and texture.

1.3 The Structure of the Book It may therefore be conjectured that similar to the partial and somewhat distorted transfer of weaving metaphors to natural philosophy in the 17th century, the meetings taking place between textile artisans and natural philosophers were partial, or even precarious. The question that stands at the center of the following chapters is not only to inquire how textiles, textile practices and the notion of ‘texture’ were investigated in the framework of natural philosophy with the help of weaving-based metaphors or with insights gained from encounters between artisans and scholars, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to refect on the articulation of artisanal practical knowledge during the 17th century. In this context, one should not emphasize the failure of the publication of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, or present it in the framework of failed, incomplete or misunderstood encounters between artisans and natural philosophers, but rather examine it in the framework of 17th century natural philosophers’ interest in textiles, weaving and the notion of ‘textura’, where all three of the above-mentioned frameworks—the ‘mathematization of nature’, the artisan–scholar encounters, and the metaphorical–conceptual transfer—play a role. These encounters and interests should nevertheless be examined critically. Were the textile artisanal work and its processes of production considered in the 17th century to have aspects which could not be described in writing or formalized? Was the partial acquaintance with the various looms—which may have prompted the natural philosophers’ fascination—the reason that weaving metaphors were widely used in the 17th century, though sometimes only partially or in a distorted way, and this in

The most famous example of this ‘copying’ is the portrait of Jacquard himself, which was woven with the Jacquard loom, and required 24,000 punched cards to create. 40

1.3

The Structure of the Book

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order to fll conceptual gaps? Or did Jungius’ writings express a yearning for an artisanal work which ‘did not exist’, or existed only in Jungius’ imagination? That is, how, for example in Jungius’ writings, was textile artisanal work presented: as that which can always be written down or formalized or as essentially unapproachable? The book will begin with the introductory Chap. 2, presenting the background on which Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio emerged. I will frst look into the technological and economic developments of textile industries in the 17th century, focusing on two developments which were widespread in Europe during that time: the stocking frame and the automatic ribbon loom; and also examining more local technological and notational developments. On this background, the chapter moves from the artisans to the natural philosophers, in order to review how the leading scholars of the 17th century viewed weaving practices, textiles and the notion of ‘textura’. Reviewing the works of Bacon, Descartes, Hartlib, Gassendi, Hooke, Power, Comenius, Boyle and Locke, several questions arise: how well did these scholars consider the changes in the weaving and textile industry? Did the technological advances in the domain of textiles prompt a discussion on the ‘scientifc’ knowledge which may be extracted from weaving and textiles? Or rather, did it facilitate a transfer of metaphors and notions, frst and foremost to be seen with the notion of ‘textura’ or ‘texture’? Chapters 3 and 4 constitute the main chapters of the book. Chapter 3 presents, for the frst time, the transcription and translation of Texturæ Contemplatio. Both are presented almost without explanations or footnotes, so as not to add a layer of interpretation—although it is clear that such a translation of a text from the 17th century is already an interpretation. Chapter 4 then goes on to analyze Texturæ Contemplatio from various points of view. Starting with an examination of the order of Texturæ Contemplatio, the main two axes of Chap. 4 present, on the one hand, Jungius’ geometrical-scientifc refections on and empirical investigations of textiles and texture, and explain, on the other, his various encounters with artisans and accounts of artisanal practices. Having discussed these various points of view, the concluding section of this chapter lays out the thesis that Texturæ Contemplatio can be considered a rhizomatic and at the same time precarious text. This is not only because it was edited, copied and incorporated citations from various sources, though never offcially published, but also because of the nature of Jungius’ own observations— all of this leads to the question of whether Texturæ Contemplatio can or even should be considered a ‘trading zone’ between natural philosophy, mathematics and textile practices. Chapter 5 then jumps over several decades into the end of the 17th century, concentrating on the multifaceted refections of Leibniz on weaving, textile instruments and machines, and especially on Texturæ Contemplatio. Leibniz’s refections on the latter not only come on a different philosophical background than that of Jungius, but they are also couched within a different conception of the technological advances: Leibniz’s views on the technological inventions in the feld of textile practices (the stocking frame and the ribbon looms) aimed to present Texturæ Contemplatio, had it been published, as an instrument-inclined treatise.

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The concluding Chap. 6 returns briefy to the encounters between mathematicians, natural philosophers and artisans. Such encounters, precisely because neither Jungius nor Leibniz managed to consolidate and present them as a unifed, conclusive theory which establishes a solid body of knowledge, may very well be considered as a never-ending meeting of two domains: the new empirical and mathematical sciences of the 17th century and the artisanal realm of textile practices—a meeting which unfolds each time anew in different ways, and whose results cannot be foreseen in advance. It is the aim of this book to delineate these meetings between these two domains, which may have seemed so distant during the 17th century.

Abbreviations The following are abbreviations of several manuscripts, editions and book used throughout this chapter. (i) Works by Joachim Jungius: Texturæ Contemplatio: A bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), in: Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover. (ii) Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A Leibniz’s edited works, to be found in: Leibniz, G. W. (1923–). Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Abbreviated by the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s works. LH 38 Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

Bibliography Adamson, Glenn. 2013. The Invention of Craft. London et al.: Bloomsbury. Albus, Vanessa. 2001. Weltbild und Metapher. Untersuchungen zur Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Blair, Ann. 2010. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. New Haven, London: Yale. Blumenberg, Hans. 1960. Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie. Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 6: 7–142. Bohnsack, Almut. 1981. Spinnen und Weben: Entwicklung von Technik und Arbeit im Textilgewerbe. Hamburg: Rowohlt. ———. 1993. Der Jacquard-Webstuhl. Munich: Deutsches Museum.

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Lüthy, Christoph. 2000. What To Do With Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy? A Taxonomic Problem. Perspectives on Science 8 (2): 164–195. https://doi.org/10.1162/106361400568064. Marrucci, Elia. 2020. Filiera tessile e dialettica conoscenza tecnica ed impieghi analogici nella seconda tetralogia platonica. Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 46/2(2): 105–121. Marten, Maria, and Carola Piepenbring-Thomas. 2015. Fogels Ordnungen: Aus der Werkstatt des Hamburger Mediziners Martin Fogel (1634–1675). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Meinel, Christoph. 1982. Der Begriff des chemischen Elementes bei Joachim Jungius. Sudhoffs Archiv 66 (4): 313–338. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13316. ———., ed. 1984a. Der handschriftliche Nachlaß von Joachim Jungius in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. Stuttgart: Hauswedell. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13310. ———. 1984b. In physicis futurum saeculum respicio: Joachim Jungius und die Naturwissenschaftliche Revolution des 17. Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13311. ———. 1987. Joachim Jungius (1587-1657): Empirisme et réforme scientifque au seuil de l’époque modern. Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 37: 297–315. https://doi. org/10.5283/epub.13334. ———. 1995. Enzyklopädie der Welt und Verzettelung des Wissens: Aporien der Empirie bei Joachim Jungius. In Enzyklopädien der Frühen Neuzeit: Beiträge zu ihrer Erforschung, ed. Franz M. Eybl, Wolfgang Harms, Hans-Henrik Krummacher, and Werner Welzig, 162–187. Tübingen: Niemeyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110930603.162. Miller, Peter N., ed. 2013. Cultural Histories of the Material World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Morel, Thomas (2023). Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morel, Thomas, and Thomas Preveraud. 2022. Introduction  - Les mathématiques professionnelles (xvie-xixe siècle). Cahiers François Viète III (13): 5–22. https://doi.org/10.4000/ cahierscfv.3493. Mulsow, Martin. 2012. Prekäres Wissen: Eine andere Ideengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin: Suhrkamp. ———. 2015. Entwicklung einer Tatsachenkultur: Die Hamburger Gelehrten und ihre Praktiken 1650–1750. In Hamburg: Eine Metropolregion zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Aufklärung, ed. Johann A.  Steiger and Sandra Richter, 45–64. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. https://doi. org/10.1524/9783050057859.45. Mumford, Lewis. 1967. Technics and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Oosterhoff, Richard J. 2014. Idiotae, Mathematics, and Artisans: The Untutored Mind and the Discovery of Nature in the Fabrist Circle. Intellectual History Review 24 (3): 301–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2014.891180. Risse, Wilhelm. 1964. Die Logik der Neuzeit. Vol. 1. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Fromann Verlag. Rothkegel, Martin, ed. 2005. Der Briefwechsel des Joachim Jungius. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Schneider, Birgit. 2007. Textiles Prozessieren: Eine Mediengeschichte der Lochkartenweberei. Zurich, Berlin: Diaphanes. ———. 2015. Programmed Images: Systems of Notation in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Weaving. In The Technical Image: A History of Styles in Scientifc Imagery, ed. Horst Bredekamp, Vera Dünkel, and Birgit Schneider, 142–151. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sennett, Richard. 2008. The Craftsman. London: Yale University Press. Silver, Sean. 2020. The Emergence of Texture. Journal of the History of Ideas 81 (2): 169–194. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2020.0012. Smith, Pamela H. 2004. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experiment in the Scientifc Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2022. From lived experience to the written word : reconstructing practical knowledge in the early modern world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Smith, Pamela H., and Benjamin Schmidt, eds. 2007. Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Objects, and Texts, 1400–1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, Pamela H., Amy R.W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook, eds. 2017. Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Valleriani, Matteo, ed. 2017. The Structures of Practical Knowledge. Cham: Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-45671-3. von Murr, Christoph Gottlieb. 1779. Von Leibnitzens Exzerpirschrank. Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und allgemeinen Litteratur 7: 210–212. Werrett, Simon. 2019. Thrifty Science: Making the Most of Materials in the History of Experiment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wolhwill, Emil. 1887. Joachim Jungius und die Erneuerung atomistischer Lehren im 17. Jahrhundert: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften in Hamburg. Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften 10 (1): 3–66. Wollgast, Siegfried. 1993. Philosophie in Deutschland zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung 1550–1650. 2nd ed. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783050068350. Young, Mark Thomas. 2017a. Manual Labor and ‘Mean Mechanicks’: Bacon’s Mechanical History and the Deprecation of Craft Skills in Early Modern Science. Perspectives on Science 25 (4): 521–550. ———. 2017b. Nature as Spectacle; Experience and Empiricism in Early Modern Experimental Practice. Centaurus 59: 72–96. Zemanek, Heinz. 1991. Weltmacht Computer: Weltreich der Information. Esslingen, Munich: Bechtle. Zilsel, Edgar. 1942. The Sociological Roots of Science. American Journal of Sociology 47 (4): 544–562. https://doi.org/10.1086/218962.

Chapter 2

The Historical, Scientifc and Philosophical Background of Texturæ Contemplatio

Abstract This chapter presents the background on which Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio emerged. Its frst part looks into the technological and economic developments of textile industries in the 17th century, focusing on two developments which were widespread in Europe during that time: the stocking frame and the semi-automatic ribbon loom; it also examines more local technological and notational developments. On this background, the chapter moves in its second part from the artisans to the natural philosophers, in order to review how the leading scholars of the 17th century viewed weaving practices, textiles and the notion of ‘textura’. Reviewing the works of Bacon, Descartes, Hartlib, Gassendi, Hooke, Power, Comenius, Boyle and Locke, this part aims to answer several questions: how well were these scholars aware to the changes in the weaving and textile industry? Did the technological advances in the domain of textiles prompt a discussion on the ‘scientifc’ knowledge which may be extracted from weaving and textiles? Or rather, did such advances facilitate a transfer of metaphors and notions between various discourses, frst and foremost to be seen with the notion of ‘textura’ or ‘texture’?

Before analyzing Jungius’ own account of weaving textiles and texture, and which types of knowledge were supposed to be developed or transmitted with Texturæ Contemplatio, we have to take a step back and review the historical background and circumstances in which Jungius’ interest in textiles was couched. By that I mean not only the social background, but also the developments in natural philosophy during the 17th century. This chapter will focus on two central axes: the frst will consist of a short survey of the history of the textile industry in the early modern period, and especially in the 17th century.1 This axis will provide the necessary technological

I briefy discuss in Sect. 4.4 the textile industry in Hamburg and more generally, in the north of Germany, where Jungius lived while composing most of Texturæ Contemplatio. This is because the weavers’ communities there had local histories and characteristics that I examine together with Jungius’ own account of these artisans. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_2

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and cultural background to understand Jungius’ encounters with weaving and weavers. Indeed, without this background, it is impossible to begin to assess whether and how Jungius (and other natural philosophers) transmitted or reorganized textile artisanal knowledge in the 17th century, or whether Texturæ Contemplatio accounts for encounters with artisans or for an imagined acquaintance with textile practices, which had only a somewhat arbitrary relation to the artisans or the practices themselves. This background is also essential to explore the question of which groups of artisans (and more explicitly weavers) the scholars who took an interest in textiles and weaving were referring to or considering. The second axis consists of the philosophical and ‘scientifc’2 background—that is, how, on the one hand, natural philosophers, humanists and mathematicians treated weaving and textiles, and on the other, considered the notion of ‘textura’, one of the main concepts employed during the 17th century to account for the material world. This second axis will also inspect whether the discussed scholars took into consideration the social, economic and more importantly, technological developments in weaving practices during the 17th century. The reason for presenting the frst axis before the second, and for presenting these two axes together, is that it is important to frst see how artisans worked and how they described their work, in order to examine afterwards what the natural philosophers were exposed to in terms of vocabulary, work processes or types of fabrics. As will become clear in this chapter, the natural philosophers’ written accounts hardly made explicit the technological aspects of such developments, or their social infuences or ramifcations—though, as we will see in Chap. 5, there were certainly exceptions, Leibniz for example. The transfer of knowledge occurred on a different level—that of concepts and metaphors. The notion of ‘textura’ was, as noted above and as will be explicated below, one of the main notions used in the discourse of natural philosophy during the 17th century. In Sect. 2.1, I frst present a short explanation of how a treadle loom operates, being the main loom to which Jungius refers. I will then review, both globally and locally, the technological and economic background of textile industries in the 17th century. Globally, I will mainly focus in Sect. 2.1.1 on two developments that were widespread in Europe during the 17th century: the stocking frame and the automatic ribbon loom. Locally, I will lay out, in Sect. 2.1.2, the technological and notational developments of weaving practices in what is today Southern Germany and Austria. Section 2.2 will move from the artisans to the natural philosophers, and review how the leading scholars of the 17th century viewed weaving practices, as well as textiles. As stressed above, these scholars barely considered the changes in the weaving and textile industries, which is why the discussion on the artisans and technological developments was presented frst, in Sect. 2.1. This also shows not only the uniqueness of Jungius’ approach, but also emphasizes that the prosperity and abundance of the new fabrics and technological advances did not necessarily prompt a thorough discussion of the scientifc knowledge which might be extracted from weaving and I briefy discuss in Sect. 4.2 the anachronistic, though, in a certain sense, inevitable usage of the adjective ‘scientifc’ to describe the developments in the natural philosophy of the early modern period. 2

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textiles; rather, the transfer was much more conceptual–metaphorical, frst and foremost to be seen in how the notion of ‘textura’ was discussed in the 17th century. But as we will see, other scholars besides Jungius also examined fabrics in a scientifc manner.

2.1 Textile Practices, Looms and Textile Artisans in the 17th Century Textile practices—for example, spinning, knitting, plaiting, felting, basketrymaking and weaving—are some of the oldest human practices; they exist in various forms, and they certainly did not have one geographical origin, but were developed in different centers and in different ways. A description of the history of European weaving and looms from the Middle Ages till its complete mechanization during the 18th century by Jean-Baptiste Falcon, Basile Bouchon, Jacques de Vaucanson and Joseph Marie Jacquard is outside the scope of this book,3 but as Lewis Mumford (1967: 144) notes, between the 15th and 18th centuries, “the [European] textile industries recorded the greatest number of improvements.”4 Among this progress and these inventions, Mumford notes the introduction of the spinning wheel from India, the fulling mills, Leonardo’s inventions of various textile machines from the end of the 15th century (da Vinci 1979), the invention of a partly automatic spinning wheel in 1530, the invention of the automatic ribbon loom (on which one can weave more than one ribbon at a time) in 1586 in Danzig, and last but not least, the invention of the stocking frame—a mechanical knitting machine—in 1589 near Nottingham; I will elaborate on the last two inventions below.5 To these one should add the inventions of the fying shuttle (in 1733) and the spinning jenny (around 1765). From the middle of the 17th century, one may notice a rise in the weavers’ literacy, as the frst books of instructions for weaving, including weave patterns, were printed, books which I will also discuss briefy below. However, when considering the treadle loom, as Eric Broudy notes when describing the change from the warp-weighted to horizontal loom, the “medieval horizontal [treadle] loom is essentially the same as the loom used by handweavers today” (Broudy 1993: 141). This “medieval horizontal loom”—the treadle loom—is presented in Figs. 2.1 and 2.2. How does it function? To cite Broudy, “the warp [threads are] stretched between two revolving beams […] The treadles [or pedals] operate a pair of This history has been well-researched in several works. See, for example: (Broudy 1993: 130–169; Bohnsack 1993). On textile machines in the 15th till 17th centuries, see e.g. (Nanni 2004). 4 See also (Bohnsack 1981). 5 Note, however, (de Munck 2019: 229): “Most economic development in the late medieval context was not driven by process innovation but rather product innovation. Although in textiles some new labour saving machines were gradually introduced […] regions and cities typically gained prominence whenever new markets were entered with new types of products.” This may explain why in the 17th and 18th centuries, a discussion in natural philosophy on these various machines was somewhat limited (see Sect. 2.2). 3

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Fig. 2.1 (a) Naked weaver working with a treadle loom, c. 1150, from Thomas of Kent, Romance of Alexander (Trinity College Library, ms. O.9.34, fol. 32v; CC BY-NC 4.0). (b) Hans Weber, the weaver, lived and worked in the Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung in Nuremberg around 1390. His picture in the Mendel house book, which was published in 1549, is the oldest preserved picture of a German weaver (Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, vol. 1. Nürnberg: Mendelsche Zwölfbrüderstiftung, 1426–1549; Stadtbibliothek im Bildungscampus Nürnberg, Amb.317.2°, f.4v; public domain). (c) Depiction of a treadle loom (left side) from the 15th century (Sánchez de Arévalo 1476, lviii, verso; Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Q 8516 qt. INC). (d) Another depiction of a weaver at the treadle loom from the 16th century: “Der Weber” (the weaver) (Sachs, Hans. Eygentliche Beschreibung Aller Stände auff Erden. Frankfurt am Main, 1586)

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Fig. 2.2 A more schematic depiction of the various parts of a two-treadle loom, including the treadles and the frames (or shafts). In this loom, the tie up is fairly simple: since every odd warp thread passes through the frst frame and every even warp thread through the second frame, the frst treadle is connected to the frst frame and the second treadle to the second frame. Hence, to produce the plain weave, one needed to press the frst treadle, then the second, then the frst, and so on. With more complicated treadle looms one fnds obviously more complicated tie ups, and hence a more complicated order of pressing (Adapted from Döpfner 1993:11)

harnesses [termed also frames or shafts] that are counterbalanced over a pulley above.” The basic mechanism of the treadle loom, presented in Fig. 2.2, consists of the mechanical lifting of various groups of warp threads by a series of foot treadles, where certain treadles are tied to certain frames. The way the treadles are tied to these frames is called a tie up. According to this tie up, each time a treadle is pressed, one or a few frames (or shafts) are raised, through which groups of warp threads pass. Hence, these groups are raised, while leaving the other groups of warp threads below, thus creating a space through which the weft thread (or more precisely, the shuttle) is passed. To continue citing Broudy: [The] superstructure that supports the harnesses also appears to support a reed-beater suspended from a cord. Since the Middle Ages this loom has been refned to enable it to accommodate additional harnesses, to modify the shedding mechanism, or to make it sturdier, but in essence it has remained unchanged. It characteristically consists of one selfcontained, boxlike frame on which all the operations of the actual weaving, treadling, shedding, beating in, advancing the warp occur. (Ibid.: 141)

While this description is relatively general, one may claim that Broudy does have a point. For example, as depicted in Fig.  2.1(a), a treadle loom with two treadles, where one treadle raises one frame with the even-numbered warp threads, and the other treadle raises another frame with the odd-numbered warp threads, existed in Europe during the Middle Ages. With the two-treadle loom, one can weave the

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Fig. 2.3 Structures of (i) the plain weave, (ii) the 2/2 twill weave, which can be woven only with a four-treadle loom, and (iii) the satin weave (© Graphics: M.F.)

simplest weave possible, known as a plain weave (see Fig. 2.3). Figure 2.1 shows several drawings, from the 13th to 16th centuries, of this two-treadle loom. A loom with more than two treadles functions according to the same principles, but can produce more complicated weaves. For example, with a four-treadle loom (which has four treadles and four frames), one can weave a 2/2 twill weave (see Fig. 2.3). Obviously, here, the tie up of the treadles to the frames is more complicated. To elaborate: let us assume that through frame i pass the i (mod 4)th warp threads—that is, through frame number 1 pass the 1st, 5th, 9th,… threads; through frame number 2 pass the 2nd, 6th, 10th,… threads; etc. One can tie up the treadles to the frames as follows, such that: treadle 1 lifts frames 1 & 2; treadle 2 lifts frames 2 & 3; treadle 3 lifts frames 3 & 4; and treadle 4 lifts frames 4 & 1. Now, to weave the 2/2 twill weave, one presses the treadles in the following order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Indeed, pressing treadle 1 lifts the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th etc. threads; pressing treadle 2 lifts then the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, etc. threads – and so on, hence obtaining the 2/2 twill weave. We will see later that these steps were notated in books for weavers during the 17th century, but until then, this knowledge had been mainly transmitted orally and rarely in written form; I will discuss these ways of knowledge transmission more thoroughly in Sect. 2.1.3.2. In even more complicated patterns, such as the satin (or atlas) weave, where the weft thread usually passes over four warp threads and then under one warp thread (see Fig.  2.3), a treadle loom with fve frames was needed. From this short introduction, it becomes clear that the more complicated variations one wishes to weave, the more frames are needed. If patterns are woven that require many different passes of the weft threads, a separate frame is needed for

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almost each such passing. Bohnsack (1993: 54) claims that up to 45 frames could be installed in a treadle loom, but not as many treadles. Indeed, the weaver had to be able to fnd the treadles with his feet,6 they had to be of a certain thickness (in order to press them correctly), and each treadle had to be accessible from the weaving seat. Moreover, the order of pressing the treadles had to have a certain regularity (as in the above example of the 2/2 twill), such that the pressing would be relatively fast and comfortable. To weave intricately patterned fabrics, another warp-control technique termed the drawloom—different concerning the tie up of the treadle and the frames—was developed, which was employed, among others, to weave damask fabrics. The basic idea was to suspend each warp thread individually with the help of a cord, so that arbitrarily assembled warp thread groups could then be bundled for weft insertion and to lift them at the right moment.7 A further development of the horizontal loom came with the weaving of velvet (see Fig. 2.4a), which required another system of warp threads.8 Broudy notes that several types of drawlooms were developed during the 15th and 16th centuries (Broudy 1993: 133). The development of these two looms (the drawloom and the velvet loom) enabled weaving complicated patterns and drawings; to these, one can add other techniques of weaving, which were also done manually: the weaving of tapestry, which was already employed in Europe during the Middle Ages—called in German Bildwirkerei to designate the technique of weaving images and motifs into a textile fabric—and the weaving of carpets (Fig. 2.4b).9 Having briefy reviewed the treadle loom as well as other looms, I do not aim to review either their history or the chaîne opératoire of the entire process of weaving: this has already been elaborated in other works.10 It is, however, clear from that short introduction to the way the four-treadle loom is constructed and operated that the weavers were, to some extent, aware of the logic underlying their operations, or at least of certain arithmetical principles. Moreover, as we will see in the following, other textile-related activities certainly demanded that the artisans perform arithmetical calculations. For example, the usage of the warp frame (or the warping board) demanded simple calculations, to determine how long the warp threads should be (see Sect. 4.4.3). Another example comes from the merchants and the Due to the physical strength needed to operate these looms (especially during the Middle Ages and the early modern period), most of the weavers were men. 7 See Bohnsack (1993: 55–58); Arndt (2018: 171–173). 8 In velvet, there are two groups of warp threads: (1) the main threads that make up the ground cloth and (2) the pile warps, used to make the individual loops or tufts. A treadle loom was used for plain velvet, and a drawloom for fgured velvet. 9 As we will see, Jungius was aware of almost all of these weaving techniques, or at least their products. In Texturæ Contemplatio, one fnds references to plain, twill and satin weaves, the damask weaves and tapestry. Whether he was aware of the different looms themselves (apart from the treadle loom), how they operate and how they are even constructed is another question, which I will address in the following sections. 10 See, e.g., (Broudy 1993; Bohnsack 1981). For a thorough description of the chaîne opératoire of weaving, see (Cardon 1999). 6

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Fig. 2.4 (a) A loom for weaving velvet (“Der Sammet-Weber”); the drawing is from 1698, depicting the loom with two warp beams, and a velvet knife next to the weaver on a cutting board (Weigel 1698: drawing next to page 568; SLUB / Digital Collections / Technol.A.142; public domain). (b) Gobelin High-Warp Tapestry (“Tapisserie de haute-lisse des Gobelins,” Supplément à l’Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 9 (plates). Paris, 1765, pl. IX; courtesy the ARTFL Ecyclopédie Project, University of Chicago)

authorities for quality control: those offcials counted, with the help of magnifying lenses, the number of threads per given unit, to ensure the quality of the fabrics (see Sect. 2.2.5). Moreover, note that I also do not aim to research the history of the Jacquard loom, for two reasons: not only have its history and development been extensively researched, but also the ‘precursors’ of this loom were developed in the 18th century, a time period that is barely touched upon in this book. Instead, I will address two other developments of textile machines: the stocking frame and the ribbon loom, with a focus on the German-speaking states in the early modern period, especially during the 17th century. This will demonstrate that while in certain domains of textile production (for example, weaving and knitting), the development was technological in the form of invention and improvement of certain machines, it was also accompanied by a (local) development of notation for certain weaving procedures: the threading of the warp threads to the frames, the tie up, or the order

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of the pressing of the treadles. The (local) notation raises the obvious question, how artisans considered writing down and notating their practices, and whether they conceived that this embodied knowledge can be captured in writing? The following two sections will focus frst on the more ‘global’ inventions: the stocking frame (Sect. 2.1.1) and the ribbon loom (Sect. 2.1.2), while the more ‘local’ inventions and developments—‘local’ in the sense that they were only to be found in certain geographical regions and were not widespread—will be presented in Sect. 2.1.3.

2.1.1

Global developments in the textile industry: the stocking frame

The stocking frame, invented in 1589, is known as the machine that mechanized knitting.11 Its invention by William Lee (1563–1614) was somewhat astonishing, because it was considered to be the invention of a completely new type of machine, at least given our current knowledge of its history.12 Indeed, at that time, when the mechanization of the textile industry consisted mainly of spinning wheels and hand looms, Lee’s machine was unique, as it appeared to have no predecessors. Lee, a young English pastor, conceived the machine to replace knitting by hand. According to legend, he was driven by the desire to automate his lover’s manual work. However, rather than creating rows of stitches on the pegs one by one, each row of stiches would be created simultaneously with the stocking frame. I will now cite a rather detailed description of how this machine functions, since, as we will see in Sect. 5.3.2, it was this machine that was the object of Leibniz’s refections on the parallels between geometry, mathematics and textile machines: A row of needles is placed horizontally and the last row of stitches is looped round their shanks with the fabric hanging below them. The needles are made from springy steel drawn out into a fne point. The point is bent back to form a hook that almost touches the shank of the needle […] The knitter lays a shoot of yarn across the shanks of the needles in front of the frst loops. Between each needle is a specially shaped piece of fat metal called a sinker. By using a foot pedal, a slurcock is drawn across the frame and causes the sinkers to push the yarn into loops over the needles. Next the sinkers push these loops forward under the points of the needles into the hooks at their heads. A presser bar is brought down to close the needle beards. The sinkers are raised so that a different part of them can be brought forward to push the frst set of loops over the tops of the needle points and over the ends of the needle hooks as the presser bar is released. The arch of the sinkers draws the loops left in the needle hooks, and now part of the knitting, back on to the shanks ready for the next shoot of yarn. Finally the sinkers are raised again. (McNeil 1990: 819)

For historical accounts on the stocking frame, see: (Hills 1989; Lewis 1986; Plummer 1972: 162–172). 12 Obviously, this claim of “a completely new type of machine” is highly problematic from a historical point of view, and one may assume that Lee was inspired by or based the construction of this machine on some principles that already existed in other machines; however, a detailed history of the development of the stocking frame is beyond the scope of this paper. 11

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Fig. 2.5 (a) The six stages in the stocking frame cycle. (b) One of the oldest preserved stocking frames to be found in Germany (Erlangen) from 1716 (Stadtmuseum Erlangen, inventory number (N 54); Foto © Erich Malter)

While, from the written description alone, it might be somewhat diffcult to understand how this machine works, Fig. 2.5a depicts the various stages of its operation. R. L. Hills (1989) thoroughly researched the history of this machine during the frst half of the 17th century.13 As Hills notes, we do not know what the frst stocking frames looked like, but it seems that at least two people were needed to operate the machine. Jean-Paul Thibord notes that with this machine, one could obtain between 300 and 360 loops per minute (Thibord 2010: 190). Moreover, with certain improvements, one could obtain “660 loops per minute by using worsted yarns, which was six times as great as the speed of a hand-knitter” (Hills 1989: 177). The product, it should be emphasized, was not a fnished stocking (i.e., a tube open only at one end which is shaped to ft over the heel) but a rectangle of fabric. The hosier then had to cut the knitted rectangle and further sew it to give the fabric the desired form. The machine was not well-received in England because Queen Elizabeth I feared that it would deprive citizens of their employment.14 She therefore refused to give Lee a patent. Consequently, in 1611, encouraged by King Henry IV of France, Note also the accounts of Gravenor Henson (1831: 38–71), Harte (1989) and Lewis (1986). This account is also to be found in Zedler’s Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste, from the frst half of the 18th century: while the stocking frame (called “Strumpfmühle”) could knit 10 times faster than the “alt[e] Manier,” it had to be abolished, as many poor people were losing their jobs (1731–1754, vol. 40: 556). 13 14

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Lee signed a contract with Pierre de Caux in Rouen to set up production with his (Lee’s) stocking frame there. When William Lee died in 1614 in Paris, his brother James returned to England, taking with him several frames and establishing two knitting centers—in London and Nottingham. In 1620, with the help of John Aston—one of William Lee’s former apprentices, the stocking frame was considerably improved and, starting in the 1630s, spread rapidly (Hills 1989: 178–179). It was this stocking frame that was the subject of Diderot’s 1751 article “Bas” in his and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. For Diderot, the stocking frame was endowed with a “geometrical precision” right from the beginning and could be considered a creation of God (Diderot 1751: 98). Diderot describes the machine as one “of the most complicated machines […]: one can consider it as a single and unique reasoning, of which the fabrication of the product is the conclusion”15 (ibid.). The machine is described as if it were created in a highly ideal state; Diderot remarks further that it was invented “almost in a state of perfection,” that it “does almost everything on its own,” and that it has a “geometrical precision […] [which originated] in the mind of its inventor”16 (ibid.: 98, 105). At the end of the 18th century, this machine was still described as “a masterpiece of invention, and the most artful tool of all craftsmen and artists”17 (Beckmann 1796: 99), a quotation that also appears in the 1841 edition of Johann Georg Krünitz’s Oekonomische Encyklopädie under the heading “Strumpfwirkerstuhl” (Krünitz 1841: 186). Taking into consideration that the stocking frame produced (at least with the frst machines) only ‘fat’ surfaces, had to be constantly repaired and was also improved over the decades, these descriptions, as well as Diderot’s 1751 article “Bas” not only ignore the practical and material aspects of the stocking frame and its usage, but also create two machines: the real one and an idealized one.18 These two machines are clearly seen in Diderot’s article: he cites there Perrault, who emphasized the machine’s “almost infnite number of springs [ressorts],” and compared it to a creation of God (ibid.: 98). But Diderot struggles with a description of the machine itself; according to him, it is composed of 2500 parts. Diderot attempts to give the reader a realistic description of how this machine functions: he begins with a description of its various parts and how these are assembled—that is, he starts by disassembling the machine, describing the various parts, and then reassembling it, to understand its way of functioning. Accompanying the article are

“Le métier à faire des bas est une des machines les plus compliquées & les plus conséquentes que nous ayons: on peut la regarder comme un seul & unique raisonnement, dont la fabrication de l’ouvrage est la conclusion […].” 16 “[…] presque dans l’état de perfection […] la machine fait presque tout d’elle-même […] d’atteindre dans la pratique à cette précision geométrique que la machine avoit dans l’esprit de son inventeur.” 17 “Ein Meisterstück der Erfndungskraft, und das künstlichste Werkzeug aller Handwerker und Künstler.” 18 As Joanna Stalnaker notes, “there are two very different machines […]: the frst is an ideal, geometrical creation of the inventor’s mind, while the second is the end result of a messy process of experimentation and modifcation” (Stalnaker 2010: 116). 15

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Fig. 2.6 (a) “Métier à faire des bas” and (b) “Faiseur de métiers à bas, et faiseur de bas au métier” in Diderot (1763: planche 1 and 5; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 FR)

various images and drawings depicting the various parts of the machine and the machine itself (see Fig. 2.6). There, the two types of description reveal a tension between the ideal machine—almost the incarnation of a dream of a perfect invention, and the actual machine used in practice.19 Diderot’s narrative continued to be promoted well into the following centuries, as noted above, and the ideal invention was very much regarded as the real one in the 20th century as well. This is to be seen in the lamentation of Lewis, who summarized the historical account as follows: “It has been widely assumed that the stocking frame was born fully formed, and that improvements made to it during the 150 years following its invention in 1589 were negligible compared with those made between 1750 and 1815. This is because, writing in the heroic tradition of invention, nearly all the industry’s historians have attributed the whole credit of the development of the frame to its enigmatic inventor William Lee, turning a blind eye to its long period of gestation” (Lewis 1986: 129).

The question therefore arises as to what this “messy process of experimentation and modifcation” and the working process on this machine looked like. First, as Birke Grießhammer (1986: 161–165) notes, one had to constantly repair and oil the various parts of the stocking frame. Moreover, the physical conditions were far from optimal: when working, one needed good light but at night, I follow here: (Stalnaker 2010: 115–117). As we will see in Chap. 5, these ‘two’ stocking frames were also present in Leibniz’s descriptions of this machine: on the one hand, Leibniz called it an invention of a ‘geometrical genius’, and on the other hand was aware of its material aspects and the need to improve it. 19

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candlelight was used. Furthermore, the stocking workers had to count the ‘rows’ (because the products had to be uniform in length), a strenuous and simultaneously monotonous activity. Treadling the machine, which required a counterweight of about 10 kg, was exhausting. Moreover, the stocking workers suffered from various diseases: chronic chest pains were a consequence of the harsh and unhealthy working and living conditions; and the air in the workshops, contaminated by cotton dust, was particularly harmful, also causing chronic eye infammation. In the book from 1780 Abhandlung von den Krankheiten der Künstler und Handwerker, which is an edited and translated edition of Bernardino Ramazzini’s De morbis artifcium diatriba, frst published in 1700 in Latin and considered as the frst book to deal specifcally with occupational, work-related diseases, one fnds a thorough description of the “Krankheiten der Strumpfwürker” (illnesses of the operators of the stocking frame; Ramazzini 1780: 192–197); while it is not clear whether Ramazzini himself wrote this section, and while the frst edition of De morbis artifcium diatribe does not deal explicitly with illnesses of the operators of the stocking frame or of textile workers in general, the extended, revised second edition which came out in 1713, a year before Ramazzini’s death, does contain supplementary chapters, one of them “De Textorum & Textricum Morbis” (“Diseases of weavers, male and female”) discusses the illnesses of weavers (Ramazzini 1713: 264–267).20 In the 1780 edition it is noted that it is rare to fnd a healthy, young “Strumpfwürker”, and stresses that eventually “these people often die in the prime of their lives of an incurable pulmonary disease, or of pneumonia, to which their professional work had given rise too early”;21 to cure these diseases he recommends abstention from this practice. Second, the machine was indeed improved during the 17th century, as Lewis describes (1986: 135), but these improvements, as can be seen from the 1780 edition mentioned above, did not necessarily lead to improvements of the physical conditions of working with the stocking frame. Moreover, there was not just one stocking frame: in the 1750s, wooden or half-iron, as well as completely iron stocking frames were in use in Vienna, corresponding to the production of different qualities of fabric.22 This does not mean that the manual knitting of stockings vanished in the 18th century: even then, in the countryside, stocking knitting remained competitive due to the low labor costs (Reith 2000: 40–41).

Ramazzini notes that weaving “is certainly very fatiguing, for the whole body is tasked, both hands, arms, feet, and back, so that every part of the body at once shares in the work.” (Ramazzini 1964: 433) He describes as well stomach and eye problems, and recommends “in work so taxing moderation would be the best safeguard against these maladies, for men and women alike; for the common maxim ‘Nothing to excess’ is one that I excessively approve.” (Ibid.: 435) 21 (Ramazzini 1780: 193): “[…] endlich sterben meist diese Leute oft in der Blüthe ihrer Jahre an einer unheilbaren Lungensucht, oder an einer Lungenentzündung zu welcher ihre Berufsarbeit zu früh den Grund gelegt hatte.” 22 See Sect. 5.3.2.1 on Becher’s account of his improvements to the stocking frame during the last third of the 17th century. 20

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It is also essential to emphasize that while the stocking machine was widely known and used in England and France during the 17th century,23 it was not wellknown in the German-speaking countries during the frst two-thirds of that century.24 It became more widespread mainly due to the waves of Huguenot refugees, who were forced to emigrate from France during the 17th century and especially after the Edict of Fontainebleau, which was issued on 22 October 1685 by Louis XIV. The Huguenots’ arrival in the German-speaking lands (among other destinations) prompted prosperity in the trades of glove, stocking and hosiery weaving. The story of Erlangen is a good example. As Hinzmann (1986) notes, Erlangen’s Margrave Christian Ernst invited the Huguenots as religious refugees to settle in Erlangen; they settled in Erlangen’s Neustadt in as early as 1686. On the initiative of Louis Rey, who originated from Nimes, knitting with the stocking frame was the frst trade to be established in Neustadt. Production took place in numerous small workshops. After gradually expanding, mainly due to the infux of German immigrants, it became the population’s main occupation in the 18th century. To limit the pressure of competition among the knitters, a guild code, later revised several times, was enacted in 1698.25 The story of Erlangen should not imply that the stocking machine was completely unknown in the Holy Roman Empire during the 17th century—as we will see in Sect. 5.3.2, one indeed fnds writings of Leibniz, Johann Daniel Crafft and Joachim Becher all mentioning the stocking frame before 1685.

2.1.2

Global developments in the textile industry: the ribbon loom

The ribbon loom is the second invention in the feld of textile and weaving machines which I would like to discuss. Whereas manual ribbon weaving resembled that with the treadle loom, the automatic ribbon loom was certainly different. Anton Möller of Danzig reportedly invented this loom in 1586. Also known as a bar loom or Dutch engine loom (or in German Bandstuhl, Bandmühle or Schürmühlen), this automatic loom could weave four to six ribbons at once, and later improvements enabled weaving even more. This was possible because shedding, weft insertion and thread beat up were fully mechanized and done simultaneously for all ribbons; the weaver no longer had to intervene in the

For example, as we will see in Sect. 2.2.3, Samuel Hartlib mentions the stocking frame in his Catalogus inventionum. 24 This may well explain Leibniz’s impression of this machine, which he saw in 1672  in Paris: Leibniz (A I1: 417) writes in 1673 to Christian Habbeus: “La Machine qvi fait en ouurier des bas et des étoffes de soye, est icy en vogue.” 25 For a more elaborate description of the trades of the Huguenots and whether knitting with the stocking frame was indeed such a successful trade in Erlangen in the 17th century, see: (Hinzmann 1986; Grießhammer 1986). 23

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Fig. 2.7 “Der Bortenwircker”: depiction of a manually operated ribbon loom. Engraving by Christoph Weigel (1654–1725) (Weigel 1698: drawing next to page 582; SLUB / Deutsche Fotothek / DDZ; public domain)

‘actual’ weaving process. The manual ribbon loom can be seen in Fig. 2.7, and semi-automatic looms in Fig.  2.8. When working with these machines, human labor was only needed for troubleshooting, tying on threads, loading and unloading the various materials or repairing the machines.26

26 I follow here the accounts of: (Reith 2000; Reith 1985; Broudy 1993: 147ff; Bohnsack 1981: 131). On the history of the ribbon loom, see: (Beckmann 1782; Troitzsch and Wohlauf 1980; Pfster 2008). Pfster also examines the reception of the ribbon loom in various countries in Europe (e.g., in Lyon and Basel), which is beyond the scope of this short introduction.

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Fig. 2.8 (a) Depiction of an automatic ribbon loom; with the ribbon loom presented in the fgure, one could weave six ribbons at once (Rubanier. In Recueil de Planches, sure les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts mechanique, avec leur explication, vol. 11. Paris: Briasson, 1772). (b) A wooden ribbon loom from Basel, from 1776 (H 200 x W 240 x D 140 cm, Inv. 1881.166. © Historisches Museum Basel, Maurice Babey)

Similar to the stocking frame, the technological transfer of the ribbon loom— how it was disseminated and received in other countries—did not go smoothly. In Holland, it was strictly forbidden for several decades of the 17th century to use or sell the Schürmühlen, so as to prevent unemployment (Meyer 1678: 86–89). According to the ordinances against it in Holland (in 1623, 1639, and 1648), such an automatic ribbon loom was used in Leyden perhaps as early as 1621, and it was improved durind the frst half of the 17th century (Broudy 1993: 147ff). Many cities issued ordinances against the use of such looms in the early 17th century, even causing riots in London in 1675. Concentrating on the German territories, the ribbon loom was still mostly unknown there during the frst half of the 17th century. It should be moreover noted that during the frst half of the 17th century, the existing ribbon looms did not pose a threat to the manual ribbon maker’s trade. The ribbon mill was frst only constructed to weave six ribbons at once and could only be used for the production of coarse linen ribbons. As Reith (1985: 240) notes, it is only around the middle of the 17th century that one fnds evidence of a “transfer of technology,” in an exchange of letters between the council of the city of Frankfurt and that of the city of Augsburg. In Frankfurt in 1645, a master had a loom on which eight narrow ribbons could be

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knitted at the same time, brought to the city from Krefeld.27 But as poor masters were not wealthy enough to purchase such looms, the council of Augsburg, which was asked to inquire concerning the bringing of these looms, decided to forbid their introduction. Moreover, while one may fnd isolated references to the use of the ribbon loom in German cities in the second half of the 17th century (1664 Nuremberg, 1665 Frankfurt, 1676 Cologne), there were constant demands to ban it.28 Indeed, by the middle of the 17th century, several technical improvements enabled the loom to produce all kinds of ribbons. Moreover, this loom could now weave up to 16 ribbons at the same time. Operated by a single worker, who did not even have to be trained as a ribbon maker, this worker did the work of several ribbon weavers. The potential release of the remaining craftsmen and women turned into an economic-political problem for the imperial cities and some of the commercial centers. At frst, the cities independently tried to solve this question by means of their own economic policy activities. For example, in 1664 Nuremberg decreed a ban on the import of luxury articles knitted on belt mills; in the same year Cologne also prevented the operation of ribbon looms. However, when the frst ribbon loom was introduced in Basel in 1667, the ribbon industry there fourished rapidly, to the extent that, in 1691, there were around 200 ribbon looms there (Fink 1983). In the period from 1670 to 1690, the proto-industry even surpassed Lyon and largely displaced French goods in the Holy Roman Empire. As early as 1676, the increasing sales to the German territories prompted the ribbon makers (also called Bortenmacher, Posamentierer) of the “foremost imperial and trading cities” (“vornembsten Reichs = und Handelsstädte”) to write a letter of complaint— “Remonstration und Imploration-Schrift”—to the emperor (see Reith 1985: 240). The title of this letter of complaint encapsulates its content: “The necessary abolition of the ribbon mill, ruining the entire Passementerie trade, and the prohibition of the goods manufactured thereon.”29 The ribbon masters claimed that not only can a single person, with no experience, work on this machine, but this person replaces the work of 16 people, leaving the other 15 people to die.30 Here, one can note that the ribbon makers considered their work and their way of life to be threatened by the ribbon mill; this was not a rejection of new technology per se, as illustrated by the fact that the stocking frame which, as we saw above, was introduced in the Holy Roman Empire at the same time, hardly encountered any resistance.

As Pfster (2008: 191) notes: “The case of Krefeld is particularly interesting […] because it is the only example of a major Continental industry that adopted the engine [ribbon] loom in the absence of a pre-existing guild tradition in ribbon weaving.” On Krefeld’s emerging ribbon industry as a non-guilded textile industry, see: (ibid.: 190–192). 28 I follow here (Blaich 1970: 216–225). 29 “Die nothwendigen Abschaffung der erfundenen / das ganze Passamentirer Handwerck ruinirenden / so genanten Schür-mühlen und Verbietung der Darauff verfertigten Waaren betreffend […]“ (N.N. 1676, cover). 30 Ibid.: 3–4. 27

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In March 1677, the Count of Hanau, together with other counts of rulers from the Holy Roman Empire, sent a letter to the Reichsconvent in Regensburg, demanding to abolish the ribbon looms (Lünig 1720: 649). This letter was followed by a memorandum, submitted by the city of Hanau in January 1678, forbidding the ribbon looms to protect not only the passementerie workers, but also the public as a whole from the “damage, disadvantage and hindrance” caused by these weaving machines (Leucht 1697: 95). An additional edict also forbade the selling of French products and demanded the abolishment of all Mühlstühle (ibid.: 97).31 The demands to ban the ribbon loom were eventually successful: a printed imperial decree issued by Kaiser Leopold I of the Holy Roman Empire was published in 1685 prohibiting “Mühlstühle or also so-called Schnürmühlen or so-called compendiose Stühle” (Siegel 1892: 9); the edict also suppressed the import of foreign ribbons for some time. Hence, “in the Roman Empire of the German Nation […] Schnur- and Mühl-Stühle were abolished in almost all places, and in the most famous trading cities [they were] completely banned […] some time ago and [are considered] as a highly damaging work and [are] driven out”32 (Leucht 1697: 106). The edict from 1685 was renewed in 1719, but as Reith (2000: 37) notes, it was scarcely implemented. At the end of the 17th century, the economic decline of the manual braid and ribbon weaving continued, due also to cheap ribbons sold in German markets, and as technical progress could not be stopped in the long run. In the meantime, the ribbon mill has been further improved and could now weave 40 ribbons at the same time (Blaich 1970: 222ff). Taking into account the wide resistance to these looms, it is not surprising that there were several scholars who referred to them in their writings: we will see in Sect. 2.2.3 and Sect. 5.3.2 that both Hartlib and Leibniz knew of these looms. Hartlib considered small ribbon looms as “Le petit mystere,” whereas Leibniz very much advocated the introduction of the ribbon looms, as well as their usage in the Holy Roman Empire. Similar to the story told about the stocking frame during the 19th and 20th centuries, the ribbon loom was considered in the literature of the epoch as either a forerunner of industrialization—famous in this respect is Marx’s excerpt of Johann Beckmann’s Beyträge zur Geschichte der Erfndungen33—or a representative of the

In (Leucht 1697: 94) it is noted that this memorandum was submitted on 14 January 1687, but as is clear from the two letters found in (Lünig 1720: 649) concerning such bans, it is clear that there was a mistake when setting the layout of (Leucht 1697). Indeed, the second letter in (Lünig 1720: 649), demanding again to abolish the ribbon looms, is from 1681, and mentions the Hanau memorandum from 14 January 1678. See also (Blaich 1970: 218-9). I thank Charlotte Wahl for pointing this out. 32 “Schnur- und Mühl-Stühl auch im Römischen Reich teutscher Nation an sich selbst fast aller Orten / und in denen berühmtesten Handel-Städten allbereits vor geraumer Zeit […] gänzlich verbotten / und […] als ein hochschädliches Werck vielfältig abgeschafft / und ausgetrieben worden.” 33 Marx does not explicitly note that he cites from Beckmann’s Beyträge, but Müller (1994) shows that Marx’s notes for the Capital explicitly name Beckmann’s Beyträge as the source of Marx’s account concerning the ribbon looms. Marx describes these ribbon looms as follows: “In the 17th century nearly all Europe experienced revolts of the work-people against the ribbon-loom, 31

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fght against the introduction of new technologies, a fght interpreted as hostility to technology per se. Reith (2000: 36–40) asked to revise this narrative, noting that not only was the productivity of the ribbon loom not as high as one might think when reading the descriptions of its opponents, but also “despite some subsequent innovations, the belt mill [ribbon loom] remained limited to simple smooth and unpatterned belts until the 19th century” (ibid.: 40). However, with the use of the Jacquard loom in the 19th century, one could also have produced ribbons and bands that were much more ornate than simple ribbons. Notwithstanding, Reith, noting that the players’ claims were, at times, exaggerated, stated that the overestimation of productivity and performance of the ribbon loom followed from these exaggerated representations.

2.1.3

Local developments, unique machines, specifc notations

As noted in the introduction to this section, the treadle loom was already being widely used by the weavers in Europe in the Middle Ages. Section 2.1.2 dealt with other textile machines that were developed and disseminated in the 17th century, showing how the textile industry evolved during this period, though not without resistance from the local communities. While these inventions were being widely disseminated across Europe at the end of the 17th century, other inventions had a more local, niche character, in the sense that they remained restricted to their region of invention. Here I deal with these local developments: the crumb-machine and the drum-machine, as well as the various notations for weaving procedures, which were common in Southern Germany and Austria. These notations were published for the frst time in printed books toward the end of the 17th century. While this type of notation may be thought as eventually paving the way to the modern notation used today, it should be considered regional, at least during the 17th century. To these two parts, one should add the development of weavers’ communities in Hamburg, as Jungius resided there while composing most of Texturæ Contemplatio. I will explore this topic in Sect. 4.4, when discussing Jungius’ own account of artisans. 2.1.3.1 The drum-machine and the crumb-machine I would like to begin with the frst local inventions by presenting two weaving machines that were sometimes considered in the literature to be ‘predecessors’ of the Jacquard loom, at least conceptually: the drum-machine (Trommelmaschine) and the crumb-machine (Bröselmaschine). From the outset it should be explained a machine for weaving ribbons and trimmings, called in Germany Bandmühle, Schnurmühle, and Mühlenstuhl. These machines were invented in Germany. […] This machine, which shook Europe to its foundations, was in fact the precursor of the mule and the power-loom, and of the industrial revolution of the 18th century.” (Marx 1889 [1867]: 427–8)

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that these two machines were not historical or regional ‘predecessors’ of the Jacquard loom—developed and used in what is now Southern Germany and Upper Austria in the middle–late 17th century, they could not have contributed to the development and invention of this loom, or to the earlier inventions by Basile Bouchon, Jean Baptiste Falcon and Jacques Vaucanson in the frst half of the 18th century.34 I begin with the drum-machine (Trommelmaschine) because, as Kinzer (1924: 9–10) notes, the Bröselmaschine can be considered a later development or improvement of it. The drum-machine was placed on the loom itself. As can be seen in Fig. 2.9, it worked with what one may call a ‘pattern drum’, where several wooden blocks are glued onto each line of this drum (in Fig. 2.9a, these blocks are notated with k).35 When the drum is in a certain position, certain ‘knives’ are raised and lowered (notated with M), being attached to frames which raise or lower either specifc groups of warp threads, or even single warp threads. Both Kinzer and Bohnsack claimed that up to 150 blocks, and hence ‘knives’, could be glued on the drum (respectively, could be raised or lowered), and accordingly, a pattern could be only 150 warp threads wide. Bohnsack (1993: 33) noted that the number of pattern compartments depends on the circumference of the drum and is thus limited, whereas a solution to this limitation was found in the form of the crumb-machine, which I will examine further on. The drum-machine, being placed on top of the loom, was operated by the weaver either by treadling or by lowering the lever MH with his hand—and this only once. Hence, there was no need to memorize the order of the movement of the legs, i.e., in which order the legs should press the treadles. Turning now to the crumb-machine (known as Bröselmaschine or Leinwandmaschine),36 there are good reasons to conjecture that this machine was developed to enable the weaving of more complicated patterns than could be accomplished with the drum-machine. Indeed, in the case of longer patterns, when the required drum became too large, unhelpful and costly, two thin, wooden cylinders were used, around them a canvas was laid, and on which the wooden blocks were glued (see Fig. 2.10).37 The resulting machine, which was more complicated than the drum-machine, is known as the crumb-machine. As with the drum-machine, this machine had the advantage that the pattern could be stored for repeated use. Like the drum-machine, it was placed on the loom itself, and to operate it one had only to press one treadle at a time and afterwards pass the weft thread. See for example the description given in (Wagenknecht 1932: 304–306), which presents both machines as predecessors of the Jacquard loom. 35 I follow here the description of (Kinzer 1924: 9; Bohnsack 1993: 33), as well as my own examination of the drum-machine in the archives of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology. See also Kohl (1873: 24–28). 36 The origin of the name Bröselmaschine is not known. See Harlizius-Klück (2017: 182): “The German word Brösel can denote a small part of something […] usually a crumb of bread, or it can be a short form of the name Ambrose (Ambrosius). Accordingly, there are two explanations of the name of the machine. Some say it stems from the pegs crumbling from the canvas strip [see Fig. 2.10] during use, and others that it is a short form of the inventor’s given name.” 37 Kohn (1873: 28) claims that the length of the canvas could be arbitrary, but obviously it could not be arbitrarily long. 34

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Fig. 2.9 (a) Depiction of the drum-machine, from Kinzer (1924: 9, fg. 6) (reproduced with permission from Springer Nature). (b) The drum-machine, apparently from 1790, in the archives of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology (© Technisches Museum Wien. TMW Inv. Nr. 109910). (c) Another less complicated drum-machine (having less wooden blocks per line on the drum), in the archives of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology (© Technisches Museum Wien. TMW Inv. Nr. 107271)

The historical evidence for when and where these kinds of machines were constructed is unclear. As far as is known, the crumb-machine can only be found in the Mühlviertel region in Austria.38 Also unclear is whether there was any objection or resistance to these kinds of looms or weaving machines, as there was to the stocking frame and the ribbon loom; moreover, in contrast to the stocking frame and the 38

The region consists of the four Upper Austrian districts that lie north of the river Danube.

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Fig. 2.10 (a) Technical depiction of the crumb-machine (Bröselmaschine), as presented in Kohl (1873: plate II, fg. 5). From the depiction, it is clear that the machine is situated on the loom, and is operated by hand. (b) Another, simpler depiction of the crumb-machine, as presented in Kinzer (1924: 9, fg. 7) (reproduced with permission from Springer Nature). (c) Photograph of a crumbmachine from 1740, in the Weaving Museum Haslach, Upper Austria (© Textiles Zentrum Haslach). (d) Photograph of the crumb-machine placed on a loom, where one can see the different frames attached to the machine. The loom has 14 frames and a pedal to operate it. Present in the Weaving Museum Haslach, Upper Austria (photo: M.F.; © Textiles Zentrum Haslach)

ribbon loom, one fnds only a single scholar from the 17th century who mentions shortly in his writings the drum machine: In chapter X, titled “Von den künstlichen Bewegungen,” of his 1651 book Deliciae physico-mathematicae, Georg Philipp Harsdörffer discusses the mechanism of the pinned drum, which he describes as the cause of “many artifcial movements” (Harsdörffer 1651: 418); Besides mechanical-automatic musical instruments, Harsdörffer mentions also a certain drum loom

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as an example of this mechanism.39 Kohl (1873: 24–28) describes these machines thoroughly, but only notes that the drum-machine was used in Vienna in 1790. Wagenknecht (1932: 304) claims that the drum-machine was invented in 1735—a claim which is repeated by Bohnsack (1993: 33)—but does not give any references and does not add who invented this machine. However, if we take into account not only that both the drum-machine and the crumb-machine operate according to the same principles, and were used only in a somewhat small region in Europe (Southern Germany and Upper Austria), but also that the crumb-machine is apparently a more advanced version of the drum-machine, the historical picture becomes somewhat clearer. Ellen Harlizius-Klück (2017: 182–183) examined the literature found on the crumb-machine and the narratives developed around it (mainly as a precursor of the computer or of a ‘programming unit’); she underlines that Fritz Kreindl (1935a, 1935b), while noting that the crumb-machines found in Linz and Haslach (in Upper Austria) were the last of their kinds, suggests a date of around 1680 for the development of these machines. Harsdörffer’s reference situates the invention of the drum loom in an even earlier date, that is, during the frst half of the 17th century. This assumption situates these two machines not only in an even earlier time frame than the inventions of Bouchon, Falcon and Vaucanson, but also in a niche region, i.e., in a back-then isolated geographical area. This isolation suggests that the construction and usage of these two machines were limited, not only in the geographical sense, but also due to the somewhat complicated and elaborate assembly and use of these two machines: indeed, one had in fact to assemble the drum-machine or crumb-machine on the loom, and the complexity of the various parts “had a detrimental effect on the correct, undisturbed operation. The usage was therefore only very limited,” as Wagenknecht (1932: 30) notes concerning the crumb-machine. 2.1.3.2 Local notation techniques So far, I have presented several of the technological inventions of textile machines and weaving looms which were disseminated across Europe during the 17th century, with or without the resistance of local communities. While the above presentation is certainly a partial one, it highlights the local character of these inventions and their reception: these machines were not equally disseminated and were not similarly received or rejected regionally. For example, the niche-wise characteristic is certainly to be seen with the crumb-machine. A similar characteristic can be observed with the frst printed pattern books which introduced notations for treadle looms as well as for drawlooms, and for the operation of their particular parts: this notation Harsdörffer (1651: 418): “On such [pinned] drums one constructs the weaving looms to [weave] muslin or fowered damask or ribbons / and the weaver has no more diffculties / other than passing the weft [thread] / and he does not get so tired / because he may weave only with his hands alone”. [“An solche Wellen richtet man die Weberstühle zu gemusirten oder geblumten Damast oder Bänder / und hat der Weber nicht mehr Mühe / als daß er den Eintrag durchschieffet / wird auch nicht so müde / weil er nur mit den Händen allein weben darff”].

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was employed to indicate which warp threads are to be inserted into which frames, the tie up of the frames to the treadles, and the order of pressing the treadles. To emphasize: the above-presented inventions—the stocking frame, the ribbon loom and the drum- and crumb-machines—did not require this special notation for their operation: the stocking frame mechanized knitting; the ribbon loom was usually used to produce simple ribbons and bands; and with the drum- and crumb-machines, the pattern was transferred completely to the glued wooden blocks. But for the treadle loom, the situation was different, especially when working with looms with more than four treadles, where the tie up became more and more complicated. As we saw in the introduction to Sect. 2.1, when describing a treadle loom with four treadles and four frames, the following question arises: after passing the threads numbered i (mod 4) in the ith frame, in which order should one press the treadles to obtain the desired pattern? Taking as an example the 2/2 twill, whereas the order presented above, after tying up, was easy to remember (that is, the order of pressing the four treadles was 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), for more complicated patterns, one needed not only a more complicated order of pressing, but also a more complicated tie up. So as not to have to memorize hundreds of designs, their tie up or the order of pressing, specifc notations were developed for the above procedures, and presented in various books. What kind of notations one may fnd in these books? Before discussing these printed (and hand written) books and manuscripts, one should note, following Smith, that various European artisans in the early modern period “expressed a distrust of writing. They declared—somewhat paradoxically, in writing—that writing was inadequate to their task.” One of the examples Smith brings is Joseph Moxon’s book Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of HandyWorks from the end of the 17th century, where he stresses that “Craft of the Hand […] cannot be taught by Words, but is only gained by Practise and Exercise.” (Smith 2022: 2–3) A similar claim may be found in Harsdörffer’s statement concerning the possible three types of knowledge: “Many things can be said and not drawn: Many [things] can be painted and not said: Many [things] cannot be expressed, neither with painting nor with words”40 (Harsdörffer 1652: 32). Smith underlines that artisans “did not need writing to produce things and make knowledge, yet they nevertheless turned increasingly to writing to argue for a new place in the hierarchy of knowledge” (Smith 2022: 4). In this sense, when artisans presented their results with local notations, with “the certainty of mathematics, or [with an] illustrated diagram, [then this] could seem a welcome refuge for [such artisans] struggling to transfer their bodily gestures onto paper” (ibid: 103). Taking now a close look at textile artisans, I now turn to the pattern books introducing notations for treadle looms. *** Beginning with the printed books, we know of two such printed books from the end of the 17th century—Marx Ziegler’s Weber Kunst und Bild Buch (1677) and Nathanael Lumscher’s Neu eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch

“Viel Sachen lassen sich sagen und nicht mahlen: Viel lassen sich bilden und nicht sagen: Viel können mit dem Gemähl und mit den Worten nicht außgedrucket werden.”

40

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(1708)—both transcribed and translated into English by Patricia Hilts (1990a, 1990b). The two books were written and printed in Southern Germany, which indicates not only the rising literacy of the weavers in that region and their awareness of print technologies, but also the prospering community there which, despite its distance from the major centers in Lyon or Italy, was developing a notation of its own. Here one can mention that their notation enabled not only a storage mechanism to record complex patterns, but was “introducing notations that referred to special loom parts” (Harlizius-Klück 2017: 190); see, for example, Figs. 2.12 and 2.14 for Ziegler’s or Lumscher’s notations. Hilts (1990a: 27) noted that “Ziegler and Lumscher included some patterns for looms with as few as eight shafts, but most of their patterns required twelve or sixteen shafts, and some called for as many as thirty-two shafts.” While describing the methods and notations of Ziegler and Lumscher will take us beyond the scope of this section,41 the various notations indicated the various steps in the preparation of the loom, as well as how one should operate it: how and which threads are inserted in the frames, how the treadles are tied up to the frames (i.e., the shafts) and lastly, in which order one should press the treadles to obtain the desired pattern. For example, looking at Fig.  2.12, the diagonal lines resembling a cursive M notate the order of pressing the treadles. While these two books are the frst known printed books notating weaving with the treadle loom (with Lumscher extending Ziegler’s notation), other, earlier manuscripts with similar notations are known: the frst one dated to 1658, written by Thoman Lins, a weaver in Tyrol, titled Ein Schenes Fueß Arbait, which presents notations for, among others, the tie up and the order of treadling (see Fig.  2.11).42 The notation presented in Ziegler’s book is highly similar to Lins’ notation, and one may assume that both wrote down a notation which was well-accepted in this region; the second dated to 1701, written by Matheuiß Geiger, which can be seen in Fig. 2.13.43 But these notations were not the only attempt to notate weaving procedures: an undated manuscript (most likely from the 17th century) from Lucca, Italy (Arrighi 1986) was found which shows a way to notate numerically a pattern composed of eight weft threads, where the notation is composed of the number of warp threads below or above the weft thread (see Fig. 2.15). That this notation differed from the one found in Southern Germany is

Extensive analysis of their methods has been conducted by, for example, Ellen Harlizius-Klück (2017; 2024), Patricia Hilts (1990a, 1990b, 1986), and Birgit Schneider (2007). 42 The book is in the Bibliothek Volkskundemuseum Wien, Signatur ÖMV/31.051; the full title is as follows (Donat 1914: 1): “Ein Schenes Fueß Arbait sambt einem Leisten Buech Welches durch mich Thoman Lins vom Anfang biß Zum endt abgerisen und das Merere durch Arbaidt Probiert worden, wie Hernach Schrifftlich unnd Abcontrafeiter Zue sechen ist. Anno Domini 1658.” 43 The book is in the Bibliothek Volkskundemuseum Wien, Signatur: ÖMV/31.052. It is titled as follows: “Dißes Buech Gehört mier Matheuiß Geiger, Meister des Wöber Hantwerch, selbst mit aigner Hant abgerißen Und zur Thrumph arbeit thauglich gemacht Im Jahr Anno 1701” (Donat 1914: 1, slightly corrected). Donat wrote instead of “Geiger” the name “Berger”, but a reexamination of the book shows that the author of it was Matheuiß Geiger. Both books and their notations are analyzed in (Donat 1914; Harlizius-Klück 2024). 41

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Fig. 2.11 A page from Thoman Lins’ book Ein Schenes Fueß Arbait. The diagonal lines, in the form of an M, depict how to press the treadles. The tie up—i.e., which treadle is connected to which frames—is depicted in the upper left corner (Lins 1658: 12; CC BY-NC 4.0). The book is in: Volkskundemuseum Wien Library, Sign. ÖMV MV/31.051

not surprising, and points to the local character of these notations.44 A somewhat similar numerical notation is to be found on fve pages entered by an unknown weaver to his copy of Johann Schönsperger the Younger’s book from 1529, titled Ein new getruckt model Buchli auff auß nehen unnd bortten-wircken (“A new pattern book of sewing and braid weaving”); See Fig. 2.16a, b. The book contains 45 pages of designs for weaving and embroidery, and fve manuscript pages of weaver’s notations at back, which were probably added to the at a later stage (see also Smith 2022: 152–3). This book, as with the other manuscripts mentioned above, does not describe how to knit or to embroider, and there is no explanation, what these notations mean; hence it was written for artisans who knew already what to do with this book. The notations added by the weaver are indeed notations, but they cannot be deciphered by an ‘outsider’, i.e. by someone who does not have the (embodied) knowledge how to knit or to weave, or at least was shown how one should read these notations. See also the work of Desrosiers (1986), who analyzes another, different notation of weaves from Peru, a notation which was written down at the end of the 16th century or beginning of the 17th century and which is “a coded specifcation for the weaving of a belt worn by the Coy as during the Corn Festivals” (ibid.: 219). 44

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Fig. 2.12 A page from Marx Ziegler’s book, presenting notation similar to that presented in Thoman Lins’ book (Ziegler 1677: D3, r; Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, Techn 1017, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb11283522-4)

Fig. 2.13 A page from Matheuiß Geiger’s book, presenting notation similar to that presented in Thoman Lins’ book. Similar notations for the tie up appear on the following pages of the book (Geiger 1701; CC BY-NC 4.0). Volkskundemuseum Wien Library, Sign. ÖMV MV/31.052

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Fig. 2.14 Notation of weaving blocks according Nathanael Lumscher (Lumscher 1708: Tafel 50; SUB Göttingen, Signatur 8 TECHN II, 2573)

These books not only attest to the dissemination of forms of notation in Upper Austria and Southern Germany, but also indicate a possible, though not necessary standardization that was introduced in written form concerning certain weaving practices, seen with the notation presented there. The notation also freed weavers from memorizing how to perform the correct tie up and the numerous treadlepressing sequences, and gave them more space to experiment with producing various patterns. But outsourcing of the memory to a written form was not necessarily favorably received, as was already noted above. As with the ribbon looms, one can consider these books a new form of technology, which might have led to resistance to their introduction. This is seen with a somewhat pejorative statement of the weaver Franz Xaver Friepes, to be found in the introduction to his book titled Allgemeines Schnier Buch. The book, written in around 1799, contains “more than 300 threading drafts, more than 400 tie-ups and around 200 drawdowns for weaving Schachwitz, a fabric decorated with fowers and ornaments in the typical geometrical style” (Harlizius-Klück 2017: 194). In the introduction to this book, Friepes notes that he is “merely an enthusiast [who wishes] to think and draw various patterns, so that other lovers of this work, even the master weavers, who cannot think, who do not want to think, or do not have time to think, can choose pleasing patterns

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Fig. 2.15 Part of a manuscript from Lucca, Italy (see: Arrighi 1986: 35), presenting, among others, the pattern called “Lavoro a Rose,” notating the number of wrap threads below or above the weft thread (Campionario per la tessitura, cc. 10v – 11r, sec. XVIII, Biblioteca Statale di Lucca, ms. 3311/1; by courtesy of the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC) – Biblioteca Statale di Lucca)

Fig. 2.16 (a) and (b) Johann Schönsperger the Younger (active 1510-30), Ein new getruckt model Büchli (Augsburg, 1529), fol. 26r and fol. 7v (left: notation of an unknown weaver; right: pattern for weaving), 20 × 15.5 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 18.66 2 (26r and 7v), Rogers Fund, 1918. CC0 1.0)

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from them”45 (cited from: Kreindl 1935a: 79). This statement, which implies that the weavers can relegate their thinking to the notation, also sarcastically suggests that there are weavers who do not have time to think, as if they only follow the notation in the various notation books. But at the same time, the relegation of thinking to notation and to the written form may point to an emerging conception of weaving practices (or at least weaving with the treadle loom or drawloom) as that which can be notated and formalized. However, the question arises as to whether Friepes’ statement refects a general opinion about the notation of weaving practices or of printed books aiding textile practices in general. Compared to the great number of printed pattern books for embroidery, which were very thoroughly disseminated all across Europe,46 the difference could not have been greater: these latter pattern books were not considered to be for people who “could not think”; but as we will see in Sect. 2.2.1, the patterns and grids for embroiderers also had different notation functions. Moreover, the weaving notation books from Upper Austria and Southern Germany were much more regional, and it is not clear how well-disseminated they were in Europe at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries. They were also meant specifcally for weavers with treadle looms or drawlooms. This implies that natural philosophers, mathematicians and philosophers were probably not aware of these books’ existence. Nevertheless, similar to Friepes’ statement that his book and notation were for weavers who cannot or do not have time to think, hence implying that the notation makes the embodied knowledge of the manual operations redundant, one may fnd in Leibniz’s writings a similar statement about his stepped reckoner—paralleling it to the stocking-knitting machine; as will be shown in Sect. 5.3.2 for Leibniz, both instruments relegate the artisanal and manual work to a machine.

2.2

Natural Philosophers and Textile Practices in the 17th Century

Having surveyed, on the one hand, the development of the textile machines, instruments and notations, either locally or more globally (across Europe) during the 17th century, and on the other, in Sect. 1.1 and Sect. 1.2, having briefy sketched Jungius’ and Leibniz’s own interests in weaving and textiles, one might assume that weaving, textiles and even the notion of ‘texture’ were not isolated, esoteric themes that fascinated only Jungius and consequently Leibniz, and that scholars and humanists “[…] ein blosser Liebhaber verschiedene Bilder zu denken und zu zeichnen, damit sich andere liebhaber dieser arbeit, auch selbst die Webermaister, welche nicht denken können, nicht denken wollen, oder zum denken nicht Zeit haben, hieraus gefällige Bilder erwählen können […]” (Cursive by M.F.) 46 The frst recorded example was published by Johann Schönsperger the Younger in Germany in 1523, titled Furm und Modelbüchlein; between 1523 and 1700, more than 150 separate titles were published. See Sect. 2.2.1 and (VandenBerghe 2016; Parker 2010; Frye 2010). 45

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did come in contact with weavers, textile artisans or fabric merchants. This raises the question: what was the nature of this contact? In other words, were natural philosophers, mathematicians or philosophers also interested in the invented technology of textile practices, in the social conditions and infuences, or did the encounter between natural philosophy, the emerging new sciences in the early modern period, and weaving and textile practices occur on another level? Another question that also emerges is what was encountered: the fabrics? The artisans? Which group of artisans? For example, weaving with the two-treadle loom was much more common than tapestry: the latter was usually done for the upper class and can be considered to have been led by ‘superior artisans’, whereas weaving with the treadle loom could be better classifed as a household activity. Or, when there was no physical encounter between artisans and natural philosophers, did the latter group only examine the instruments or the fnished products? These questions are certainly justifed, as they all come on the backdrop of the change in status of artisanal knowledge in the early modern period, which was already shortly discussed in the introduction to this book. De Munck suggests that the revolts of the artisans, erupting due to the introduction of, for example, new textile machines, as we saw above, indicate “that artisans fought for having their talents and skill recognized as being valuable for the urban community in both an economic and a political way […] [they fought] for being accepted as valuable political and rational actors” (de Munck 2019: 231–232). This can be seen if we take other domains as an example, where artisans, mathematicians and natural philosophers did come in contact—mining and Agricola’s De Re Metallica can be taken as the prime example, as already noted in the introduction: mines indeed played a decisive role in the transformation of knowledge about nature. As Thomas Morel notes, “humanists and later natural scientists relentlessly sought to uncover what they saw as the secrets of subterranean surveyors. At the same time, they often relied on the craftmen’s vernacular expertise, on their instruments and experience of practical geometry to advance their own theoretic inquiries” (2023: 4–5). However, while mining does offer a unique arena where craftsman and natural philosophers encounter, other humanists and scholars in the early modern period “often balanced expressions of admiration for the achievements of craft with a clear disdain for the artisanal practices and empirical methods from which they emerged.”47 (Young 2017b: 73) For example, Leonard Digges in his book Tectonicon from 1556 believed “the traditional practice of the crafts needed to be corrected by mathematical reasoning. He denigrated the rules of thumb that craftspeople used to calculate materials.” (Smith 2022: 170) The problem arose, how to reconcile the gap between the local, material and particular artisanal practices, and the emerging new scientifc knowledge. In this sense, the situation concerning weaving and textile artisans refects this gap and the various, sometimes unsuccessful attempts, to reconcile it. As Young (2017b: 77) notes, “calls for scholars to look towards craft traditions as a source of knowledge had become increasingly common across a varied range of disciplines in the early modern period”, but this was in order to “appropriate craft knowledge, rather than emulate the epistemological practices of craft practitioners”.

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As I will claim, here more implicitly and while analyzing Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio much more explicitly, such an encounter, in any one of the forms described above, between weavers, humanists and natural philosophers, occurred only very partially. Reliance on, or acquaintance with specifc instruments or their social infuence are barely discussed. How looms and other textile machines are constructed is almost absent, and a discussion on the differences between the various types of weaving: from the simple treadle weaving to velvet weaving, ending with the laborious tapestry, is hardly to be found. While one fnds references (but no elaborate discussion) in some scholars’ writings to the stocking frame or the ribbon loom, the more regional weaving instruments, such as the drum- or crumb-machine are not even mentioned.48 While exceptions obviously exist (such as Jungius or Leibniz), the interlacing between weavers and natural philosophers happened mainly on another level: the metaphorical one. This level—it should be emphasized right from the outset—was not at all marginal or insignifcant, because it had far-reaching implications on how nature itself was conceived. More explicitly, as was seen in the introduction and as will be unfolded in the following sections, the activity itself of weaving, as well as the refections on the notion of ‘texture’ prompted, over the centuries, the use of various textile-related metaphors, employed to account for natural phenomena. These metaphors then acted in a reverse way: they prompted considerations of weaving and other textile activities as an explanatory and exploratory model, to account for those phenomena.49 This section will discuss how these various ways of considering weaving and textiles were reshaped by several 17th century natural philosophers. Indeed, in the 17th century, the metaphor of weaving began to be employed while investigating and inspecting fabrics, textiles and the texture of materials with the new empirical methods. This is, of course, not to imply that this metaphor had never been employed before. As noted in Sect. 1.2, the work of Ellen Harlizius-Klück unfolded the history of this metaphor in European thought (Harlizius-Klück 2014); in the 17th century, the status of the metaphor as a ‘background’ or an absolute The only exception is Harsdörffer’s short remark on the drum loom in 1651; see Sect. 2.1.3.1. I here employ the differentiation which Axel Gelfert introduces, in his book How to Do Science with Models (Gelfert 2016), between explanatory and exploratory models. Explanatory models, as their name suggests, “generate potential explanations of observed (types of) phenomena […] result[ing] in greater understanding or lead to a reformulation of the initial research question” (ibid.: 83). Gelfert cites Nancy Cartwright (1983: 37), who places modeling as what constitutes scientifc explanation: “to explain a phenomenon is to construct a model which fts the phenomenon into a theory.” An exploratory model (Gelfert 2016: 79ff), on the other hand, is more epistemic in nature. While Gelfert classifes four types of modeling (phenomenological, causal-microscopic, ‘formalism-driven’ and exploratory models), the fourth type—the exploratory model—is explicitly opposed to explanation, as Gelfert notes that “exploratory modeling aims only indirectly at the representation of actual target systems or empirical phenomena […] such models do not purport to represent, however imperfectly, any real target system” (ibid.: 41). Gelfert follows Friedrich Steinle (1997), noting that exploratory modeling occurs in problem situations where “no wellformed theory or even no conceptual framework is available or regarded as reliable.” Hence, it plays an essential role in “the process of forming and stabilizing the [new] conceptual framework,” but here Gelfert stresses tha “it would be misleading to think of exploration as entirely theory-free” (Gelfert 2016: 78). 48 49

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metaphor, in the sense of Hans Blumenberg (1960), became more and more evident; that is, in the sense that it constantly operated as a catalyst for new terms and notions, as well as for (new) conceptions of matter, without being reduced to any conceptual framework. This can be seen when one examines how the notion of ‘textura’ (or texture in English and Gewebe in German) was employed by a series of thinkers during the 17th century, which will be one of the main topics of this section (see also: Silver 2020). Of course, I do not claim that this time frame is strict,50 but as we will see, the writings of Bacon, and to a lesser extent, of Descartes from the frst third of the 17th century, do mark an approach to textiles and to the notion of ‘texture’ which opens new epistemic frameworks. During this century, a variety of conceptions unfolded, and hence within natural philosophy there were several ways in which scientifc investigations,51 textile practices and weaving metaphors were interwoven. More specifcally, one can note at least four such ways. The frst two focus on the notion of ‘texture’, sometimes loaded metaphorically with connotations from weaving practices: the frst refers to an investigation of texture as a material property, i.e., as a property related to the sense of touch, a property of a concrete material, be it either textile or not. The second approach conceives texture as a property that expresses the arrangement and order of the various parts composing the body (when working in the framework of the corpuscular theory), hence considers the ‘texture’ of a certain material as a possible reason for some of its properties. The last two approaches turn to the practice of weaving itself: frst, the explicit consideration of the artisans themselves—for example, the weavers—and artisanal knowledge; and second, the scientifc investigation of the products of this artisanal work—an approach that consisted, for example, of conducting experiments with various fabrics or examining them with a magnifying lens or microscope. This list of approaches is certainly not exhaustive. Moreover, these approaches usually overlapped and were not mutually exclusive. But as we will see, most of the investigations of the ‘texture’ of materials (or even of materials which were considered ‘woven’) concentrated on understanding the properties of those materials, and explicit attempts to consider the practice of weaving or of woven textiles mathematically, as a practice or an object from which a new mathematical domain may emerge, were not often undertaken. In that sense, Jungius may be seen as an exception, although other thinkers did attempt to think about textiles and textile practices mathematically, or at least suggested that this way of thinking is possible. Moreover, Jungius also differs in another aspect: not only was he interested in the artisans themselves and their work processes, but he was also aware of, or advocated these different approaches, and his investigation of textiles and materials over the years can be seen as taking part in each of the four above-listed approaches. While Jungius’ refections on weaving and ‘texture’ will be the subject of the following chapters, in this section I would like to review various thinkers from the 17th century, to show how these approaches existed simultaneously. Since the

See Sect. 2.2.7 for how this metaphor continued to be employed in the discourse of anatomy in the 18th century. 51 I will elaborate in Sect. 4.2 on what I mean here by ‘scientifc’. 50

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various approaches cannot be entirely differentiated or demarcated from one another, the order of this review is mainly chronological. As with the list of approaches, this review will not be exhaustive, but most of the natural philosophers presented here either knew Jungius’ work (or belonged to the circles that appreciated his work), or Jungius himself knew their work. Due to space limitations, each thinker can only be examined briefy, highlighting the focal points in his thinking on weaving or on ‘texture’. In this sense, how a scientifc consideration of weaving practices or the notion of ‘texture’ or ‘textura’ and the associated metaphors evolved during the 17th century (and afterwards) certainly requires further investigation.52 *** I will begin this section with a short ‘prologue’ focusing on the 16th century (Sect. 2.2.1), in which I briefy examine two works: of Robert Recorde and Juan de Alcega; these authors present two different approaches to how one should consider an encounter between geometry and textile practices. The following sections then turn to the 17th century. Section 2.2.2 reviews the works of Bacon and Descartes. The focus of this section is Bacon, since he unfolds an intricate conception of the notion of ‘textura’, which is not unrelated to the practices of weaving. Section 2.2.3 continues this point of view and discusses several letters of Hartlib on weaving practices and instruments, while Sect. 2.2.4 presents Gassendi’s conception of ‘woven atoms’, which also has some affnity to weaves and clothes. Section 2.2.5 inspects how several thinkers (mainly Hooke and Power) examined textiles with a magnifying glass, and Sect. 2.2.6 returns to the notion of ‘textura’ (or ‘texture’) while discussing the works of Comenius, Boyle and Locke. Section 2.2.7, while very briefy reviewing the works of Newton and Leibniz on the subject as well as the anatomical discourse in the 18th century,53 attempts to summarize this plurality of approaches and conceptions.

2.2.1

Prologue in the 16th century: from Recorde’s foundation of “Geometrye” to de Alcega’s Libro de geometria

Before looking at thinkers from the 17th century who thought about weaving, textiles and texture, starting with Bacon and Descartes, a short prologue is in place, to see how earlier views from the 16th century may have offered other conceptions regarding the possible encounters of textile practices and geometry. That is, while, To emphasize: an extensive analysis of how the concept of ‘textura’ and the derived terminology were developed and discussed during the 16th and 17th centuries is outside the scope of this book. This is because it would require not only a careful examination of the various early modern theories of corpuscular matter, but also a thorough investigation of the knowledge and the acquaintance of each of the thinkers with various fabrics and textiles, as well as with the various stages of textile preparation. 53 I will elaborate on Leibniz’s refections on textiles in Chap. 5. 52

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as I stressed above, Jungius might be considered as unique in his approach to weaving and artisanal, textile-related practices, trying also to explicitly initiate a geometrical investigation of weaves and textile practices, there were already attempts in the 16th century to consider weaving and other textile practices mathematically, implying that these might be considered as either a basis for geometry or a profession which demands arithmetical calculations and geometrical considerations. These considerations, though, must be viewed with caution—we will see the reasons for this below. Nevertheless, it should be noted that in the 16th century, in their various treatises, geometers were already emphasizing that artisans can also beneft from the study or usage of geometry.54 In this section, I will look at the works of Robert Recorde and Juan de Alcega, representing two different approaches. To begin with Robert Recorde: in 1551, one fnds in Recorde’s book The Pathway to Knowledge, Containing the First Principles of Geometrie, a few links between weaving and geometry: Carpenters, Caruers, Ioiners and Masons, Painters and Limners with suche occupations, Broderers, Goldesmithes, if they be cunning, Must yelde to Geometrye thankes for their learning. The Carte and the Plowe, who doth them well marke, Are made by good Geometrye. And so in the warke Of Tailers and Shoomakers, in all shapes and fashion, The woorke is not praised, if it wante proportion. So weavers by Geometrye hade their foundacion, Their Loome is a frame of straunge imaginacion. (Recorde 1551: g.ii)

Recorde (1510–1558) was a Welsh doctor and mathematician who invented the ‘equal’ sign =. Pathway to Knowledge can be considered an abridged version of the frst four books of Euclid’s Elements. There are no proofs in this book, but rather explanations of why the theorems are true, accompanied by examples. If we now concentrate on the citation above, then the central claim of Recorde is that “weavers” and “broderers” (among others) know geometry due to their profession. One may suggest that Recorde meant that textile merchants, tailors and weavers may use mathematical principles, such as geometry or arithmetic, as was also proposed by other treatises in the second half of the 16th century, for example, by Pierre Forcadel or by Simon Stevin.55 But whereas Forcadel and Stevin emphasize the practical aspects, reading Recorde’s citation, the question arises as to whether all of these artisans shared a mutual common conception of “Geometrye.” Moreover, and concentrating on weaving practices, one may wonder what Recorde meant by claiming that “weavers by Geometrye hade their foundacion.” Is it because the act of weaving abstracts the weft

54 See for example the prefaces of Jean Bullant’s Geometrie et horlogiographie pratique (1608) or Jacques Peletier’s De l’usage de géométrie (1573). See also Axworthy (2023). 55 Forcadel (1564: fol. 35v–36r) notes that the drapers may employ propositions from Euclid’s Elements. Stevin, in his Disme: The Art of Tenths (1608 [1585]) indicates in the title of his manuscript that it is meant for the use of, among others, “measurers of tapistry.”

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and warp threads as straight lines and intersecting points between them? According to Eleanor Chan, the “loome” (in the above citation) was an analogue of the “accumulation of lines, in a literal sense the warp and weft of the weaving or tapestry” (Chan 2022: 130), hence underlining the ambiguous way in which geometry was understood. This geometry is “not synonymous with the patterns created by the warp and weft structure of weaving,” but rather the “foundacion” of decorated fabrics, of threads considered as lines, and even of points (ibid.: 60) is to be found in geometry. But here Chan nuances her own position: while these geometrical objects are “imagined or translated into material form, such that these abstract principles can be put to practical use” (ibid.), the “basis in geometry, however, was undercut by a powerful sense of the mutability of these surfaces” (ibid.: 130)—i.e., the fact that fabrics and threads wear out, are recycled and reused, and are eventually thrown out.56 Chan claims that there is here a “geometrical system that shimmers between the material and the immaterial” (ibid.: 2). While Chan’s arguments point to the visual language of early modern European geometry and how it borrowed from contemporary visual culture, and may be considered as advocating the existence of ‘trading zones’ between artisans and mathematicians,57 two questions are left more or less unanswered: was this material geometry helpful for the weavers themselves, or was it the projection of Recorde’s ideas on their artisanal work? As Chan argues, “a cursory glance at his [Recorde’s] terms reveals [an] […] insight into the way these classical elements were imagined for ‘carpenters’, ‘carvers’, ‘joiners’, ‘masons’, ‘broderers’ and ‘weavers’” (ibid.: 60); but here, in fact, lies the crux of the ambiguity: was the notion of a geometrical ‘point’ or ‘line’ imagined by the weavers, or for the weavers by Recorde? To explicate the problem that was already posed in the introduction, the question is not whether an artisan could conceive that a geometrical line is an abstraction of a thread, but rather whether this artisan—in this case, the weaver—also beneftted from either conceiving her or his work as geometrical or the changing conception of geometry in the 16th and 17th centuries, and whether the mathematicians and natural philosophers gained novel insights from the fourishing weaving industry, as may be deduced from Recorde’s citation. Or to phrase it more concretely, did Recorde’s conception of space and geometrical objects overlap with the artisans’ more implicit conception of space? And was this transfer or overlap an explicit one? The last question is in fact highlighted by Chan herself, when she discusses a manuscript of Richard Mulcaster from 1581 on the education of children.58 Discussing also needlework and embroidery, it is not clear from this manuscript … and obviously that the threads even in plain weave are not straight ‘lines’, but rather curves. Chan does not use this notion explicitly; she does echo similar claims, as can be seen for example in (Chan 2022: 33): “Artes, technological knowledge, and scientia, certain knowledge, were by no means incompatible at the time [late 16th and early 17th centuries] […] they were, in fact, in a dynamic and symbiotic relationship that directly allowed for the developments of the so-called scientifc revolution.” 58 See also (Chan 2022: 139): “Mulcaster’s subconscious blurring between the needle, pen and stylus presuppose a vital aspect to the surface.” 56 57

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Fig. 2.17 A grid paper on which patterns for embroidery are designed and then pricked to transfer these designs to fabric, from Johann Siebmacher’s New Modelbuch (1596; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Rar. 499 f#Beibd.1, fol. 68r, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

whether needlework has a concrete mathematical basis or whether geometry needs to be learned for embroidery, even though mathematics was considered essential by Mulcaster for education (ibid.: 139). Moreover, one may doubt whether the empty grid, which was usually to be found in the printed pattern books for embroidery (Fig. 2.17), led to a new mathematical conception of the space (or even of the twodimensional plane) that stemmed from embroidery, as I will elaborate below. Moreover, the obvious should be stressed: weaving and needlework are two different artisanal activities, which were also done by different groups in society, their subjects also sometimes being of different genders. This also highlights the difference between Recorde and Mulcaster: needlework is considered feminine,59 and Mulcaster associated this feminine work with a non-necessity of learning mathematics. On the other hand, Recorde writes down a list of professions usually practiced by men—and indeed, as can be seen in Figs. 2.1, 2.4 and 2.7, weaving was depicted as and considered a masculine profession, not only due to the physical power needed to operate the various looms, but also because of the fnancial aspects involved. The artisans who are working in these professions, so Recorde, “yelde to Geometrye thankes for their learning”—that is, they lean toward an understanding of geometry, or at least its foundation, due to their profession.

59

See also (Frye 2010).

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Though these two gender-related positions will not appear explicitly in the following treatments of the 17th century,60 neither of them explicates how geometry can be (or cannot be) deduced from these practices. Aside from this artisan/mathematician divide, one can certainly fnd other textile artisans who may have been aware of the necessity of taking into account geometrical (and arithmetical) considerations during their work. As noted, various pattern books of embroidery and needlework, while being addressed specifcally to women, contained not only geometrical patterns (having a high level of symmetry and with distinct geometrical shapes), but also grid paper, which had instructions on where to prick a point with the needle. What might this grid have implied? A new conception of space? Chan, immediately after mentioning that Recorde “advocates the use of practical geometry by comparing it to weaving,” argues the following: “Richard Shorleycker’s woodcut frontispiece to his needlework manual Scholehouse for the Needle [a pattern book published in 1624], which depicts a grid waiting to be flled by the reader […] is clearly evocative of the woven form” (Chan 2022: 45). Figure 2.17 shows what such a grid looked like, taken from Siebmacher’s Schön Neues Modelbuch (1596). However, the existence of such grids in pattern books for embroidery does not necessarily mean that there is here an opening for the foundation of a novel geometrical understanding of the two-dimensional plane (or three-dimensional space), or that mathematicians and philosophers saw the grid in needlework books as representing such a conception.61 One must also be careful not to assume that by pricking a point with the needle, the needleworker had developed or was aware of (implicitly or explicitly) the geometrical notion of a ‘point’.62 But on that backdrop, one should note that there were explicit attempts by textile workers in the 16th century to address the question of how various textile practices might be considered mathematically. A prominent example is the book in Spanish from 1580: Libro de geometria, practica y traça (Book on Geometry, Practice, and Patterns) written by Juan de Alcega, being the frst treatise on tailoring published in Spain. *** De Alcega’s book aimed to show how patterns are most economically laid out on cloth and the amount of fabric needed per garment (see Fig. 2.18).63 Instructions needed for cutting out and making up the clothes are hardly given; however, there are numerous patterns presented in the book, all of them are to scale and can be enlarged for practical use. Four other Spanish publications followed de Alcega’s work: de Freyle’s Geometría y traça para el ofcio de los sastres… (1588); de la Rocha’s Geometría y traça perteneciente al ofcio de sastres (1618); Serrana’s The Geometry of the Art of Cutting (1619); and de Anduxar’s Geometría y traças

60 Though, it should be noted, Descartes employs a somewhat similar differentiation (between artisans who weave fabrics and carpets and women who embroider and interlace threads). 61 Though one can certainly ague that grids in general did play a role in the development of geometry; see for example Alberti’s or Dürer’s perspective grid. See (Andersen 2007: 22ff). 62 This connection is made explicit in Hooke’s Micrographia. See Sect. 2.2.5. 63 I follow here (Seligman 1996: 2–3).

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Fig. 2.18 A pattern for cutting a “Herreruelo de paño” (Alcega, 1580: 43) (image taken from the holdings of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, CC BY 4.0)

pertenecientes al ofcio de sastres (1640). But it is not until 1671 that a similar frst publication appeared in France, 1789 in England, and 1809 in America. Looking more closely at de Alcega’s book, one can see that it is meant for tailors, and not at all for mathematicians—that is, the geometrical considerations concern how various shapes may be drawn on a given fabric to maximize its usage. There are no exercises that explain similar statements as in Euclid’s Elements; nevertheless, de Alcega claims that he has “been guided in this [the order and plan of the patterns] by Geometry and Scale measurement” (de Alcega 1999: 17). As (Smith 2022: 107) notes, de Alcega’s book “showed no trace of Euclidean geometry”. In this sense, it is an example of “describing the practice of an art, involved an effort to establish the theoretical underpinning of the author’s expertise.” (Ibid.: 116) More generally, the book can be considered an example of the growing tendency of treatises and books to consider subjects which may be termed ‘mixed mathematics’, such as surveying, astronomy, geography, mining and construction practices (fortifcations, bridges, architecture in general, etc.). This approach has a certain affnity to, but is not identical or overlapping with the one presented in Recorde’s book: the development of practical geometry which attempted, at least in the manner of a suggestion (though it is not clear whether it can be fulflled) to extend geometry beyond Euclid’s Elements, offering to consider the artisans as a possible source of knowledge; this suggestion certainly echoes and parallels the self-positioning of the artisans as “rational actors,” as noted earlier. This approach pointed toward a geometry which would be more hands-on, based on practical, empirical (or arithmetical) considerations rather than abstract notions and logical moves.64 Allowing also the consideration of magnitudes, one can understand 64

Recall as well (see Sect. 1.2) the call of several scholars to learn from the artisans themselves.

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why de Alcega’s claims that he was guided by both “geometry and scale measurement.” Whether at least one of these two approaches in some way found a meeting zone with weaving (rather than just with tailoring, which is done with the fnished product, i.e., the fabric) is an open question, which the following sections (and chapters) will attempt to answer; however, as we will see, this answer is far more complex than just a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. With Recorde and Mulcaster one the one side, and de Alcega’s work on the other, we may already note here a meeting zone between mathematicians, scholars and artisans, a zone which consists of various, sometimes overlapping aims. It was clear for the various players presented here that the meeting between mathematics and textile practices is not a simple one, and does not consist merely of applying known mathematical procedures on objects in the real (textile) world. The meeting (either real or imagined) between geometers and artisans is complicated because both domains consist of several subdomains, subpractices and subprocedures. But during the 17th century, a shift inside this meeting zone occurred, as natural philosophers as well as philosophers introduced not only the notion of ‘textura’ into the discourse,65 but also started to consider textiles and textile practices—such as weaving—as a model (explanatory or exploratory) which can account for phenomena in the physical world. This shift not only complicated the relations between textile practices and mathematics, but also, to a certain extent, marginalized such attempts to make these relations explicit, or to examine whether they might be fruitful. *** Examining the few examples above, one may claim that in the 16th century, it was not made explicitly clear how the artisanal work of textiles should be accounted for, if at all, geometrically. On that backdrop, in the 17th century, considerations of textiles and the notion of ‘textura’ from natural philosophers and humanists became more explicit and common. This is not to imply that the artisans themselves did not continue thinking about the embodied knowledge of their work—how to notate and transmit it. We saw in Sect. 2.1 not only the invention, spread and development of new weaving and textile machines during this century, but also the rise of weaving ‘manuals’ and notations (by Lins, Ziegler, Berger and Lumscher); these developments not only saved time for the artisans, but also prompted economy-related anxieties and resistance to the new technology, resistance which was interlaced with the artisans’ fght for recognition of their work and knowledge. While above I focused on those novel textile machines and on the artisans’ notations of weaving procedures during the 17th century, the following sections concentrate on natural philosophers, humanists and mathematicians in Or, more precisely, reloaded it with new meanings. Moreover, such refections on the notion of ‘textura’ did not start during the 17th century; for example, to see how Lucretius’ conception of ‘textura’ was reshaped by Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553), see (Maurette 2014). Moreover, metaphoric usage of other weaving-related terms, such as ‘stamina’ (warp threads), also appeared in the anatomical discourse during the second half of the 16th century “in discussions of generation in Jean Fernel’s Physiologia (1567) and Andreas Laurentius’s Historia Anatomica (1602)” (Ishizuka 2016: 46).

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that century, to examine, among other things, whether these developments were taken into account in their writings. As we will see, and as was already hinted at above, there was hardly an interest in such technological developments during this period. To see this, I will begin with two of the representatives of early modern thought during the frst half of the 17th century: Bacon and Descartes. Examining their views is also of importance with respect to Jungius, who knew the works of both scholars and had a high appreciation for them.

2.2.2

The 17th century: Bacon and Descartes. Weaving between empiricism and rationalism

Bacon is well-known for calling for the founding of a new method of acquiring knowledge: gathering knowledge via experiments, from which laws of nature are derived by means of inductive reasoning. This method is explicated, for example, in his 1620 Novum organum. Bacon emphasizes that these experiments should also take into account the knowledge of artisans: the “particular arts […] to be preferred” in such a project are those that “exhibit, alter, and prepare natural bodies and materials of things; such as agriculture, cookery, chemistry, dyeing […] and the like,” adding to these the following: “Those which consist principally in the subtle motion of the hands or instruments are of less use; such as weaving, carpentry, architecture, manufacture of mills, clocks, and the like” (Bacon 1858: 363–4). This already suggests, as will be unfolded later, that according to Bacon, on the one hand, the artisans had unique access to materials and to how one should work with them, but on the other hand, weaving, since it relies on the “subtle motion of the hands”, is of “less use”, since it does not alter and prepare material things as other practices; this is however a somewhat distorted view on weaving and its related activities (spinning or fulling, for example). Can one hence indeed claim that Bacon’s conception “reveals a distinctly negative conception of craft practice in which the discursive knowledge of the natural philosopher is privileged over the experience and expertise of the artisan” (Young 2017a: 545)? As we will see, Bacon’s usage of weaving metaphors and the notion of ‘textura’ complicates this view. Examining Bacon’s inquiry of nature and natural phenomena, Gaukroger notices that Bacon is interested in understanding how materials are transformed and how they come together, but not necessarily what they consist of. The latter approach is, according to Bacon, the Aristotelian approach to natural philosophy, seeking a “contemplative understanding of natural phenomena,” which Bacon rejects: [Aristotle’s] Natural philosophy is a scientia of natural processes: it tells us why and how they occur. By contrast, there can be no scientia of unnatural or constrained or ‘violent’ states and processes, which might be caused by any number of extrinsic events […] Bacon argues that this way of approaching natural philosophy is fundamentally mistaken. It is ‘violent’ motions, he argues, not natural motions, that should be the subject of naturalphilosophical enquiry. These include those unnatural processes produced by mechanical devices such as levers, pulleys, and screws; those strategic unnatural placements of stones that hold building up; those unnatural motions of bodies produced by artillery, and so on. (Gaukroger 2010: 22)

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The mechanical device of weaving—e.g., the treadle loom—can certainly be included in this list of “mechanical devices,” because the way in which fabric is produced can without a doubt be seen as an “unnatural practice,” one that transforms the materials involved. Indeed, as Svetlana Alpers (1983: 105) states, weaving, along with dyeing, glassmaking and painting, are considered experiments on materials, and this in two senses: “on the one hand nature is vexed and thus better reveals itself, on the other hand the vexing of nature helps or assists man’s imperfect senses.” However, it might seem from this account that weaving (or the treadle loom) is just one among many artisanal works that may be considered, sometimes even considered less productive; but this practice, as well as the notion of ‘texture’, do play a more central role in Bacon’s thoughts. Indeed, as we will see, Bacon refers explicitly to both the ‘texture’ of materials and various textiles and weaving practices, and this with respect to his conception of matter. But before dealing with these themes, a short note on Bacon’s approach to mathematics is in place, not only since Jungius himself attempted to present a geometrical structure of weaves (as we will see in Sect. 4.2.3.1), but also because some weavers and artisans also began refecting on “unnatural processes produced by mechanical devices” by notating the weaving procedures, thereby initiating the formalization of the various processes (as we saw in Sect. 2.1.3). While Bacon is usually presented as rejecting the mathematization of nature, he certainly acknowledged the usefulness of mathematics for training the intellect, noting that the role of mathematics may be more pedagogical and propaedeutic, and that the formulation of axioms or of mathematically based statements may be useful once a suffcient amount of empirical data is gathered.66 Moreover, one should recall that between 1605 (when Bacon published his Advancement of Learning) and 1623 (when he published the extended version of it, De augmentis scientiarum), mathematics had ceased to be regarded by Bacon as an adjunct of metaphysics, and he “had shifted his position in favour of acknowledging a much wider role for mathematics in the natural sciences” (Rees 1986: 412); that is, Bacon advocated the position that “the natural philosopher needs to discriminate between useless a priori abstractions and a posteriori mathematical enquiries carried out on things” (Mori 2017: 20).67 Mori claims that according to Bacon, while one cannot found natural philosophy on mathematics, one may end any inquiry of nature with mathematics, as can be derived from the following passage from Novum organum, published in 1620: “inquiries into nature have the best result, when they begin with physics and end in mathematics. Again, let no one be afraid of high numbers or minute

See (Mori 2017; Jalobeanu 2016; Domski 2013: Sect. 6.2) for a thorough assessment of Bacon’s approach to mathematics. 67 Moreover, already in his Advancement of Learning, Bacon is not distrustful of mathematics. As Domski notes, for Bacon at this time, “in so far as mathematics treats determinate quantities […] it can assist us in disclosing the causal processes of nature” and practitioners in the mixed mathematical disciplines—for example, astronomy, music, architecture—are justifed “in using their idealizations and abstractions” (Domski 2013: 152). 66

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fractions” (Bacon 1858: 177).68 That said, while we will see in the following that Bacon did look into weaving practices and the notion of ‘textura’, those investigations did not “end in mathematics.” This certainly stands in contrast to Jungius’ investigations of weaves, as noted above. Hence, to begin with: how did Bacon employ the notion of ‘textura’ in his “inquiries into nature” and more specifcally, in his corpuscular theory of matter? According to Antonio Clericuzio, “Bacon placed special emphasis on corpuscles having distinct properties,” hence criticizing atomism (or more precisely, Democritus’ atomism), especially in Novum organum. The connection to the notion of ‘textura’ can be seen with Bacon’s concept of schematism, which has a unique place in his theory of matter. To follow Giglioni, schematism may be interpreted as “a defnite number of dynamic arrangements of matter (veritable laws), through which matter is constantly being organized following specifc patterns of an appetitive nature” (Giglioni 2013a: 408).69 Those schematismus, which were employed by Bacon almost synonymously with the notion of ‘textura’ (Rusu 2013: 54), refer to the arrangement and order of the parts of the examined material, and hence indicate their spatial arrangement (Gemelli 1996: 196–198). I will return shortly to the differences between ‘texture’, ‘position’ and ‘order’ in Bacon’s thought; however, for now, it is enough to point to Clericuzio’s claim that this arrangement of parts “is not to be interpreted in mechanical terms, that is, as a purely spatial disposition of particles of inert matter,” but rather as what changes according to tangible matter (being cold and passive), as well as according to “the proportion of spirits,” endowed with activity (Clericuzio 2000: 79). Ursula Klein stresses that ‘texture’ is also employed by Bacon to denote a submicroscopic structure, which is built of the “spirits” as well as the “tangible components” (Klein 1996: 305).70 For Bacon, the explanation of “occult qualities” derives from knowledge of the “true textures and confgurations of bodies” (“corporum texturas et schematismos”) (Bacon 1858: 219). Color theory is another example of how properties of materials are explained by ‘texture’, because color differences arise due to the internal structure of the bodies (Gemelli 1996: 198). As Bacon notes in his Historia densi et rari, “in bodies of a compact texture and strongly united in the bonds of their integral nature, the spirits do not perform

See also: (Jalobeanu 2016: 69) “Without being Galilean science, we have a mathematical inquiry into nature in which physics has not been transformed into mathematics, but it has been put under the form of mixed mathematics. This […] is what Bacon means by the marriage of mathematics and physics.” 69 Other interpretations of schematism can be found in (Rees 1984; Manzo 2001; Rusu 2013: 53–55). See also (Manzo 2001: 242): “we may conjecture that schematisms were understood by Bacon as being composed of ultimate minimal particles, in accordance with Lucretius, who was after all a major source of his inspiration,” but one should not identify these with ‘atoms’. 70 Note here (Belkind 2021: 60): “Bacon conceives [in Novum organum] two aspects of matter that are hidden from the senses, and so to make knowledge of nature possible, one must fnd a way to disclose those aspects. The two elements are the operations of spirits enclosed in tangible bodies and the structural changes in the parts of dense bodies.” 68

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their work of dilatation.”71 Moreover, when employing the term ‘textura’, Bacon is infuenced by the Lucretian vocabulary in De rerum natura (Gemelli 1996, 197),72 which indicates a historical awareness of this notion, as well as a reshaping of this vocabulary. One should also note that ‘texture’ is not only a notion employed to account for the invisible or submicroscopic structure of materials. While Bacon states in Novum organum that “it appears that the more subtle textures and confgurations of things (though the entire body be visible or tangible) are perceptible neither to the sight nor touch” (Bacon 1858: 277), the property as such is not only ascribed to an ‘invisible structure’; if it can also be ascribed to visible bodies, then it may also point to a certain connection with woven artefacts, as in the texture of fabrics. Indeed, Bacon is also aware of the connection of this possible invisible structure to the artisanal activity (and its accompanying concepts) of weaving. In Sylva sylvarum (1627), Bacon connects weaving with the causes for the “passions of matter.” Explicitly, there may be several reasons for the properties of matter; one of them is the relative location of its “tangible parts” with respect to each other. In the section numbered 846, titled “Experiments solitary touching other passions of matter and characters of bodies” Bacon notes: “The differences of impressible and not impressible; fgurable and not fgurable […] and many other passions of matter […] they are all but the effects of some of these causes following which we will enumerate.” The fourteenth cause is as follows: “the placing of the tangible parts in length or transverse as it is in the warp and the woof of textiles more inward or more outward & c.” (Bacon 1857 [1627]: 618–619). Here, the “warp and the woof” (i.e., the warp and the weft) of textiles function as an explanatory model: they explain possible causes of some perceivable effects. Moreover, considering this explicit reference to “warp” and “woof,” two aspects should be noted: frst, section 845 of Sylva sylvarum discusses wool, silk and cotton with respect to their composition from threads, and their properties due to the “twisting of thread[s].” That is, the account given in section 846 draws its explanatory power following a concrete investigation of textiles and fabrics. Second, the “placing of the tangible parts” noted in section 846 is a direct reference to the relative spatial structure of the parts of materials. The call to investigate fabrics does not appear only in Sylva sylvarum but also in Novum organum: Bacon points out that if one observes the “singularities of art,” one may “fnd that artifcial materials are either woven in upright and transverse threads, as silk, woollen or linen cloth” (Bacon 1858: 242). Here one should, however, stress that when Bacon discusses silk and the silkworm, and is aware of the “warp” and “woof” of the loom—being an example of what Gaukroger termed investigation of ‘unnatural practices’—he underlines that the “thread can be produced […] by a small worm.” But on that backdrop, he does not consider, for example, innovations

That is, the schematism results from the ‘texture’ of pneumatic matter. Cited from (Clericuzio 2000: 79). 72 Such infuence can already be seen in the 16th century; see (Maurette 2014). 71

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such as the silk mill, which “marked a giant leap forward in the mechanization of the manufacturing process”73 (Nanni 2008: 60). The question hence arises, how should one investigate fabrics, if the mechanical devices and instruments employed to produce them are hardly concretely examined? Bacon notes the existence of an “aid of sight” which is the microscope, i.e., instruments being “those recently invented glasses which disclose the latent and invisible minutiæ of bodies and their hidden confgurations and motions, by greatly increasing their apparent size” (Bacon 1858: 271). More explicitly, Bacon stresses how “the texture of a linen cloth could be seen like network” when examined with the “microscope” (ibid.: 193); his experiments with linen, wool and silk, and the material descriptions of them point to a close physical acquaintance with these materials (ibid.: 134),74 but not necessarily to microscopic investigations of them. Bacon’s position should be hence explicated: while attaching importance to the various instruments enhancing the sense of vision to investigate the ‘texture’ of materials, Bacon still held “that the appetites and emanations of the seeds of nature would remain invisible even with a microscope” (Lawson 2021: 645), and hence he was somewhat wary and unwilling to take risks using the microscope. I will discuss more thoroughly ‘microscopical’ investigations of textiles in Sect. 2.2.5 and Sect. 4.2.5, also discussing how weaves and merchants used magnifying lens. To complete the picture concerning Bacon’s concepts, I would like to briefy discuss two other concepts appearing in his writing which are associated to ‘textura’: ‘positura’ and ‘ordo’. This discussion is important for the following discussion on Jungius, as these two notions also appear in his refections on textiles and weaving, though employed somewhat differently. Hence those various usages throw light on the differences between Jungius and Bacon. The notion of ‘positura’ refers to the “partes” of a body, and Gemelli (1996: 189) also notes that ‘position’ is sometimes used synonymously with “contexture or confguration,” which may also correspond to “fabrica.” Discussing the examples of color and music in Bacon’s writings with respect to the notion of ‘position’ or ‘positura’, one “could respectively take ‘collocation, placing’ as equivalent to the atomistic (Lucretian) concept See also Bacon in Novum organum (1858: 99–100): “In the same way, if before the discovery of silk, any one had said that there was a kind of thread discovered for the purposes of dress and furniture, which far surpassed the thread of linen or of wool in fneness and at the same time in strength, and also in beauty and softness; men would have begun immediately to think of some silky kind of vegetable, or of the fner hair of some animal, or of the feathers and down of birds; but of a web woven by a tiny worm [de vermis pusilli textura], and that in such abundance, and renewing itself yearly, they would assuredly never have thought. Nay, if any one had said anything about a worm, he would no doubt have been laughed at as dreaming of a new kind of cobwebs.” (Cursive by M.F.) 74 See (Bacon 1858: 134): “In like manner a doubt suggests itself, whether the warmth in wool, skins, feathers, and the like, proceeds from a faint degree of heat inherent in them, as being excretions from animals; or from a certain fat and oiliness, which is of a nature akin to warmth; or simply, as surmised in the preceding article, from the confnement and separation of the air. For all air that is cut off from connexion with the outer air seems to have some warmth. Try the experiment therefore with fbrous substances made of linen; not of wool, feathers, or silk, which are excretions from animals.” 73

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of ‘ordo’ (also originally belonging to the language of weaving), while ‘posture’ would correspond to ‘positura’” (ibid.: 191). Gemelli refers to the following statement of Bacon: “There are also found in bodies as well natural as artifcial, especially in solids, a certain collocation and position of parts, and a kind of threads and fbres, which ought to be carefully investigated” (Bacon 1858: 321). This emphasis on the position of parts comes under a list examining “principal kinds of motions” of bodies, where the fourteenth motion, which discusses the “threads and fbres” to be investigated, is the “Motion of Confguration or Position” (“Motus Confgurationis, aut Situs”). This highlights how close the notions of ‘situs’ and ‘confguration’ were, and that to the “collocation and position of parts” one must add the investigation of their relative position and arrangement, which is accounted for in the notion of ‘textura’. However, the notion of ‘ordo’, while being employed by Lucretius, does not appear as a term in Bacon’s writings, and is generally merged conceptually in these writings with ‘positura’ (resp. ‘position’).75 *** While Bacon with his inductive method might be expected to call for an inspection of textiles as well as of artisanal practices, that Descartes, who advocated a deductive method, called for a similar procedure is more surprising. Nevertheless, in Rule 10 of his Regulae ad directionem ingenii, Descartes notes that “in order to acquire discernment we should exercise our native intelligence by investigating what others have already discovered, and methodically survey even the most insignifcant products of human skill, especially those which display or presuppose order.” He advises that one “must frst tackle the simplest and least exalted arts, and especially those in which order [ordo] prevails—such as those of the craftsmen, who weave fabrics and carpets [ut sunt artifcum qui telas & tapetia texunt], or of the women, who either embroider or intermix [interlace] threads in infnite ways to produce various weaves [aut mulierum quae acu pingunt, vel fla intermiscent texturae infnitis modis variatae].”76 It should be recalled that, at that time, the textile industry was fourishing in France, especially in Dijon, Lyon and Tours (Markowsky 1976: 24–30). It is therefore no wonder that Descartes mentions explicitly the “artifcum,” that is, the craftsmen and the artisans who weave (“texunt”) various weaves, cloths and carpets. It should be further noted that the translation to English from 1985 of the above citation is somewhat misleading,77 not only due to the fact that the artisans are not explicitly mentioned there, but also the women (“mulierum”) are left unmentioned; these women, so the original text, either embroider (“pingunt”) or weave threads (or, as Descartes notes: interchange or mix—“intermiscent”—the threads) in infnite ways to produce various weaves.

See: (Gemelli 1996: 192). The translation, which was taken from (Descartes 1985: 35), was modifed. 77 The translation from (Descartes 1985: 35) is as follows: one “must frst tackle the simplest and least exalted arts, and especially those in which order prevails  – such as weaving and carpetmaking, or the more feminine arts of embroidery, in which threads are interwoven in an infnitely varied pattern.” 75 76

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One may interpret Descartes’ emphasis on “display[ing] or presuppose[ing] order” in two ways: either referring to the resulting ‘pattern’ of the fnished weave; or referring to the order of actions while using the loom—e.g., in which order one should step on the loom’s treadles, an aspect which is important, especially when weaving with a loom that has more than two treadles. Somewhat surprisingly, according to Descartes, the supposed mathematization of these textile practices must be conducted in a way that is similar to “number games and [those] involving arithmetic.” Descartes emphasizes that, while these various activities “present us in the most distinct way with innumerable instances of order, each one [is] different from the other, [and] yet all [are] regular.” Hence he implicitly points out that different textile practices are based on different conceptions of “order”—which is also expressed by Descartes’ noting that the threads are woven in “infnite ways to produce various weaves” (Descartes 1985: 35). This suggests that the conception of artisanal activities indicates a need to discover (geometrical, mathematical) laws via manual practices. However, it is not clear whether Descartes was actually in contact with weavers or visited their ateliers; after comparing textile practices to arithmetic, Descartes adds that it “is surprising how much all these activities exercise our minds, provided of course we discovered them from ourselves and not from others” (ibid.)—which points to a separation between mathematical reasoning and artisanal knowledge.78 This is also seen with how Claus Zittel analyzes Rule 10; noting that Descartes also mentions in Rule 10 that “it is surprising how much all these things exercise one’s intelligence,” Zittel makes the comment: “Thinking, weaving, knitting: if the eye is trained in recognizing patterns, the ingenium can be helped along in the discovery of structural analogies between apparently different phenomena.” He adds that this example shows, similar to the opposing Baconian investigation, “the necessity of sustaining theoretical knowledge through learned experience” (Zittel 2008: xxiii). This may indeed be correct, but I claim that this “ingenious adaptation of existing knowledge” (ibid.) also points to the emerging separation between the two realms of knowledge: mathematical and artisanal. Indeed, according to Jean-François Gauvin, for Descartes, at least until the early 1620s, artisanal work indeed had a rationality in and of itself. However, “there is no indication he [Descartes] himself ever dabbled with crafts or worked with artisans before his optical days in Paris in the mid-1620s” (Gauvin 2006: 196). However, it is precisely because of his encounters with the artisans in Paris that he started to question the artisan’s inherent structured order, and “rational order could no longer be connected to bodily gestures alone, but was rather something guiding the unity of bodily gestures and machines” (de Munck 2019: 223). While France had several centers which excelled in textile industries, Descartes’ involvement with the artisans began only in Paris in the mid-1620s, and “he began to see them as individuals possessing It is important to stress that while various readings of Descartes’ wax thought experiment (see the second meditation in his Meditations on First Philosophy) emphasize that the sensible properties of a ball of wax—among them its texture—are either lost or change, when placing the ball of wax near fre (hence one cannot rely on the senses), the term ‘textura’ does not appear in this second meditation.

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unreliable bodily dispositions, in serious need of a rigorous rational training in the logic of practice” (Gauvin 2006: 197). This view is very much to be detected in Descartes’ Regulae. *** It is clear that Bacon’s references to texture, textiles and weaving are much more detailed than Descartes’ single reference, but as Gauvin notes, from the mid-1620s on, Descartes no longer ascribed any rational order to the artisans, in contrast to both Bacon and to how the artisans were beginning to view themselves. Moreover, both thinkers highlight two almost diametrically opposed directions of thought regarding weaving: Bacon sought to learn from the artisans, from their ways of working with the materials, as well as from the fnished product, adopting various terms (‘texture’, ‘warp’ and ‘weft’—or ‘woof,’ in Bacon’s terminology) as both explanatory and exploratory ones. However, investigations of textile practices that end up with their mathematization are not to be found in his writings, nor is there any indication that these practices or terms (or the theoretical conception, such as the notion of ‘order’ or ‘structure’ associated to ‘texture’) may lead to such mathematization. This stands in contrast to Descartes: it seems that Descartes sought to uncover mathematical or geometrical principles underlying embroidery or weaving while, at the same time, introducing a separation between those principles and the artisanal knowledge. The following sections will relate to these two approaches, either emphasizing or, in contrast, marginalizing, the role of artisanal practices.

2.2.3

Hartlib’s “petit mystere”

So far, I have reviewed the two representatives of the two main approaches in the development of natural philosophy: Bacon and Descartes, and how their approaches were refected in their views of weaving and textiles. In the following, I will review mostly how various thinkers either reshaped the notion of ‘texture’ or investigated textiles experimentally, with, for example, the microscope. But before turning to these thinkers, I would like to address another view: that weaving may have fascinated thinkers because it opened another possible explanatory horizon—that is, weaving looms, textile production and techniques may have underlain the uniqueness of artisanal knowledge, or at least some parts of it, i.e., artisanal knowledge could not be completely understood, generalized or (mathematically) formalized. These views can be seen with several letters of Samuel Hartlib. Samuel Hartlib (ca. 1600–1662) was a German polymath who settled in England and developed a wide network of correspondence, known as the ‘Hartlib circle’, which was set up in around 1630. Hartlib, in a series of letters written in 1653 and 1657 to several scholars, discusses innovations in weaving (Hartlib 2002: 8/16/1A–5B). The title of this series is “Inventiones / Textoriæ / Wolzogens,” in reference to Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen (1600–1661), an Austrian philosopher, mathematician and theologian. These letters can be seen in the context of Hartlib’s

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conversations with John Pell at the beginning of the 1650s. Thus, for example, in a letter from 20 December 1653, titled “Bohemia-Loomes,” Hartlib writes, “what Pell [tells] of the small looms, so in Moravia and Austria, [they] are common among the women who carry out [this work], and on it one can weave with it narrow silk wastecoats with golden and silver fowers”79 (ibid.: 8/16/3A). Two years before, in 1651, Hartlib writes that a “curious and accomodatious Weaving-Instrument mentioned by Mr Pell which the Swedish Baron Wolzogens wife did vse in Holland to get her subsistence by much used in Bohemia wherby waiscots in all manner of colours are exactly woven […] Weaving / Woltzogen / in Sweden / Woltzogen being Mathematical can easily send a description with a delineation of it”80 (ibid.: 28/2/20A). Hartlib refers to a loom found in Holland, probably the inkle loom which was a small portable ribbon loom,81 because these were widespread in Holland at the beginning of the 17th century; this can also be seen in a letter written by Hartlib in 1653: “Monsieur Wolzogen’s Lady […] made use of such a loome in Amsterdam” (ibid.: 8/16/2A). In the same letter, Hartlib notes that “Ladies and women of quality in Moravia etc had small loomes, about the bignesse of a common deske, in which they used to weave silke wastcoates & other such small textures […] and that this art, they called Le petit mystere.” This statement is not a lapse, or expressed only once: in 1657, the same expression appears, now stating his wish that Comenius’ wife or daughters explain the “petty Mysterie of Moravian Weaving.”82 According to Hartlib’s conception, if Wolzogen, being “mathematical,” can easily describe this loom, then it may have an affnity with mathematics or with mathematical principles—although Hartlib does not explain the nature of this; this may be why he calls it “Le petit mystere.” This might also be why Hartlib lists a few textile machines under novel inventions—the small ribbon loom or the stocking machine.83 As Vera Keller notes, “Hartlib’s copious notes, his Ephemerides […] overfow with desiderata. He marks many an item with the term. He singles out particular items as a ‘great desideratum,’ such as ‘A great desideratum. To get an

“Was Er ex Pellii Relatione von den kleinen Weber-stulen, so in Mòhren vnd Oesterich vnter dem furnehmen Frawen-Volck gebrauchlich sein sollen vnd darauff man shmalle seidene zingl mit guldenen vnd silbern blumen, wircken könne.” 80 Wolzogen was “Swedish” in the sense that he later lived in Stockholm. 81 This is not be confused with the Bandmühle, on which several ribbons could be woven simultaneously. See Sect. 2.1.2. 82 The letter is as follows: “Ex Litteris Pellij. Februar: 15. 1657. à Zurich / It is not vnlikely, that Mrs Comenius knowes that petty Mysterie of Moravian Weaving, whereof I gave you a Memorial some yeares agoe. I would not have him troubled with the Description of it: but if his Wife or any Daughter of his know it, I could wish, that she would teach it to one of Mr Rulicius his Daughters, or some other, from whom at least one of mine might learne it. For I beleeve, there might be good vse made of it, for a better Feminine Employment, than they now fnde, in innumerable fddlefaddles wherein they waste a great part of their time” (Hartlib 2002: 8/16/4A). Comenius’ own acquaintance with and refections on weaving will be shortly presented in Sect. 2.2.6. 83 In a list titled “Catalogue of Inventions (Catalogus inventionum),” one of the inventions that Hartlib mentions is “An Art of Weaving silke Stockins”; another one is “To make All sortes of Tapestry by a new way not in use” (Hartlib 2002: 8/60/1A). 79

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Inventarium or Catalogue of all the Inventions priviledged [sic!] in any country’” (Keller 2015: 168). Keller adds that these objects of desiderata constituted for Hartlib “epistemic objects” (ibid.: 191), and one may assume that for that reason, Hartlib considered that the “small mystery” might be explained mathematically. But the fact that no such explanation, or even what is meant by that, can be found points to a certain inability to mathematically formalize the principles of this artisanal knowledge or the underlying work processes. To explicate: Hartlib’s refections are not a yearning for a lost knowledge (or its reconstruction as lost and unreachable), as he not only personally knew individuals who used this loom but also had such a loom in his possession; rather, they are an admission that it remains unreachable, a mystery. Why this remains a mystery is explained in Hartlib’s notes from 1653: there he writes that he owns such a loom, but he immediately adds that these crafts cannot be described, since so far, no “written instructions” are available.84 This already shows either a lack of manuals or books on this artisanal work written by the artisans themselves, or the fact that if such manuals were written, they were not available to the general public, which would certainly make the transfer of artisanal knowledge problematic.85 *** The question that arises is whether the examination of texture or textile machines indeed operated as a “small mystery,” as an epistemic object, but one whose function may be limited to only the understanding of looms, or whether it served in larger epistemic frameworks and operated as an exploratory model for other domains. That is, the question is whether one aimed to explain looms or woven patterns mathematically (as with Hartlib or Descartes), or whether one took weaving and the associated notions to explain other phenomena (as with Bacon). The latter type of explanations can be found, for example, when explanations of weaving as well as the notion of ‘texture’ co-existed to “fll an explanatory gap in atomist accounts”—or in other accounts—“of the sorts of properties that only occur in combinations” in general, or for explaining properties of particular materials (Silver 2020: 180). Sean Silver (2020) discusses a series of 17th century thinkers, and focuses on the way in which the concept of ‘texture’ appears in their works and how it was used to shape corpuscularianism. He notes that the consideration of ‘texture’—either as the order or structure of the various particles, or as the tactile texture of the material— accounted for the emergence of forms and properties. Silver presents the works

(Hartlib 2002: 8/16/4A): “Den Weberstul belangend, so habe ich denselben in meiner gewalt, kan also [mitunder?] ein Model oder das Original selbsten bekommen. Aber den gebrauch vberzuschreiben oder auch nur zu vernehmen. darzu weiss ich noch zur zeit ganz keinen rath. Auch lassen solche Handwercke sich nicht beschreiben, dass mans begreiffen könne, wie dem H. selbst bekand ist, also dass auf schriftliche Instruction meines erachtens, keine rechnung zu machen ist […].” 85 As a side note, while Jungius and his writings were known to the Hartlib circle (and to the British Royal Society in general), till now, there has been no indication that Hartlib’s refections on textiles were infuenced by those of Jungius. See for example (Sprang 2017; Clucas 1994). 84

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of Pierre Gassendi, Walter Charleton, William Petty, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, but surprisingly, he does not mention the works of Bacon.86 In the following, I will partially follow Silver’s account, expanding on thinkers that Silver did not consider—Henry Power, John Amos Comenius and John Locke. Nevertheless, one aspect should be stressed: as could already be seen in the writings of Bacon, frsthand experiments with fabrics as well as observations of them, their production, and artisanal processes were very much infuenced by, as well as had an infuence on metaphysical principles and conceptions of matter. For example, for some scholars, the woven structure is observable; for others, ‘texture’ cannot even be perceived. In addition, for several thinkers in the second half of the 17th century, ‘texture’ oscillates between being a primary and secondary quality.87 This distinction is essential to bear in mind when discussing the notion of ‘textura’ toward the end of the 17th century, because it shows not only a plurality of positions, but also the ontological status of ‘textura’. This plurality of positions, which will be unfolded in the following, shows that one cannot pinpoint a unifed position regarding the affnity between artisanal work, artisanal knowledge and the ‘texture’ of materials.

2.2.4

Gassendi’s “woven atoms”

I will begin my survey of the various positions with Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). Gassendi was a French philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, known also for his defense of the conception that matter is made up of atoms. Therefore, essential for our discussions is Gassendi’s notion of “the texture of atoms”: “textura atomorum.”88 Gassendi’s view of matter is not purely mechanical, and he does not view matter as inert, that is, he contrasts his views to the Cartesian ones. In this spirit, Gassendi argues that “geometry would not enable us to understand the variety of natural phenomena, and cannot be employed in the investigation of the microstructure of bodies” (Clericuzio 2000: 64). Instead, to investigate bodies and materials, and especially their qualities, one has to note that, so Gassendi, “macroscopic bodies are just collections of atoms arranged in a certain texture [and their] qualities are (or emerge from) textures” (LoLordo 2011: 71). To emphasize: elucidating the confguration or arrangement of atoms, Gassendi “typically speaks of the contexture – the way in which atoms are woven together” (ibid.: 64). This is exemplifed in Gassendi’s Syntagma philosophicum (published posthumously in 1658): there Silver also does not survey the history of the technological developments of looms during this period, or the social background of weavers and other artisans. 87 Gaukroger (2010: 28ff) notes that “primary qualities were really in the world whereas secondary qualities were merely psychic additions of the perceiving mind. Natural philosophy thus becomes focused on the former.” 88 Silver (2020: 181ff) indeed looks at Gassendi’s works, but he inspects these works through the writings of Walter Charleton (mainly Charleton’s Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charletoniana (1654), which was based on Gassendi’s Animadversiones from 1649), and hence a closer look is required. 86

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Gassendi notes that the molecular structure is determined by the “invisible textura atomorum” (Clericuzio 2000: 67), and the way in which the atoms are “woven” with each other determines the properties of the investigated material. However, as Gassendi stresses, with an example from his Animadversiones—the ordering and reordering of the letters of the word AMOR (resulting in, for example, MARO or ORAM), not every combination of letters results in readable or phonetically permissible connections. This indicates that Gassendi aims at a literal theory of material processes to explain emergence, transmutation and decay (Meinel 1988b: 4). Moreover, in the Animadversiones, a few passages after the AMOR example, the transformation and transmutation of materials are explained in an analogous way, just as “a cloth is extended or plicated, and just as the threads between which the cloth is posited, and as it appears with different colors when the light changes”89 (Gassendi 1649: 228). The reference to the relative position of the threads shows how the understanding of physical phenomena was conveyed via the concrete example of woven cloth. Walter Charleton’s The Physiologia from 1654 is known to consist of numerous parts that are a translation of Gassendi’s Animadversiones into English. While Charleton did not object categorically to the geometrical form of atoms, he did sometimes adopt “the notion of molecule […] and on most the cases that of contexture of atoms” (Clericuzio 2000: 96). Moreover, in his translation of Gassendi’s account on how transmutation of materials may be explained, Charleton (1654: 133) writes that materials transform “as a piece of Changeable Taffaty, according as it is extended, or plicated, appears of two different dyes.” Silver notes that both Gassendi and Charleton refer in their examples to “natural and artifcial weaves” (Silver 2020: 183),90 but he fails to note how Charleton changes Gassendi’s phrase cited above from Animadversiones. Charleton’s omission of Gassendi’s reference to the “threads” and the replacement of “cloth” by “Taffaty” is neither incidental nor by chance. In his translation, Charleton does not refer in a general way to a general cloth “situated” between threads, but rather to a concrete fabric: taffeta, a fabric usually made of silk. This suggests a shift to concrete textiles and possibly a better acquaintance of their properties. At this point, one may already detect two approaches to textiles which took different research directions: the frst, a concrete investigation of textiles, which later prompted a transfer of textile-related concepts to more theoretical conceptions of matter; the second takes, in a sense, the result of the frst approach, because its starting point consists of more metaphysical or theoretical refections on texture, which were not necessarily related to observations of textiles or to their investigation. These two directions, which can already be detected with the thinkers surveyed above, became more apparent when investigations of textures, weaves and threads with the microscope became more common. To see this, I will frst briefy review “[…] idémque pannus prout extenditur plicatúrve fláque situm inter fe & cum luce variant diversorum esse colorum apparet.” 90 In the same cited passage, both Gassendi and Charleton also discuss the texture of feathers of a dove or a peacock and how light is refected on them. 89

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three thinkers from the 1650s–1660s (Robert Hooke, Henry Power and Hartlib, again) who considered textiles with the microscope as their starting point. Afterward, I will turn to another triad of thinkers (John Amos Comenius, Robert Boyle and John Locke) who offered various theoretical refections on texture.

2.2.5

Hooke and Power: textiles through the magnifying glass

As we saw above, Bacon suggested using the microscope to investigate (among other objects) fabrics. This suggestion, as we will see, was taken seriously by Hooke. But to understand which epistemic horizons were opened up by the use of the microscope, a short detour is needed,91 where we examine, among other things, how magnifying lenses were used by weavers and textile merchants before the natural philosophers began examining fabrics with a microscope. As Christoph Lüthy notes, while Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is famous for his pioneering work in microscopy, he obtained his “keenest observations with singlebead microscopes. But single lenses had been used for centuries, functioning as spectacles,” hence implying that the microscope was not necessarily an invention, in contrast to the telescope (Lüthy 1996: 2). But the power of the microscope was in the fact that it was eventually considered as a “corpuscularian tool”: that is, “the discovery or recognition of the microscope as a philosophically relevant instrument implied a belief, not only in the existence, but in the explanatory meaningfulness of material sub-structures” (ibid.: 14). It was hence associated with corpuscles or with atoms.92 In addition, Wilson notes that the microscope enabled making visible what was previously considered to be principally invisible, advocating the view concerning the “subtlety of nature” (Wilson 1995: 39ff). However, several epistemic problems arose together with the usage of the microscope. First, it seemed that the microscope only offered “a series of unconnected views”: “the microscopist who examines a plate with lenses of successively higher power sees new structures emerge and the earlier ones disappear from view” (ibid.: 231). That is, the microscopic world was no less (and sometimes even more) complex than the visible world. Second, skepticism arose concerning the power of magnifcation itself: if one really saw irreducible particles with a particular microscope, who could guarantee that a stronger microscope would not discover that these particles are actually composed of even smaller particles? (Meinel 1988b: 13). From this arose the problem of homogeneity and continuity, as properties which are 91 The literature on the microscope in the 17th century is extensive. See for example (Meinel 1988a; Meinel 1988b; Wilson 1995; Lüthy 1996; Frey 2013; Lawson 2021). 92 Note that Wilson (1995: 68) claims that the microscope “had broken the philosophical impasse posed by occult qualities. In revealing layer after layer of articulated structure, the microscope gave solidity and accessibility to what theory delivered up as an atomized or mathematized world.” But “while there was a certain degree of mutual validation exchanged between corpuscularians and microscopists, it would be a mistake to assume that their interests or convictions were or remained entirely consonant.”

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Fig. 2.19 Drawings of “Line and Cloth Prover” (Pike 1848: 173, fg. 671, 672; public domain)

beyond the senses: “no surface could be so smooth that one could not think of a more powerful microscope that would reveal its true discontinuity.”93 (Meinel 1988a: 84) While the microscope was ‘rehabilitated’ during the 18th century (Ratcliff 2009), the question that stands at the center of this section is: what occurred when the microscope was used to examine fabrics, as by Hooke and Power, for example?94 Was the notion of ‘texture’ reshaped? Did the fndings support corpuscular theories? Or did other theories and refections arise as a result of this inquiry? *** Before attempting to answer these questions, it is important to recall that the use of magnifying lenses was widespread among textile weavers and merchants long before textiles were examined with a microscope. Indeed, in the 15th and 16th centuries, one can already fnd evidence of the usage of the ‘weaver’s glass’ (also called cloth prover, Vergrößerungsglas, Weberglas, Linsenglas, Fadenzähler or compte-fls). This device, to be seen in Fig. 2.19, was used to check the quality of woven fabrics, by counting the number of weft and warp threads in a unit area of the fabric. It consisted of a magnifying lens, which magnifed the fabric up to six times its original size, together with a measuring device with fxed units, which was probably attached to a lens holder. As such, use of this device already indicated not only quality control but also standardization of the fabrics and the use of basic arithmetic and counting by merchants.95 Whether these magnifying lenses were what prompted Leeuwenhoek to turn to microscopy is unclear; while it is known that Leeuwenhoek was a textile merchant, it is not clear whether this is why this device inspired him to Consequently, Jungius categorically stated that continuity was foreign to the realm of sensuous experience. See also Sect. 4.2.5. 94 Jungius’ investigations of textiles with the microscope will be examined in Sect. 4.2.5. 95 See also the account on “Weberglas” in Krünitz’s Oekonomische Encyclopaedie under “Weberei” (Krünitz 1856: 238–9). 93

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improve the microscope.96 Be that as it may, there is historical evidence that such magnifying lenses were used before and after the 17th century. For example, one fnds in the ordinance of Memmingen (in Southern Germany) from 1482 that the “counter of threads” or the “Schaumeister”, controlling different kinds of cloths, would count the number of threads per given unit of fabric, when there was some doubt as the supplied textiles from the weavers showed irregularities. If indeed this number was too small, the weaver was punished or expelled from the guild (Westermann 1914: 572–573). Similar quality control by ‘Schaumeisters’ is also documented in the 16th and 17th centuries in Württemberg (Volz 1855: 23, 43, 46), and at the end of the 18th century in Urach (also in Southern Germany),97 when the weavers brought their fabrics for inspection—which was not conducted in their presence—and employment of the “thread counter” (“Fadenzähler”) was obligatory (Medick 1996: 128).98 *** Having surveyed the epistemic problems that arose due to the usage of the microscope (which were perhaps also prompted by usage the magnifying lens by drapers and quality-control authorities), I turn to the work of Hooke. Robert Hooke’s investigation of fabrics—seen already at the beginning of his 1665 Micrographia, with observations III, IV and V, which will be discussed below—clearly shows that his starting point was an investigation with the microscope of a cloth of linen, silk or watered silk. Those investigations were not merely to provide a more accurate description of these objects. In his posthumous “General Scheme or Idea of the Present State of Natural Philosophy,” one fnds Hooke’s request to examine the “artifcial” histories, along with the “Natural Histories,” similar to how Bacon asked to inquire about “unnatural practices” or artifcial machines. Hooke notes that one should “take notice of and enumerate all the Trades, Arts, Manufactures, and Operations about which Men are imployed especially such as either contain some Physical Operation, or some extraordinary Mechanical Contrivance; for such as these will very much inrich a Philosophical Treasury. And these we may distinguish into these several Heads according to the various Materials” (Hooke 1705: 24).

Under these artifcial histories, which very much emphasize the knowledge possessed by the artisans, one fnds the history of “Silk Trosters, Dyers, Weavers, The account that Leeuwenhoek was inspired by linen provers or thread counters is suggested in several works on Leeuwenhoek. See for example (Snyder 2015: Sect. 4.2; Robertson et al. 2016: 27; Davis 2020: 79). Leeuwenhoek indeed compares in 1675 red blood corpuscles with “sandgrains that one might bestrew upon a piece of black taffety silk,” which may indicate an infuence of Leeuwenhoek’s work as a draper on his observations and descriptions (Dobell 1932: 331). While Leeuwenhoek did use the notion of ‘texture’ in several of his letters and works, a discussion on this topic is outside the scope of this section. 97 Of course, similar quality control using magnifying lenses existed outside of Germany as well; see for example (Schneider 2007: 216) on such controls in France at the end of the 18th century. 98 Though in other places in the region (i.e., Laichingen) one may fnd at the end of the 18th century that this quality control of the number of threads per unit deteriorated, due to the rising demand for fabrics (Medick 1996: 211). 96

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Stocking weavers and Knitters, Ribbond weavers […] Silk-men, Button-makers, Lace-makers, Embroiderers, Pressers and Waterers” (ibid.: 26). The goal of writing these histories is, according to Hooke, twofold: either one obtains a “Description of the things themselves whereby Inquisitive Persons that are ignorant of them may come to a more perfect Knowledge of them”—similar, as we will examine below, to observations III, IV and V of Micrographia; or one describes them “only in order to the Use of Philosophical Inquiry, for the Invention of Causes and for the fnding out the ways and means Nature uses and the Laws by which she is reftrain’d in producing divers Effects” (ibid.). That is, the description of the weavers’ work and the investigation of their various products (i.e., fabrics) with, among other instruments, the microscope, is not just an investigation of the “things themselves”; it also serves to philosophically inquire about the “Laws” of Nature. This method of investigating practices to elucidate both artisanal and philosophical knowledge, as well as the ‘laws’ of nature in the form of geometrical statements will also be seen in Jungius’ own writings. For now, it is essential to stress that for Hooke as well, the two directions were interwoven, and not at all separate. Concentrating on Hooke’s Micrographia, this approach can also be seen in his observations, when he presents how corpuscularian theories “were shaped by the models available for imagining their metaphysics” (Silver 2020: 185). By “models” Silver refers to textiles and their concrete investigation. However, before Hooke unfolds his frst observation on textiles, being Observation III, one has to recall that he begins Micrographia with the statement that “as in Geometry, the most natural way of beginning is from a Mathematical point” (Hooke 1665: 1), but the point, line and surface are presented as if their imprecise materiality cannot be erased or abstracted: the point in Observation I is one of a “sharp small needle” (ibid.), and Hooke notes that as “for points made with a pen, they were much more rugged and deformed” (ibid.: 3). The line presented in Observation II is the line “of the edge of a razor” (ibid.: 4); the surface in Observation III is that of a “Linnen Cloth” (ibid.: 5). This approach can be interpreted, if one follows Chan’s account, as an attempt to show the “provocative materiality of mathematics,” a materiality which, as we saw above with Recorde and if one follows Chan’s argument, was also present in the 16th century (Chan 2022: 190). But here it is already clear from the examples sketched above (and will become clearer in the following) that abstraction can never dispose materiality: just as the magnifcation of a point reveals its being “rugged and deformed,” so does the ‘textile’ plane, i.e., the magnifed cloth, reveal itself to be full of ridges and irregularities.99 To focus on Hooke’s investigations of textiles, he gives three “observations” of textiles: the frst, “Observ. III. Of fne Lawn, or Linnen Cloth” (Hooke 1665: 5), comparing, among others, fax and silk; the second, “Observ. IV. Of fne waled Silk, or Taffety” (ibid.: 6), deals with silk; and the third, “Observ. V,” deals with “watered Silks” (ibid.: 8). The frst of the three observations already points out not only the

See also (Silver 2020: 186): “Hooke’s study of linen is merely of linen. In the early stages of his work, he merely exposes the absence of pure geometrical forms in nature.”

99

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advantages of the microscope, but also how the senses, such as seeing and touching, may deceive: “the threads were scarce discernable by the naked eye, and yet through an ordinary Microscope you may perceive what a goodly piece of coarse Matting it is […] These threads that compose this fne contexture […] have notwithstanding nothing of their glossie, pleasant, and lively refection” (ibid.: 5). Observation IV uses the vocabulary of weaving (“warp” and “weft”) to describe the various threads of the examined fabric (ibid.: 6), and in addition, Hooke notates with letters either several regions or various threads of the fabric.100 Observation V of watered silk highlights the importance of examining this silk, as it starts with the statement that there “are but few Artifcial things that are worth observing with a Microscope” (see Fig. 2.20). When Hooke describes this silk, he notes that the modifcations of the appearance of watered silk are caused “by the various shape of the Particles, or little protuberant parts of the thread that compose the surface” (ibid.: 8). Moreover, in addition to his concrete investigations of textiles, Hooke expands the usage of ‘texture’ and textile vocabulary to investigations of other materials and phenomena. In his “Observ. XXII. Of common Sponges, and several other Spongie fbrous bodies” (Hooke: 135), he describes the “texture” of mushrooms, noting that it “consist[s] of an infnite company of small flaments, every way contex’d and woven together.” When afterward, Hooke describes leather, he uses a similar vocabulary, of an “infnite company of flaments, somewhat like bushes interwoven one within another.” Stressing that the texture is “like that of a Lock or a Fleece of Wool,” where each “cord” is composed of “smaller lines” (and each line is decomposed into “threads &c. and these [are] strangely intangled, or interwoven one within another”), one can note a transfer of the vocabulary of textiles to other domains. Thus, for example, the “Moscovy-glass, or Lapis specularis, is a Body that seems to have as many Curiosities in its Fabrick” (ibid.: 47), which are also due to its “Threads” (ibid.: 49). To give another example of this transfer, Hooke states that the result of a color change when mixing liquors may be explained by “interweaving” one liquor with another body, whose “particles” or “corpuscles” are “tinging” (ibid.: 70). These remarks on “texture,” “fabric” and “interweaving” do not appear in a void; Hooke “offers fabrics as a pattern or paradigm, but his knowledge was rooted in frst-hand observation of the production of fabrics” (Silver 2020: 188). Silver describes Hooke’s visits to the felt-maker shop, after which Hooke made illustrations of felt makers at work (see Fig. 2.21); to that one may add Hooke’s interest in the methods of coloring fabric (see Keller 2018). Therefore, in contrast to Bacon, for Hooke ‘texture’ is not an unobservable property, but rather an observable, tactile one of the materials in question; a property which can be observed with the help of a microscope. Occult properties may be explained by the “Natural Textures,” and as Hooke notes in the preface of Micrographia, just as the “the vulgar are to conceive, how Tapestry or fowred Stuffs are woven” so may “Natural Textures […] be made

… though one cannot call this notation a geometric one, as Silver (2020: 186) implies, when calling it “rudimentary geometry.”

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Fig. 2.20 Engravings from Schem. III of the frst edition of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. With observations and inquiries thereupon. Figure 1 depicts fne waled silk, or taffeta. Figure 2 depicts watered silks, or stuffs (public domain)

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Fig. 2.21 Robert Hooke’s depiction of felt-makers at work (Royal Society Classifed Papers, CLP/20/96; © The Royal Society)

in Looms, which a greater perfection of Opticks may make discernable by these Glasses” (Hooke 1665: preface, non-paginated). One should not consider this statement as a mere transfer of metaphors, but rather see it as a more intricate view, which was also announced in Hooke’s posthumous writings: Hooke notes that the inquiry of weaving practices refects how ‘Nature’ operates. *** Hooke’s extensive investigations of textiles and texture stand in contrast to his contemporary, Henry Power. Power’s Experimental Philosophy, published in 1664, preceded Hooke’s Micrographia by one year; Power’s book was the frst work published in English on microscopy. While Power also describes, under “microscopical observations” a ribbon under the microscope, in contrast to Hooke’s observations of various textiles, Power includes only a single, short observation, which is not located anywhere near the beginning of his book (as it is in Hooke’s): OBSERVAT. XXXVII. Ribbans of all sorts of Colours, Silk, Satten, Silver and mixed. In the Silk Ribbans, you might plainly see the Contexture, how the Warp and the Weft cross one another at right Angles; and how neatly they are platted […] In Satten Ribbans, one Warp crossed over three or four Wefts, most lively and pleasant in Cloth of Silver, the Weft (being fat wired Silver) that crosses the Warp, it makes a fne Chequered Representation. (Power 1664: 46)

The reference to silk ribbons may indicate the extent of the usage of ribbon looms (see Sect. 2.1.2 and Sect. 2.2.3), but in contrast to Hooke’s call to examine the artisanal practices involved in the making of the products, no such statement is

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Fig. 2.22 Henry Power’s depiction of a magnifed ribbon (Power 1664: 46; public domain)

mentioned in Power’s writings. Moreover, examining the drawing that Power added (see Fig.  2.22), the difference with Hooke’s drawings, vocabulary, concepts and methods could not be greater. Compared to the drawings in Micrographia, Power’s drawing is somewhat simplistic: there is no gradual darkening of the fabric and there is no play of light, as in the Micrographia drawings.101 This may indicate a certain inability to visualize magnifed fabrics. Concerning the terms employed by Power, he uses the term ‘contexture’ only twice in the entire book, and the term ‘texture’ is not mentioned at all. Direct contacts with weavers, felt makers or fabric dyers are also not at all mentioned. Nevertheless, although Power did not share Hooke’s conceptual framework with respect to texture and textiles, his observation indicates that fabrics were considered objects that could be observed microscopically. We saw that this practice was common in the community of textile merchants and controllers (though performed with a magnifying lens); this can also be seen with other scholars, years before the publication of Micrographia: as noted above, Bacon already called to examine textiles with a microscope (see Sect. 2.2.2). Georgius Hornius (Georg Horn, 1620–1670), in a letter he wrote to Hartlib on 15 April 1655, notes the following: “Ut textura panni lintei conspici posset sicut rete, id hoc Microscopium exactè præstat” (Hartlib 2002: 26/41/1B). First noting that one can detect the texture of materials with a microscope, as “Qvod desideravit Baco Verulamius in novo Organo” (ibid.), Hornius then 101

See: Doherty (2012: 223).

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gives as an example the texture of cloth, which can be seen as a net, and notes that the microscope presents exactly this.102 Having surveyed the works of Hooke and Power, the question arising from Hornius’ proposal is: what exactly does the microscope present when investigating textiles, and can one indeed determine the “way and means Nature uses” (Hooke 1705: 26) or formulate the “Laws” of nature? May one discover certain laws— physical or geometrical—concerning the submicroscopic structure of matter while magnifying fabrics? Or at least transfer these laws by analogy? Is an exact visual presentation of textiles or of matter even possible? Or does the transfer of vocabulary indicate an epistemic problem caused by an inability to achieve this visual presentation, which this transfer of concepts attempted to solve or circumvent? One way to examine this transfer is to consider the visual and conceptual similarities between the discourse on textiles and that on organic tissues, which were emerging at the end of the 17th century, similarities which I will discuss these in Sect. 2.2.7. In the discourse on anatomy at this time, “anatomists inspecting tissues through microscopes found that tissues seemed to be woven like embroidery,” which prompted “the emergence of the fber-woven body in the latter half of the seventeenth century” (Ishizuka 2016: xvii). But before examining this view, I would like to turn to how the notion of ‘textura’ was conceived more metaphysically.

2.2.6

Comenius, Boyle, Locke: metaphysically unfolding the notion of ‘texture’

We saw in the last section a potentially problematic visualization, either with Power, whose drawings of woven ribbons were somewhat schematic and simplistic, or with Hooke, whose notated drawings can be considered idealizations of the investigated fabrics. But the approaches presented in the former section were very much practical, even empirical. Another way to account for textiles and texture was to further unfold the notion of ‘texture’ in a more metaphysical way. Therefore, I now turn shortly to a triad of thinkers who took Bacon’s refections on ‘texture’ and repositioned them in a more metaphysical framework—and this in contrast to the natural philosophers examined above, who examined textiles more concretely (though this does not necessarily mean that the notion of ‘texture’ did not have its own metaphysical meaning in their framework). Hence, I will examine the works of John Amos Comenius, Robert Boyle and John Locke. When considering how Bacon’s ideas were accepted, and taking Boyle and Comenius into consideration, Giglioni argues that “Comenius is, in fact, a more faithful interpreter of Bacon’s natural philosophy than Boyle” (Giglioni 2013b: 47). When treating heat and cold in nature, Comenius, in his Disquisitiones de caloris et frigoris natura from 1658, compares them “to natural weavers (textores), which This is not the only reference to Bacon in Hartlib’s writings. Hartlib also stresses, in an undated note, that Bacon noted that “latent schematisms” function as “textura corporum” (2002: 24/16/54A).

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Fig. 2.23 Johann Amos Comenius’ depiction of a loom, from “Orbis sensualium pictus” (1658: 122; public domain)

[…] produce the natural threads that make the universal fabric of bodies” (ibid.: 48). Explicitly, Comenius (1659: 18) notes that “Frigoris igitur proprius effectus est contexere; Caloris, retexere utriusque texere. Atqui textura est motus,” i.e., the effect of cold is to interweave, and of heat—to unweave, and of both—to weave. Comenius concludes that “texture is motion.” Considering weaving as constantly moving, heat and cold are like “stamen et tramam” (ibid.: 53), that is, like “warp and woof,” a usage of terms which, to recall, refects Bacon’s own usage of these terms in Sylva sylvarum. This is not to suggest that Comenius only used ‘texture’ metaphorically: in his Orbis sensualium pictus from 1658, under the heading “LIX. Textura – Das Gewebe,” there is a drawing of a weaver on a two-treadle loom (see Fig.  2.23), together with a list of weaving terms in Latin and German, such as “Stamen” (translated as “Garn”), “Trama” (translated as “Eintrag”) or “Pannum” (translated as “Tuch”; Comenius 1658: 122–123). While Comenius certainly accounts for the phenomena of cold and heat in a metaphorical way, employing notions from the artisanal practice of weaving, his Orbis sensualium pictus suggests that this account came on the background of an acquaintance with this artisanal practice,103 which may indicate an affnity or a possible transfer between the two works. Orbis sensualium pictus also shows an acquaintance with the treadle loom itself, which indicates that this transfer also occurred on the level of the instrument. It therefore shows, 103

Recall that Hartlib notes in 1657 that Comenius’ wife also had a ribbon loom. See Sect. 2.2.3.

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although in another way, what Hooke was calling for when he stressed the two-pronged investigation of artisanal practices. While Comenius’ references to weaving were sparse, Robert Boyle used this notion more often in his Origin of Forms and Qualities, published in 1666. The notion of ‘texture’ in Boyle’s writings was researched extensively by, among others, Antonio Clericuzio, Peter Alexander, Peter R.  Anstey, Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino and Laura Keating. Indeed, they all stressed the importance of this notion for Boyle’s theory—most of them agreeing that it was for Boyle a primary quality, along with size, shape and motion,104 and moreover, that it is “a structural property of particle aggregates” (Anstey 2000: 48).105 However, and this is an essential point, it “must not be confused with the sense in which we feel the texture of a surface when we touch a piece of sandpaper or velvet; it is rather a structure of unobservable particles and so is itself not directly observable” (Alexander 1985: 66). Boyle writes that various sensible phenomena are “deducible from the size, shape, motion (or rest), posture, order, and the resulting texture of the insensible parts of bodies” (Boyle 1991: 36–37).106 Moreover, he also notes that “when many corpuscles do so convene together as to compose any distinct body, as a stone or a metal […] there doth emerge a certain disposition or contrivance of parts in the whole, which we may call the texture of it” (ibid.: 30). ‘Texture’ may be considered a technical term in Boyle’s writings, in that it specifes only spatial arrangements: “Complex bodies are ‘conventions’ of corpuscles in specifc arrangements and these arrangements are called ‘textures’” (Alexander 1985: 76). Boyle may even be read as implying that ‘texture’ may be reduced to a set of mathematizable properties of the relevant corpuscles: “[…] we have formerly seen, that ‘tis from the Size, Shape, and Motion of the small parts of Matter, and the Texture that results from the manner of their being dispos’d in any one Body” (Boyle 1666: 78). It is in this sense that ‘texture’ refers to different kinds of aggregates and clusters of particles. In addition, the properties of compound corpuscles may be different from those of the structuring particles. Indeed, the corpuscles’ properties depend on the different textures (Clericuzio 2000: 124). Moreover, Boyle is not interested in reducing phenomena or

See however (Alexander 1985: 78). Banchetti-Robino stresses the importance of the notion of ‘texture’ for Boyle: “Boyle does not want to collapse chemical properties and microstructure […] he favors, instead, a relational and dispositional conception of chemical properties.” She further concludes that “Boyle also regards chemical properties as emergent properties that ontologically depend upon, but are neither reducible to nor deducible from, the microstructure of chymical atoms. For example, in The Producibleness of Chymical Principles (1680), Boyle explicitly uses the term ‘disposition’ in describing solubility when he states that ‘Solubility is a disposition to be dissoluble in this or that liquor [that] may be acquired by mixture, and the new texture of parts’” (Banchetti-Robino 2022: 6); moreover, for Boyle, “it is [a] new texture that accounts for the emergence of the novel chemical property” (ibid: 7). 106 See also Boyle’s statement from his Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy (1674): “These Principles, Matter, Motion (to which Rest is related), Bigness, Shape, Posture, Order, Texture being so simple, clear, and comprehensive, are applicable to all the real Phaenomena of Nature, which seem not to be explicable by any other not consistent with ours” (Boyle 1991: 153). 104 105

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qualities “to a given shape and size of the particles” (ibid.: 137), and instead focuses on the texture of corpuscles. There are two aspects which should be highlighted: frst, ‘texture’ for Boyle is the result of an arrangement of particles (Alexander 1985: 79), as seen in the citation above from Origin of Forms and Qualities. Therefore, it may be described as an emerging property.107 Indeed, in The Sceptical Chymist, Boyle notes that he would like to explain how “there could emerge such curious fabricks as the bodies of men and perfect animals” (Boyle 1661: 376). While a discussion on how the notions of emergence and texture is outside the scope of this section, the very mention of “fabricks,” as well as Boyle’s reference to the texture of “a Fleece of Wooll” (1660: 257) brings us to the second aspect. Texture, as a property of an arrangement of particles, is not considered by Boyle as necessarily associated to weaving. In contrast to Comenius, who explicitly notes the weavers as an analogy to how heat and cold function in nature, such an analogy does not arise in Boyle’s writings. Texture becomes a structural–spatial property, or in other words, “a quality [which] is the product of a interrelation and interaction of different corpuscles and the texture they form” (Clericuzio 2001: 469)—but whose affnity to weaving no longer exists. Turning to John Locke, the third thinker who refected on ‘texture’ and who worked with, among others, Boyle and Hooke: Locke was certainly infuenced by Boyle’s conception of ‘texture’, as a reference to the arrangement of a body’s smaller parts. While I will briefy discuss below whether for Locke, texture was a primary or secondary quality, it is important to recall that for Locke—like Boyle— texture was not an observable quality. In Book II of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding from 1689, he stresses that “if by the help of […] microscopical eyes (if I may so call them), a man could penetrate further than ordinary into the secret composition and radical texture of bodies, he would not make any great advantage by the change, if such an acute sight would not serve to conduct him to the market and the exchange” (Locke 1894: 403). Those epistemic tensions prompted by the microscope were, of course, not unique or singular, as already noted above. In that respect, Locke presents here an anti-microscopical approach: not even better and better magnifcation of the body in question will “penetrate” its “radical texture.” As pointed out above, most of the interpreters of Boyle take texture as a primary quality of the body. Locke’s view may be considered to be more complicated. On the one hand, he notes, concerning secondary qualities, that “such Qualities, which in truth are nothing in the Objects themselves, but Powers to produce various Sensations in us by their primary Qualities, i.e. by the Bulk, Figure, Texture, and Motion of their insensible parts, as Colours, Sounds, Tasts, etc. These I call secondary Qualities” (ibid.: 170)—that is, texture belongs to the list of primary qualities. But examining an earlier section in the Essay, Locke lists the “original or primary qualities of body” which “we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, fgure, motion or rest, and number” (ibid.). Here ‘texture’ is not

107

See also (Silver 2020: 189–193).

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listed, which may point to a vacillation in Locke’s conception of whether it should or should not be a primary quality. However, when comparing philosophers to mathematicians, Locke notes that “if we could discover the fgure, size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent parts of any two bodies, we should know without trial several of their operations one upon another as we do now the properties of a square or a triangle” (ibid.: xcix). Again, this indicates not only that ‘texture’ is a primary quality—as it is listed with fgure, size and motion—but also Locke’s conception that once one knows these qualities of two given bodies, one can, without error, infer how the two bodies will interact. That being said, and without reviewing the extensive secondary literature on Locke’s philosophy, I follow Matthew Stuart, who notes that there is “a good deal of variation across Locke’s lists of primary qualities, but this does not mean that he vacillates about which are the primary qualities” (Stuart 2013: 75), and adds that ‘texture’ is one of the primary qualities.108 Nevertheless, any connection to weaving terminology or references to practices of weaving or of textiles, as we saw with Comenius, Hooke or Hartlib, is not to be found in Locke’s essay.109 In contrast to Comenius, and also to Bacon, in Boyle’s and Locke’s works one may detect not only a more theoretical approach to the notion of ‘texture’, but also a certain detachment from, or rather disinterest in the artisanal work and practices of weaving itself. Types of fabrics, or how and in which ways a fabric can be woven are not discussed or mentioned. Instead, texture becomes a non-observable quality that designates the arrangement of particles. While this meaning was certainly not new, what was new was a growing distance from the artisanal work of textile production.

2.2.7

The end of the 17th century: the (too) many ramifcations of ‘texture’

These somewhat condensed accounts of how 17th century natural philosophers, polymaths and scholars considered the notion of ‘texture’ and how their knowledge and refections on textile practices were connected with this notion, are obviously partial. To these refection one may add how natural philosophers considered processes of cloth dyeing, which was a highly transformative process, and whether they encountered cloth dyers; it is known, for example, that Hooke and Boyle took interest in dyeing, mainly to understand properties of materials and color (see e.g.: Iliffe 1995; Baker 2015; Roos 2015). Moreover, Jungius’ work will be treated in the following chapters, and one may add to it those of other 17th century thinkers. For a review of the secondary literature on Boyle’s and Locke’s conceptions of “texture”, see (Stuart 2013: 71ff). Stuart objects to Alexander’s views concerning Locke’s conception of “texture,” since Alexander clearly sees it as a secondary quality. See for example (Alexander 1985: 139). 109 It goes without saying that the story that Locke darned his socks whenever they were torn, thus raising the question of the identity of the socks, does not appear in the Essay; indeed, Book 2, Chapter 27 (“Of Identity and Diversity”) of the Essay contains no such example. 108

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For example, one may look at the work of Nathaniel Fairfax (1637–1690): A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, published in 1674.110 Fairfax, an English divine and physician, uses “selvedge” in the sense of the edge of a piece of cloth which emerges in the process of weaving. According to Kathryn Murphy, the metaphor supports the main argument of his book, which is that the world is not bounded by anything except itself—just as the selvage emerges in the process of weaving rather than as a seam or an extra piece of cloth. More important than Fairfax’s views are those of the two most important scholars of the end of the 17th century: Newton and Leibniz. Newton’s important insight regarding ‘texture’ consists of minimizing its role, in order to reach the formulation of the universal law of gravity: in Newton’s Principia, Corollary 1 of proposition III.6 begins as follows: “Hinc pondera corporum non pendent ab eorum formis & texturis.” That is, the law of gravity is formulated regardless of the body’s texture, and the measure of “[p]rimary qualities […] is invariant under changes of texture. The laws describing those qualities can be taken as universal laws of nature” (Belkind 2022: 1517). Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the most important polymath of the late 17th and early 18th century, whose multifaceted work on weaving instruments, textiles and mathematics will be discussed in Chap. 5, was certainly infuenced by Jungius. As mentioned in the introduction, he himself copied and re-edited Texturæ Contemplatio. This is also the reason why Leibniz’s refections on fabrics, weaving and mathematics will be examined after Chap. 4, which analyzes Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio. But already here, it is essential to note that Leibniz’s refections on texture and fabrics also emerged on the background of his thought on other material processes related to fabrics, being not necessarily associated to weaving: processes such as folding and unfolding of fabrics were taken as a metaphor for a process of change, of a continuous transformation—not only of the materials examined, but also of notions that can be transformed, from confused to distinct, as I will explicate in Chap. 5. Leibniz’s thoughts on textiles resist the attempt to either found everything on presupposed, unchangeable basic units or be completely reduced and dissolved into distinct components. Hence, it certainly marks a new direction of thought, since several thinkers during the 17th century associated their conception of textiles and texture to corpuscularianism. How Leibniz’s approach rejects corpuscularianism but at the same time employs notions coming from practices of weaving can be seen in the famous passage from his 1676 dialogue Pacidius to Philalethes: The division of the continuum must not be considered to be like the division of sand into grains, but like that of a sheet of paper or tunic into folds. And so although there occur some folds smaller than others infnite in number, a body is never thereby dissolved into points or minima […] It is just as if we suppose a tunic to be scored with folds multiplied to infnity in such a way that there is no fold so small that it is not subdivided by a new fold […] And the tunic cannot be said to be resolved all the way down into points; instead, although some folds are smaller than others to infnity, bodies are always extended and points never become parts, but always remain mere extrema. (Leibniz 2001: 185, 187)

110

I thank Kathryn Murphy for pointing this out to me (private communication, 27 July 2021).

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The tunic, folded in itself, composed of folds within folds, where some folds are greater or smaller than others, is on the one hand not to be reduced to basic elements or atoms. This, however, does not mean that such tunics should not be considered mathematically: a year before, in 1675—that is, before obtaining Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio—Leibniz underlines in a one-page folio titled “Geometria Amoenior” that one should develop a “geometria sartorum.”111 This indicates a certain tension in Leibniz’s conception of textiles and weaving, a tension which is embodied in the fact that for Leibniz, textiles were also a metaphor for a continuous transformation. Apart from the somewhat opposite directions taken by Newton and Leibniz with respect to the notion of ‘textura’, either minimizing its role or turning it into an ambivalent, rhizomatic notion, another direction of thought concerning this notion began to emerge during this period. As noted above, starting in the second half of the 17th century, the idea of the ‘fber-woven’ body began to consolidate in the research of anatomy. Ishizuka (2016) indicates that it was Nehemiah Grew’s book The Anatomy of Plants (1682) which prompted this consolidation of fber theory to describe the ‘fabric’ of the body.112 In the 18th century, anatomists such as George Cheyne and Herman Boerhaave began seeing the “body as wholly interwoven by fber-threads […] [an idea which] contributed to a cultural understanding of the delicate body” (Ishizuka 2016: xviii). But Grew’s conception also posited the fber as “the minimum constituent of the body” (ibid.: 3). While these two conceptions were very much present in the frst half of the 18th century, in its second half, “the famboyant rhetoric that earlier writers employed in depicting the fber body disappeared from medical texts; instead, the more neutral language of anatomy took its place. However, the fber still constituted the whole body as the fundamental building unit” (ibid.: 113).113 But at the beginning of the 19th century, the fber was replaced by the cell as the minimal building unit, since the “center of gravity for critical attention shifted from the non-historical process of weaving to the historical process of growth” (ibid.: 242). With this shift, texture and weaving metaphors disappeared from the anatomical discourse, a disappearance which was already, in some way, being signaled by the ambivalent positions of Newton and Leibniz (at the end of the 17th century) regarding the notion of ‘textura’. *** If we return to Leibniz’s own refections on textiles and weaving, though I will discuss these in Chap. 5, the various above-mentioned directions of Leibniz’s thought show a thread that runs along the thoughts of several of the scholars discussed above. When investigating causation in the early modern period, one “should, ideally, identify a small number of simple primary qualities which are fully quantifed” (Gaukroger 2010: 27); this was often the case with how ‘texture’ was dealt See (A VIII2: 126–132 and esp. 127). I will examine this note in Sect. 5.2.1. See Grew (1682: 77) comparing between “Vessels,” “fbres” and “warp,” “woof” and “Needle-work.” 113 On 18th century conceptions of the fber woven body, see also: (Cheung 2011; Tonetti 2022). 111 112

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with, but not always. Moreover, one of the characteristics of the scientifc investigation in the early modern period was, formulated somewhat roughly, that “it is the macroscopic world that yields to quantifcation, the microscopic processes remaining in the realm of speculation” (ibid.). How can one consider this claim with respect to the notion of ‘texture’ in the 17th century? Is it quantifable or speculative? We will see in Sect. 4.2 with Jungius’ investigations of textiles and textures that this claim should be nuanced, but as we have seen so far, this notion and associated explanations with weaving practices of the microscopic world were on the one hand insuffcient—they mostly remained in a sense speculative, also due to the epistemic problems which the microscope uncovered. But on the other hand, while it was the macroscopic world which could be quantifed and researched mathematically, the notion of ‘texture’ rendered it somewhat non-productive: except perhaps with Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, the way in which natural philosophers considered this notion did not prompt any new mathematical (or more specifcally, geometrical) investigations, and even with Jungius’ work, as we will see, the geometrical or spatial research was very partial. At the same time, with the introduction and usage by the natural philosophers of the notion of ‘textura’ as a ‘scientifc’ term, some (but not all) of the natural philosophers surveyed here chose to disconnect this term from its material and artisanal practices and to ignore the technological developments occurring in the 17th century in this domain. This is also why Sect. 2.1 (on the technological developments and the various notational techniques which were developed in the 17th century) is presented before Sect. 2.2, so as to highlight the divergence between the two domains: the technical one and the natural-philosophical one. Several questions hence arise: what do these various approaches to textiles indicate? What do the ramifcations of the notion of ‘texture’ point to? Can one even recognize a point at which the various perspectives converge? One may claim that the practice of weaving served, for some thinkers, as an exploratory model which, when the focus shifted to a discussion on primary/secondary qualities, it, and the associated notion of ‘textura’, became a mere characteristic of the phenomenal world—one among many, and the consideration of the artisanal practice was marginalized. This marginalization is certainly seen in the anatomical discourse as the 18th century advances. Hence the question arises as to whether this notion can explain—even partially—the material world. Did the metaphorically laden notion of ‘texture’ not have any place in the mechanical–mathematical explanation of nature, such that when this worldview began to dominate scientifc inquiries, the notion itself was reduced to the quantifcation of size, shape and velocity (hence becoming redundant): How and in which ways did it begin to disappear from the dominant mechanical discourse toward the end of the 17th century? This may be the result of the following tension between mathematicians and natural philosophers at the beginning of the 17th century, described by Daniel Garber: “at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the two communities [mathematics and natural philosophy] were quite distinct […] [in the sense that] [m]athematics was generally considered the more practical discipline, closely associated with practical mechanics, military architecture and the like, and its practitioners were often of lower social standing than those who practiced natural philosophy. In the universities and in the courts, it was the natural philosophers who got paid more and who had the higher social status” (Garber 2010: 8–9).

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However, at the end of the century, when “Newton published his great work in 1687, he entitled it Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, frmly linking mathematics and natural philosophy […] By the end of the seventeenth century, the domains of natural philosophy, mixed mathematics, and natural history are merging into one enterprise” (ibid.: 12–13). May this merger have prompted the conception of taking materials as essentially woven to become one that no longer had a place in the mechanical–mathematical view of nature, taken over by the anatomical discourse, if only to fall completely into oblivion during the 19th century? In that sense, Leibniz marks a turning point: notwithstanding his extensive involvement with textiles (conceptually, metaphysically and practically), the notion itself of ‘texture’ hardly arises in his writings. This is, however, not to deny that well into the 18th and 19th centuries, weaving continued to fascinate philosophers and mathematicians.114 But in order to unfold Leibniz’s conception of texture and weaving, we need to turn to Jungius’ own conceptions of these subjects, which are the focus of the next two chapters.

Abbreviations The following are abbreviations of several manuscripts, editions and book used throughout this chapter. (i) Works by Joachim Jungius: Texturæ Contemplatio: A bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), in: Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover. (ii) Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A Leibniz’s edited works, to be found in: Leibniz, G. W. (1923–). Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Abbreviated by the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s works. LH 38 Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

Apart from its extensive use in the discourse on anatomy, Albus (2001) shows that this metaphor continued to be employed not only by Leibniz, but also in the writings of other 18th century philosophers, such as Wolff and Herder. See also Sect. 4.2.3.5 concerning Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde’s mathematical treatise on knitted fabrics from 1771. 114

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Lins, Thoman. 1658. Musterbuch Weberei. Volkskundemuseum Wien Library, ÖMV/31.051. https:// www.volkskundemuseum.at/publikationen/publikation?publikation_id=1618289849077. Accessed 6 Sep 2022. Locke, John. 1894. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, vol. 1, ed. Alexander C.  Fraser. Oxford: Clarendon Press. LoLordo, Antonia. 2011. Gassendi and the Seventeenth-Century Atomists on Primary and Secondary Qualities. In Primary and Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate, ed. Lawrence Nolan, 62–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acprof:oso/9780199556151.003.0004. Lumscher, Nathnaiel. 1708. Neu eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch Worinnen zu fnden wie man künstlich weben (oder würcken) solle von den 2. schäfftigen an bis auf das 32. schäfftige. Bayreuth: Lumscher. Lünig, Johann Christian, ed. 1720. Das Teutsche Reichs-Archiv. Partis generalis, Vol. 4. Leipzig: F. Lanckischens. Lüthy, Christoph. 1996. Atomism, Lynceus, and the Fate of Seventeenth-Century Microscopy. Early Science and Medicine 1 (1): 1–27. Manzo, Silvia. 2001. Francis Bacon and Atomism: a Reappraisal. In Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, ed. John Murdoch, Lüthy Cristoph, and Newman William, 209–243. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004453968_011. Markowsky, Barbara. 1976. Europäische Seidengewebe des 13.-18. Jahrhunderts. Cologne: Kunstgewerbemuseum d. Stadt Köln. Marx, Karl. 1889 [1867]. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, ed. Frederick Engels, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. New York: Appleton & Co. Maurette, Pablo. 2014. De rerum textura: Lucretius, Fracastoro, and the Sense of Touch. The Sixteenth Century Journal 45 (2): 309–330. McNeil, Ian, ed. 1990. An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology. London, New  York: Routledge. Medick, Hans. 1996. Weben und Überleben in Laichingen 1650-1900: Lokalgeschichte als Allgemeine Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Meinel, Christoph. 1988a. Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology, and the Insuffciency of Experiment. Isis 79 (1): 68–103. https://doi.org/10.1086/354634. ———. 1988b. ‘Das letzte Blatt im Buch der Natur’: Die Wirklichkeit der Atome und die Antinomie der Anschauung in den Korpuskulartheorien der frühen Neuzeit. Studia Leibnitiana 20 (1): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13488. Meyer, Martin, ed. 1678. Philemeri Irenici Elisii Diarium Europæum. Frankfurt am Main: Serlin. Morel, Thomas. 2023. Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mori, Giuliano. 2017. Mathematical Subtleties and Scientifc Knowledge: Francis Bacon and Mathematics, at the Crossing of two Traditions. British Journal for the History of Science 50 (1): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087416001163. Müller, Hans-Peter. 1994. Unbekannte Exzerpte von Karl Marx über Johann Beckmann. Johann Beckmann Journal 8: 67–84. Mumford, Lewis. 1967. Technics and Civilization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. N.N. 1676. Allerunterthänigste Remonstration und Imploration-Schrifft an Ihre Römische Kayserliche Maiestät auch Chur-Fürsten und Stände deß Heiligen Römischen Reichs, die nothwendige Abschaffung der erfundenen, das gantze Passamentiren Handwerck ruinirenden, so genandten Schnür-Mühlen und Verbietung der darauf verfertigten Waaren betreffend. Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek. Signatur: 4 S 473–18 Nanni, Romano. 2004. Machinae ad maiestate imperii e macchine della manifattura tessile. In Technik in der Frühen Neuzeit: Schrittmacher der europäischen Moderne, ed. Gisela Engel and Nicole C. Karafyllis, 409–441. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. ———. 2008. Technical Knowledge And The Advancement Of Learning: Some Questions About ‘Perfectibility’ And ‘Invention’. In Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries, ed. Claus Zittel et al., vol. 1, 51–66. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ ej.9789004170506.i-582.22.

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Sprang, Felix C.H. 2017. London calling – Das Gresham College und das Akademische Gymnasium. In Das Akademische Gymnasium zu Hamburg (gegr. 1613) im Kontext frühneuzeitlicher Wissenschafts- und Bildungsgeschichte, ed. Johann Anselm Steiger, 181–194. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110528435-010. Stalnaker, Joanna. 2010. The Unfnished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press. Steinle, Friedrich. 1997. Entering New Fields: Exploratory Uses of Experimentation. Philosophy of Science 64 (Proceedings of the PSA1996, Pt. II): S65–S74. Stuart, Matthew. 2013. Locke’s Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thibord, Jean-Paul. 2010. Troyes dans le monde de la maille. In La maille. Une histoire à écrire, ed. Marguerite Coppens, 189–203. Brussels, Paris: Association française pour l’étude du textile. Tonetti, Luca. 2022. Stimulus and Fibre Theory in Giorgio Baglivi’s Medicine: A Reassessment. In Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy, ed. C.T. Wolfe, P. Pecere, and A. Clericuzio, 67–82. Cham: Springer. Troitzsch, Ulrich, and Gabriele Wohlauf. 1980. Bandmühle. In Technik-Geschichte: Historische Beiträge und neuere Ansätze, eds. idem, 45–56. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. VandenBerghe, Lisa. 2016. Early Modern Needlework Pattern Books: Tracing the International Exchange of Design. Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings 992: 521–528. Volz, K.W. 1855. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Leinwandfabrikation und des Leinwandhandels in Württemberg, von den ältesten bis auf die neuesten Zeiten, aus zum Theil noch ungedruckten urkundlichen Quellen. Stuttgart: Hallberger. Wagenknecht, H. 1932. Die Geschichte der Weberei. In Die Geschichte Der Textilindustrie, ed. Otto Johannsen, 245–341. Leipzig, Zurich: Orell Fussli. Weigel, Christoph. 1698. Abbildung und Beschreibung der gemein-nützlichen Hauptstände. Regensburg: Weigel. Westermann, Ascan. 1914. Zur Geschichte der Memminger Weberzunft und ihrer Erzeugnisse im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 12 (3): 385–403. Wilson, Catherine. 1995. The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Young, Mark Thomas. 2017a. Manual Labor and ‘Mean Mechanicks’: Bacon’s Mechanical History and the Deprecation of Craft Skills in Early Modern Science. Perspectives on Science 25 (4): 521–550. ———. 2017b. Nature as Spectacle; Experience and Empiricism in Early Modern Experimental Practice. Centaurus 59: 72–96. Ziegler, Marx. 1677. Weber Kunst und Bild Buch. Ulm: Schultes; Augsburg: Koppmeyer. Zittel, Claus. 2008. Introduction. In Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries, ed. Claus Zittel et al., vol. 1, xix–xxix. Leiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ ej.9789004170506.i-582.2.

Chapter 3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Abstract This chapter presents, for the frst time, the transcription and the translation of Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio. The transcription and the translation are presented almost without explanations or footnotes, so as not to add a layer of interpretation—although it is clear, as noted in the introduction to this chapter, that such a translation of a text from the 17th century is already an interpretation. Section 3.1 presents the structure of the proposed translation, whereas the main section (Sect. 3.2) presents the transcription and translation themselves. Section 3.3 contains an appendix, being a glossary of some of the textile-related terms which appear in Texturæ Contemplatio.

This chapter will present the translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio; but before doing so, a step back is needed in order to explicate several issues with respect to the nature of translation itself. I would like to start by stating the obvious: a translation is at the same time an interpretation, in the sense that no one can prove her or his translation to be ‘true’ or ‘correct’; one can only make the decisions one has made plausible. Through every translation, because of the interpretation implied by the translator’s decisions, something new inevitably arises which cannot necessarily be aligned with the intent of the original text. In the case of Texturæ Contemplatio, however, such diffculties are exacerbated by the fact that the collection of notes making up this text was written over a period of more than 25 years and cannot even be considered a stable text. By stable I mean a relatively coherent, structured text written within a relatively short period of time which has been edited and approved for publication by its author. Moreover, as will be seen in Chapt. 4, not all of Jungius’ refections on textile practices were collected in Texturæ Contemplatio. This instability is also to be seen in the fact that, as noted above, Jungius’ frst refections on textiles are from 1619, the last from 1649.1

Or perhaps even from 1654… See Sect. 4.1.2. The earliest dated note from Texturæ Contemplatio is from March 1621. 1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_3

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During this period Jungius’ place of study and work as well as his interests and topics of inquiry changed several times, to name only two factors that might have contributed to this instability. Another factor is that Texturæ Contemplatio was written in both German and Latin while also containing terms from several other languages. It can hardly be assumed, therefore, that the task of the translator here is to impose stability on an unstable text, since such an imposition would only create a retroactive illusion of a coherent text written within several months. An additional problem posed by the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio is the fact that this set of notes was written in the 17th century. This kind of translation differs from the translation of contemporary texts in that it is not possible for a modern translator to ‘immerse’ him- or herself in the culture within which Texturæ Contemplatio was written – in short, the translator’s cultural competence is defcient. Moreover, the question is not only whether one might be able to dive into the vocabulary which Jungius used and into the culture which he attempted to describe, but also whether 17th-century weavers even used the terms Jungius coins and makes use of in his descriptions of weaving practices. These problems will be discussed in Chapt. 4. The fact that there can be no ‘correct’ translation is also evidenced by the order in which this translation is presented. Several of the sheets (or parts of them) of Texturæ Contemplatio are symbolized – sometimes by quasi-astrological or quasialchemical symbols – and/or numbered according to the theme discussed, thus creating groups of sheets within Texturæ Contemplatio; hence one may assume that these sheets were considered by Jungius to belong together. However, there are also numerous sheets and slips of paper without either numbers or symbols which thematically cannot be associated to any other group or sheet. Moreover, in several of the sheets (both with and without numbers and/or symbols), one or more separating lines have been drawn in order mark a separation between several themes on the same folio. These separating lines indicate that several themes, which Jungius originally wrote on separate slips of paper, were subsequently gathered together by the scribe on a single folio.2 To avoid the impression of returning to an Urtext, however, the translation presented here does not attempt to ‘deconstruct’ the folios themselves (according to the separating lines).

I would like to repeat here the distinction made in Sect. 1.1.1 between a folio and a sheet: a sheet in the present context is the physical paper on which a text is written and which can be folded, cut, or deformed; a folio is a numbered sheet or a part of it; that is, for a sheet folded in the middle, the folded sheet is usually numbered twice, one number (e.g. 20) to designate the outer ‘cover’ and the left inner ‘page’ (hence designated resp. fol. 20r and fol. 20v), the other number (e.g. 21) to designate the right inner page and the back cover (designated resp. fol. 21r and fol. 21v). 2

3.1

On the structure of the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

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The following section (Sect. 3.1) presents the structure of the proposed translation, whereas Sect. 3.2 will present the translation itself. Section 3.3 contains an appendix, being a glossary of some of the textile-related terms which appear in Texturæ Contemplatio.

3.1

On the structure of the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

As a preparation for the translation, which will be presented in the next section, this section deals mainly with the structure of Texturæ Contemplatio. Note that the current physical arrangement of Texturæ Contemplatio poses several problems concerning the alleged intended structure of Texturæ Contemplatio; this arrangement and these problems will be discussed in Sect. 4.1.1. Moreover, taking into account the issues discussed above concerning translations of 17th-century texts in general and of Texturæ Contemplatio in particular, the proposed structure of the translation initially follows the symbolization and numeration introduced on the numerous sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as common themes presenting only at the end the single sheets and slips of paper which could not necessarily be associated to other groups. While I begin with the largest group of folios, containing what one may term ‘geometrical’ refections (Group 1, see below), Groups 2–8 are ordered chronologically and thematically, whereas Groups 9–13, which mostly contain no date and are not symbolized, are ordered only thematically. The single folios in Group 14 could not be associated to any group (either thematically or symbol-wise). Note also that all of the folios were numbered at the beginning of the 21st century with a pencil at the bottom of each sheet. These are the numbers I use to refer to the single folios (e.g. fol. 13r).3 Moreover, unless stated otherwise, the verso of most of the folios contains no text. The proposed structure, whose content will be thoroughly analyzed in Chapt. 4, is presented below, where the various folios are written according to their order of presentation in Sect. 3.2. Note that while a brief summary of Texturæ Contemplatio was given at the introduction, I would like to avoid elaborating on it here, since this would already introduce my own interpretation of the text before introducing the translation itself. Nevertheless, I shortly comment below on the content of each group (besides Group 14). Group 1: Geometrical refections, containing ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ for various weaves. Only fol. 7r is dated (March 1625), though it may be argued that the dated part of this folio deals with a different topic. – Folios: 1r, 62r, 63r, 8r, 9r (left side), 39r, 2r, 6r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v, 7r. Since fols. 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v, 7r are (almost) identical copies of the other folios, these have not been transcribed.

3

That is, when referring to fol. 13r, I am employing the numeration added in the 21st century.

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Group 2: Notes from 1621, all numbered and symbolized with , some titled “Textoria” or abbreviations of it. The notes describe certain fabrics and their properties. – Folios: 53r, 54r, 60r, 61r. Group 3: Notes from May 1625, all symbolized with – Folios: 45r, 17r, 22r.

.

Group 4: Notes from December 1639, numbered and symbolized with “Iam.”. The notes compare the atlas and damask weaves. – Folios: 37r, 36r. Group 5: Notes from January 1640, numbered and symbolized with . The notes describe investigations either with a microscope or with a magnifying lens. – Folios: 15r, 16r. Group 6: Notes on the flum sinuosum, also introducing the terms porca and sulca, numbered and symbolized with – Folios: 11r, 12r, 18r.

.

Group 6 (additional folios): while not being numbered (like the ‘main’ folios in Group 6), these additional folios deal with similar topics, among them, velvet. The symbol does appear in two of the folios in this set, and hence this group can be considered as associated to the main group of folios, that is, to Group 6. In fol. 44r two dates appear: 1647 and 1649. – Folios: 19r, 10r, 44r. Group 7: Notes on velvet, porca, and sulca, numbered and symbolized with VL. Some of the folios are dated January 1640 (as in Group 5). – Folios: 23r, 24r, 20r, 25r. Group 8: Notes on textura sinuosa, i.e. on knitting. The notes are numbered and symbolized with . – Folios: 42r, 43r. Group 8 (additional folios): Additional notes on knitting (textura sinuosa), stockings, and garters; hence these are associated to Group 8; however, they are neither numbered nor symbolized with . Fol. 47r is dated April 1641. – Folios: 40r, 38r, 42r, 43r, 33r, 47r.

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On the structure of the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

109

Group 9: Notes containing refections on and explanations of textiles and threads. In Leibniz’s copy4 these folios appear together (though restructured); hence they are presented together here too. – Folios: 56r, 57r, 58r. Group 10: References to dictionaries. – Folios: 9r (right side), 48r, 35r. Group 11: The folios in this group mainly contain the notes of Heinrich Sivers from 1647, but also notes by Jungius from 1638 and 1641. – Folios: 26r, 32r, 27r. Group 12: Notes taken from a report of a citizen of Liège. Contains also a note from December 1638 (fol. 29r). – Folios: 34r, 31r, 29r. Group 13: Notes on pressing cloth, and refections on Meßing. – Folios: 28r, 13r. Group 14: Single folios: 3r, 3v; 14r; 21r; 30r; 41r, 41v; 46r; 49r; 50r; 51r; 52r; 55r; and 59r. Fol. 46r is dated December 1638 and December 1639. *** It may perhaps already be clear that the grouping suggested here is in no way intended to refect the ‘true’ or ‘original’ structure of the notes Jungius wrote, had this structure indeed existed, or had Jungius intended retroactively to give this collection of notes such a structure. An alternative grouping or order might also be suggested which would be based on the different themes gathered in the folios, for example, according to the separating lines. Nevertheless, I have attempted to group the main topics in way that Jungius may well have grouped them himself. Note that, following the translation in Sect. 3.2, the appendix in Sect. 3.3 contains a glossary of German and Latin terms in order to clarify a number of the weaving terms used by Jungius in Texturæ Contemplatio. The creation of this glossary has allowed me to keep to a minimum the number of footnotes in the translation itself.

4

See: LH 38. See also Sect. 5.2.2.

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3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio Before presenting the transcription and the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio, several remarks are required in order to elucidate how they are presented. First of all, since in numerous places Jungius (or the scribe) employed either square brackets [ ] or round brackets ( ), these brackets are retained in the transcription and the translation. Hence, contrary to common translations, single square brackets here are always additions by Jungius (or the scribe). The same applies to words or expressions which have been scored through – this was done by Jungius (or the scribe). Words appearing in curly brackets { } are words which were diffcult to decipher. Additions made in the transcription or the translation (i.e. additions which are not found in the original text) are written in double square brackets [[ ]]. Moreover, in case words in German or Latin are mentioned in the translation itself (and outside the double square brackets), I decided to conventionalize them rather than directly following the transcription; that is, the Latin words are written in lowercase (unless the frst word of a sentence) and German words being always in uppercase. Moreover, for terms in Latin in the translation, nominative singular and plural endings for terms and adjective are used. For most of the folios, only the recto is transliterated, as the verso side is either empty or (when the sheet is folded in the middle) already numbered with another number. Thus, for example, the verso side of fol. 36r is numbered 35, and hence this verso side is transliterated and translated as fol. 35r. Only for single (unfolded) sheets, for which the verso side is not numbered, do the transliteration and translation also present the text of the verso side (e.g. fols. 4v, 5v, or 41v), but this is presented only when the verso side is not empty. The transcription (in Latin or German) and the translation (into English) of each folio are always given one after the other, when the font of the translation is different than the one used for the trascription. When the original text is short enough, the translation is given on the same page after a dividing line; when the original text is too long, the translation is given on the following page. All the fgures shown here (from the various folios of Texturæ Contemplatio) are presented with the permission granted by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

111

Group 1: This group contains what may be called ‘geometrical refections’ (fols. 1r, 62r, 63r, 8r, 9r (left side), 39r, 2r, 6r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v, 7r). Only fol. 8r is dated (March 1625), though it may be argued that this part of the folio deals also with a different topic (the dated second half deals with a fabric called rassa as well as with kersey, damask, and textiles from Padua). This group of folios contains copies of the frst few pages titled “p.1,” “p. 2,” and “p. 3,” with the additional title “Texturae contemplatio / ad scientiam situs,” accompanied by diagrams (fols. 62r, 63r, 8r, and the left side of fol. 9r). The copy of these folios is to be found on fols. 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v, and 7r (note that while the copy is almost identical, the titles found on fols. 62r, 63r, and 8r are not copied on the other folios). To avoid repetitions, fols. 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v, and 7r are not transcribed (and hence their translation is not given either). Explicitly: Fol. 2r is a copy of almost all of fol. 62r (only the last 4 lines are not copied). Fol. 4r is a copy of all of fol. 62r. Fol. 4v is a copy of the frst quarter of fol. 63r (i.e. of the frst theorem and the frst line of the second theorem in fol. 63r). Fol. 5r is a copy of the last lines of fol. 62r and almost all of fol. 63r (i.e. of the frst three theorems of fol. 63r). Fol. 5v is a copy of the last theorem (theorem IV) of fol. 63r and a copy of the frst part of fol. 8r. Fol. 7r is a copy of the second part of fol. 8r. While these folios are not transcribed, it should be stressed that this group is the largest group in the manuscript.

1r Texturæ Contemplatio Auct. Joach. Jung.

A contemplation of weaving Author: Joachim Jungius

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62r p.1

Texturae contemplatio

ad scientiam situs

Defnitiones Unius seriei fla dnr [[dicuntur]], quae sibi invicem parallela sunt. Tela constat ex duabus florum seriebus, quarum altera stamen, altera subtegmen dr [[dicitur]]. Textura simpla dr [[dicitur]], quando flum tot fla subtus transmittit, quot supra transcendit. Textura dupla dr [[dicitur]], cum dupla tot fla subtus transmittit [in una aliqua pagina] quot supra transcendit. Textura tripla, quadrupla, etc. similiter dr [[dicitur]]. Textura simplex dr [[dicitur]] quando Istius seriei fla regnare dicuntur in pagina aliqua multiplicae texturae, cuius fla scandunt super plura. Filum A à flo B in pagina aliqua telae transcendi dr [[dicitur]], si à B tegatur A, quo minus visui paginam illum intuenti, pateat. Filum A à flo B in pagina aliqua subiri vel subtus transmitti dr [[dicitur]], si flum B tegatur à flo A, quo minus visui paginam istam intuenti occurat (pateat). À secondo flo transcendi dr [[dicitur]] tertium flum, si flum A sit primum et B secundum (h.e. [[hoc est]] proxima sint inun una serie) et flum C sit primum in altera et D sit tertium in altera serie, et C transcendatur ab A, et D transcendatur à B [fla n. [[enim]] eiusdem seriei se invicem non transcendunt, subeuntae.] Textura quadrupla dr [[dicitur]], si in una tela pagina sive facie unius seriei fla quaternis alterius seriei flis subtus transmissis sup[[er]] quintum scandant. ita tripla textura, item sesq[[ui]] altera, sesq[[ui]]tertia texura.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 1

A contemplation of weaving

Defnitions

113

concerning knowledge of position [[place; situs]]

The threads of one row [[series]] are defned as those which are parallel to one another in turn [[alternately]]. The weave [[tela]] consists of threads in two rows [[series]]; one is the warp, the other is the weft. Simple weave [[textura simpla]] is defned when a thread is sent beneath so many [[other]] threads, as it goes over. Double weave is defned when it [[a thread]] is sent below double [[the number of ]] threads as [[the number]] it is sent above [in one certain side [[of the weave]] ]. Triple weave, quadruple [[fourfold weave]], etc., these are defned similarly. Simple weave [[textura simplex]], it is sometimes called [[textura simpla]]. The threads of one row [[series]] are defned to predominate on any [[some]] side of a complex weave, when its threads go over many [[other threads of the other series]]. Thread A is said to be sent over by thread B in some side of the weave [[telae]] if [[thread]] A is covered by B, so that it does not expose that side to the sight of one looking. Thread A is defned to go under or to be sent under by thread B in some side [[of the weave]] if thread B is being covered by thread A, so that it does not occur that that region (is exposed) to the sight of one looking. It is said that a third thread is covered over by a second thread if thread A is frst and B is second (that is to say, [[if ]] they are near in one row), and thread C is frst in one [[series]] and D is third in another row [[series]] and C is covered over by A, and D is covered over by B [for it is ftting that the threads of the same row do not cross over one another in turns [[as they are]] going under]. A quadruple weave is defned if, on one side of the weave [[telae]] or in the making of one row [[series]], the threads, when going under four threads at a time of another row, go over a ffth [[thread]]. likewise [[regarding]] a triple weave, likewise of sesquialtera [[3/2 twill]] and sesquitertia [[4/3 twill]].

114

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63r p. 2

Texturae Contemplatio

ad scientiam situs

THEOR I. In quadrupl textura quadrupla si seriei ab A ab B versus B extensae flum versus D secundum scandat super secundum versus A, sequitur quod seriei ab A ad B extensae secundum scandat super quintum versus B. THEOR II. In textura quadrupla si seriei unius ab A ad B extensae flum versus D secundum scandat sup[[er]] flum alterius seriei (à C ad D extensae) versus B tertium: sequitur, quod in eadem pagina seriei ab A ad B extensae flum versus D tertium scandat super flum alterius seriei versus B secundum. item sequitur, quod seriei ab A ad B extensae secundum versus D scandat super alterius seriei quartum versus A. THEOR III. Omnis textura quadrupla aut continua ē [[est]] aut intermittens. Dem. [[Demonstratio]] nam secundum unius seriei vel transcendit secundum, vel tertium, vel quartum, vel quintum alterius seriei. At primus et ultimus casus coincidunt sc. [[scilicet]] in Continua quadrupla, uti th. 1 [[theorema 1]] demonstratur, secundus et tertius casus coincident in intermittente, uti th. [[theorema]] 2 demonstratum. THEOREMA IV. Textura quadrupla sive continua sive intermittens reciproca est tum quo ad series, tum quo ad paginas. Sequitur ex tribus theorematibus praemissis. Quod si itaque nihilominus in Damascenis texturis differre vr. [[videtur]] pagina à pagina id discrimen accidentarium est. Quamvis n. [[enim]] prorsus reciproca sit florum implicatio, tamen fla subtegminis in utraque pagina sive super quatuor, sive supra unum scandant, eminere videntur, fla v. [[videntur / videlicet]] staminis semper in eadem

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 2

A contemplation of weaving

115

concerning knowledge of position

Theorem 1 In the quadruple weave, if the thread in the direction of D of the row [[series]] extending from A toward B goes over a second [[thread]],5 on top of a second [[thread]] toward A, it follows that the subsequent, following [[thread]] of the row extending from A to B goes over on top of a ffth [[thread]] toward B. Theorem 2 In a quadruple weave, if a thread toward D of one row extending from A to B goes over a second [[thread]], i.e. over a thread of another row (extending from C to D) toward a third [[thread]] B, it follows that, in the same side of the row extending from A to B, the thread in the direction of D goes over a third [[thread]]. [[O]]ver the second thread of another row toward B, likewise it follows that a second [[thread]] toward D of a row extending from A to B goes over a fourth [[thread]] toward A. Theorem 3 Every quadruple weave is defned as either continuous or intermittent. Proof: the second [[thread]] goes over the second of one row, or the third or the fourth or however many [[there are]] of another row. But the frst and last situations [[cases]] coincide; thus in continuous quadruple weave, Theorem 1, having been proven [[shown]], is used. The second and third situations coincide in intermittent [[quadruple weave]], [[as]] Theorem 2, having been proven, is used. Theorem 4 Quadruple weaving is either continuous or intermittent reciprocally, frst when [[referring]] to rows and then when [[referring]] to sides. This follows from the aforementioned third theorem. But if, accordingly, notwithstanding in damask weave it seems to difer [[when comparing one]] side by [[to the other]] side, then this diference [[distinction]] is merely an accident, for as much as interweaving of the threads is, in fact, alternating [[reciproca]], nevertheless the threads of the weft go over in each of the two side[[s]]; whether they go over four [[threads]] or whether they go over [[just]] one, they seem to rise above, [[and]] evidently [[videlicet]] the threads of the warp always6

For the various illustrations of those weaves, see fols. 6r and 9r. The text continues on fol. 8r. Note that there is a slight overlap of the last few words with the frst few words of fol. 8r. 5 6

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

8r

117

118

p.3

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Texturae Contemplatio

ad scientiam situs

fla v. [[videlicet]] staminis semper ni [[in]] eadem quasi planitie manere, ita ut tegant quidem, sed non scandant sive superemineant, hinc spatia ista in quibus staminis fla regnant, scabra quasi videntur, spatia v. [[videlicet]] in quibus subtegmi– nis fla regnant, nitent et coruscant, q [[quae]] differentia magis animadvertitur, si prope visum admoveas, accedit interdum, quod staminis fla sint rariore situ, subtegminis v. [[videlicet]] stipatiora, tertio accedere pt [[potest]], quod subtegminis fla sint subtiliora. Textura simpla gemina intermittens s. [[sive]] spicata

Textura simpla tergemina intermittens

tela esse texturam panni lanei dicti {raxis/rassa} invenio notatum à me in chartis Patavinis.

25 Martii

talem texturam esse panni lanei quod dr [[dicitur]] {Kirsiy} deprehendi resoluto huiusmodi panno. Qui ft autem, quod in {Kirsiy / Kirsui} panno detrito, quamvis in eadem pagina reciproca sit textura, tn [[tamen]] subtegminis fla obliquo et glabro quodam ductu videantur pergere ab A verso B et à C verso D, cum tamen reversa ab A verso D et à C versus E tendant? ratio videtur eadem esse, q [[quae / qui]] in Damascena linteorum textura. Nam subtegminis fla quasi elevata sunt sup[[er]] staminis fla, at staminis fla quasi in eodem semper plano manent. Subtegminis fla et [[etiam]] crispiora sunt, si è textura separentur quam staminis fla

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 3

A contemplation of weaving

119

concerning knowledge of position

evidently the threads of the warp always remain as if on the same fat level surface, to the extent that they, in fact, cover but they do not go over, or they rise above. For this reason the spaces [[intervals]] in which the threads of the warp are predominating seem [[to be]] sort of rough [[scabra]]. Clearly the spaces in which the threads of the weft are predominating, they shine and they gleam, a diference which is observed more readily if you can move your sight near[[er]]. It happens occasionally that the threads of the warp are in a sparser [[looser]] position [[arrangement; situ]], [[and]] clearly the threads of the weft are more crowded [[compressed]], and it can happen in threefold weave [[tertio]]7 that the threads of the weft are more delicate [[fne]]. Simple intermittent double weave Simple intermittent triple weave [[or arranged as a]] brick pavement [[pointed; spicata]] I found the texture of the woolen cloth defned [[as]] {raxie/rassa} to be of such a sort, recognized by me in its Paduan charts [[diagrams]]. [[16]]25 March the weaving of wool cloth is of such a sort which is called kersey. I perceived [[this]] when cloth of this type had been loosened [[unwoven]]. And now what came about, which [[happens]] in kersey, when the cloth has been worn out [[destroyed]], although the weaving may be reversed [[reciprocal]] in the same side, nevertheless the threads of the weft, with a certain lead-in [[thread]] which is crosswise [[obliquo]] and smooth, seem to proceed from A to B and from C to D, while they actually extend from A to D and from C to E? The reason [[for this]] seems to be the same which is [[found]] in damask weave of linen, for the threads of the weft have been raised as if above the threads of the warp, but the threads of the warp as if always remaining on the same plane [[level]]. The threads of the weft are also more wrinkled [[curled]] than the threads of the warp if they are [[become]] separated from the weave.

Tertio may refer to a threefold weave, but it may also refer to the third thread or to every third thread of the threads of the weft. 7

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9r (left side)

[[Transliteration of the Left side:]] Textura quadrupla intermittens

Textura dupla

Quadrupla continua

Tripla intermittens inutilis

[[Note concerning the right side of this folio: this side no longer ‘belongs’ to the group of ‘geometrical’ refections on weaves, but contains a list of various textiles and their names in various languages, citing several dictionaries (see Group 10)]]

Intermittent quadruple weave

A double weave

Continuous quadruple [[weave]]

Impractical threefold intermittent [[weave]]

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121

39r

TEXTORIA Defnitio Textura biplexa est, quando subtegminis flum binos supercubat, et binos subterlabitur et proxim[[um]]. Theorema

On weaving Defnition A biplex weave is when the thread of the weft lies over two [[warp threads and afterward]] it glides [[lies]] below the next two [[warp threads]]. Theorem

122

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6r

textura quadrupla in[[te]]rmittens

textura dupla

quadrulpla continens

textura intermittens inutilis

intermittent quadruple weave

a double weave

continuous quadruple [[weave]]

impractical intermittent weave

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

123

Group 2: This group contains folios from March 1621, all written in German, describing certain fabrics and their properties (fols. 53r, 54r, 60r, and 61r). All the folios in this group are symbolized with . These folios are the earliest notes to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio which Jungius wrote on textiles and weaving.

53r 21 Martii

Text.

p. 1

Mein grün tischtuch geweben von (parallelis) gleichlauffenden gelbgrünen und schwarzgrünen wollen fedemen, und hat allerley fguren, rosen, pletze, und da auff der einen seiten eine fgur gelbgrün ist, daselbst ist dieselb fgur in gleicher grösse schwarzgrün, und hinwiederumb, dann es ist ein doppelfedemicht gewebe, und nach der einen seiten zu reden, ist ein gelbgrün fadem bald unden einem schwarzgrünen, bald oben einem schwarzgrünen, diese verenderung machen die fedem, so diesen gleichlauffenden fäedemen creutzrecht seyn, dieselben scheinen mehr hanffen oder heden oder grob leinen zu seyn, als wollen, sie seyn falb, das ist bleichschwarz oder weißlicht, und siehet man dieser fedemen mehr auf der einen (äbichten) seit, als auf der andern, welche die darumb die rechte und schönere seite ist, weil man da nicht so viel die falben oder weissen fedeme siehet. Ein iedes geweb bestehet aus zwo ordnungen der fedemen dergestalt, daß einerley ordnung fedeme einander parallel oder gleichlauffend und den fedemen der andern ordnung Creutzrecht gelegen seyn. Die eine ordnung ist schärung stamen, die ander series oder ordnung ist einschlahg subtegmen. [[16]]21 March

On weaving [[texture; Textoria]]

p. 1

My green tablecloth [[is]] woven from (parallel) concurrent yellow-green and black-green threads of wool, and has all sorts of fgures, roses, patches; and since on one side a fgure is yellow-green, the same fgure of the same size is blackgreen [[on the other side]]; and again, as it is a double-threaded fabric, and after the one side, so to speak, there is a yellow-green thread once below a blackgreen, once above a black-green. The threads make this change as they are crosswise to these concurrent threads; they seem to be more of hemp or tow or coarse linen than of wool; they are fallow, that is, pale black or whitish; and one sees these threads more on one (reverse) side than the other, which is therefore the right and more beautiful side, because there one does not see so much of the fallow or white threads. Each fabric consists of two orders of threads, in such a way that the threads of one order are parallel or concurrent, and the threads of the other order are located crosswise. The one order is Schärung stamen [[warp]], the other series or order is Einschlahg subtegmen [[weft]].

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54r 21 Martii

Textoria

p. 2.

Die falben fedeme heben die gelbgrünen über die schwarzgrünen, und die schwarzgrünen wiederumb über die gelbgrünen. Die grünen fedeme halt ich den einschlag seyn, denn sie an den enden wiederkehren die schärung bestehet aus leinen falben fedmen, weil man außdrücklich siehet, daß sie am end nicht wiederkehren, sondern abgeschnitten oder geendet seyn. Die scherung hat erstlich grobe fedeme, die bleiben allezeit in der mitte der grünen fedemen, von denselben gantz bedeckt, darnach subtielere fedeme. Auff der abichten (aversa) seiten übersteiget ein leinen fadem zween wollen fädeme, und wird von einem wollen faden nur überstiegen, auf der rechten seiten aber ist das wiederspiel, da übersteiget ein leinen fadem nur einen wollen, und wird von zween wollen überstiegen. #, p. 3. oder deutlicher zu reden, auf der abechten seiten übersteiget ein leinen fadem 2 paar wollen fadem, oder ein paar gelbgrün und ein paar schwarzgrün, dann ein paar unter dem andern liegt, und alsdann kreucht derselbe leinen fadem hinunter und wird bedeckt von zween fädemen, das ist einen

[[16]]21 March

On weaving

p. 2

The fallow threads lift the yellow-green ones above the black-green ones, and the black-green ones in turn [[are]] above the yellow-green ones. I consider the green threads to be the weft, because they return at the ends; the warp consists of linen fallow threads, because one sees explicitly that they do not return at the end but are cut of or ended. First, the warp has coarse threads, which always remain in the middle of the green threads, completely covered by them; then [[it has]] subtler threads. On the reverse side (turned away [[aversa]]) a linen thread exceeds [[goes over]] two woolen threads and is only exceeded by one woolen thread; but on the right side it is the opposite; there a linen thread exceeds only one woolen [[thread]] and is exceeded by two woolen [[threads]]. #, p. 3. or to speak more clearly, on the reverse side a linen thread overlaps 2 pairs of woolen threads, or a pair of yellow-green and a pair of black-green; then a pair lies under the other, and then the same linen threads moves slowly and is covered by two threads, that is a8 8

The text continues on fol. 60r, though the text does not seem to continue smoothly.

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125

60r p. 3. und einem schwarzgrünen, deren einer unter dem andern leit, dan kompt der leinen wieder herfür, und übersteigt wiederumb 2 par fedem. # Auf einer seiten zu betrachten, so bedecket ein gelbgrüner fadem offentliche fedem der groben oder verdeckten oder Mittelschärung, darnach fähret er wieder under, und wird von der groben schärungfädemen verdeckt, aber am selben ort emergiert alsdan ein schwarzgelber fadem, über den grobschärungsfadem, daß also der grobschärungsfadem allzeit in der mitte der gelbgr. und schwarzgrünen bedecket bleibt, aber der subtiel scherungsfaden an den orten da die permutationes der gelbg. und schwarzgr. fedemen seyn, da muß d[[er]] subtiel schärfadem offt auff der rechten seiten von dreyen einschlagsfedemen bedecket werden, und auf der abichten seiten in gleichem fall offt von zweenen einschlag fädemen bedeckt werden. #9 Zwischen zweyen, steigschärfedemen ist allzeit ein mittelschärfadem, und zwischen zweyen Mittelschärfedemen ist allzeit ein steigschärfadem, also eins umbs ander,

p. 3 and a black-green one, one of which lies under the other; then the linen comes in again, and again exceeds [[goes over]] 2 threads. # On one side is to be noticed that a yellow-green thread, the apparent thread, covers the coarse or hidden or the medium warp threads, after which it sinks again and is covered by the coarse warp threads; but at the same place a blackyellow thread then emerges over the coarse warp thread, so that the coarse warp thread always remains covered in the middle of the yellow-green and blackgreen [[threads]]; but as for the subtle warp thread, at the places where the permutations of the yellow-green and black-green threads are, there the subtle warp thread must often be covered on the right side by three weft threads, and on the reverse side in the same case often be covered by two weft threads. # Between two rising warp threads there is always a middle warp thread, and between two middle warp threads there is always a rising warp thread, that is, one around the other,10

9

The text between the two # is crossed out. The text continues on fol. 61r.

10

126

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61r p. 4.

Textor.

die steig fedem übersteigen und versencken oder verstecken sich in solcher ordnung auf der abichten seiten wie p. 2 fürgerißen ist. Die steigschärfedeme seyn die schwarzen bedeuten die zamen gepahrte einschlagfedeme, und merck das zween zammen gepar einschlagfedem, deren einer gelbgrün, der ander schwarzgrün, allzeit respectu der steigscherung für einen fadem gerechnet werde, deren bald der schwarzgrüne bald der gelbgrüne oben ist. Die groben schärfedeme, oder scheidschärfedeme, od[[er]] Mittelschärfedeme, machen den wechsel der einschlagfedeme, daraus die pictur oder variegatio fgurata, oder bundheit entstehet, die steigfedme, oder bindschärfedeme binden den einschlag zamen daß es zammen helt.

p. 4.

On weaving

which exceed the rising thread and sink or hide in such order on the reverse side as is written on p. 2. The rising warp threads, which are the black ones, they mean that the weft threads are paired together; and note that two weft threads paired together, one of which is yellow-green, the other black-green, are always counted – under the consideration of the rising warp – for one thread, of which the black-green one is the yellow-green one above. The coarse warp threads, or the dividing warp threads, or the middle warp threads, make the change of the weft threads, from which the painting [[pictur]] or the formed variegation or colorfulness arises; the rising threads, or binding warp threads bind the weft together, so that it holds together.

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127

Group 3: This group contains folios dealing with decorated atlas, and also contains diagrams; the folios are dated May 1625 (fols. 45r, 17r, and 22r). The folios in this group are symbolized by the symbol

(in all folios) and paginated.

45r p. 1

Verblümet Atlaß

[[16]]25 May.

In allem Atlaß, er sey schlecht und einfärbig, oder verblümet, und doppelfärbig, ist der einschlag der gröbere oder breitere fadem die scherung aber ist d[ie] glenzende, mich dünckt aber, daß der breite fadem nicht ein fadem ist, sondern viel fadem nebeneinander die mit eins durchgeschossen werden. In dem verblümeten Atlaß ist das gläntzend die grund oder platz, das breitfedenige macht die blume, das silber oder gold ist dem breitfedenigen parallehl, und seyn nicht runde fedeme, sondern wie fasciae breit ex bracteis geschnitten (Im verblümeten ist die scherung anderer farb als der einschlag) Die abechte (unrechte seite) des verblümeten Atlaß sieht {tochd}, an der kan[n] man in den areolis (grund) so viel scherung als Inschlag sehen, aber der Inschlag ist breit, die scherung subtiel, Auf der rechten seiten aber kan[n] man in den areolis oder grund, nichtes als die farbe und glantz der scherung sehen. Areolas oder grund oder feld nenne ich die übrigen pletze zwischen und umb die blumen oder fguren

p. 1

Flowered atlas

[[16]]25 May

In all atlas [[fabrics]], be it [[they]] of bad [[quality]] and monochrome, or fowery and double colored, the weft is the coarser or the broader [[wider]] thread, the warp is, however, the shiny one. But it seems to me that the broad thread is not one thread but many threads next to one another, which are inserted with one [[thread]]. In the fowery atlas, the shiny [[thread?]] is the Grund or Platz, the broad thread makes the fower, the silver or gold is parallel to the broad thread, and is a not round thread but cut like fasciae [[ribbon]] broadly ex bracteis [[from golden leaf ]] (In the fowery [[atlas]] the warp is diferently colored than the weft). The wrong (not-right side) of the fowered atlas {however} there one can see [[that]] in the areolis (Grund) as much warp as weft, but the weft is broad, the warp subtle; on the right side, however, one can see in the areolis or Grund nothing but the color and sheen of the warp. I call areolas or Grund or Feld the remaining places between and around the fowers or fgures

128

17r

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

129

p. 2 ---- F ---- G ab A versus B ist die scherung à C versus D der einschlag EFGH ist ein fadem des einschlages, der 4mahl so breit ist als ein fadem der scherung, und vielleicht aus 4 fädemen componiret ist. Dieses Diagramma erkläret Atlassicam sive Satinicam texturam, in genere, was speciem anlanget, hab ich befunden in verblümeten doppelfärbigen atlaß, Daß in den feldern ein subtieler fadem auf der rechten seiten über sechs breite fädem tritt, und von einem breiten überschritten oder überstiegen wird. In den blumen gleichfalls tritt ein breiter auf der rechten seiten über sechs subtiele fädeme, priorem textura legem kan man mercken wenn man einen subtielen fadem neben dem {scheitte}, der lengst den zeug gehet, aufriebbelt, posteriorem legem kan man also observiren, man nehme nicht weit vom scheitt der leng nach in acht auf der rechten seiten zwo nechste subtiele fedem die über einen breiten tretten, als AB; EF,

p. 2 ---- F ---- G from A to B is the warp; from C to D is the weft; EFGH is a thread of weft, 4 times as wide as a thread of warp, and perhaps composed of 4 threads. This diagram explains the atlas or satin weave, in general, as far as appearance [[the sight; speciem]] is concerned; I have found in fowered double-colored atlas that in the Felder a subtle thread on the right side steps over six broad threads and is [[then]] overrun or surpassed by a broad one. In the fowers likewise runs a wide [[thread]] on the right side over six subtle threads; before one [[begins with]] the weaving,11 it can be noticed when one unpicks a subtle thread next to the piece of wood [[Scheite]] which goes along the cloth; after [[commencing with the weaving; or after the weave is done]] it can be thus observed, if one takes, not far from the piece of wood, being as long as eight [[threads]] on the right side, the two next subtle threads, which tread over a wide one, as AB; EF,12

An alternative translation would be: “prior to the law, to commencing with weaving [priorem textura legem].” 12 The text continues on fol. 22r. 11

130

22r

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3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 3

131

25 Maji.

Dieselben werden auch über den achten (inclusive) breiten tretten, hebe sie auf mit der nadel, und zücke sie, so siehstu, dass ABCD ein fadem it. EFGH ein fadem ist also tritt der breite fadem FBAE über die sechs subtiele fedem, die zwischen AB, und GH herfür tretten, ein breiter fadem besteht aus dreyen schlechtlich neben einander ligenden fedemen, deren ied aus zweyen fedemen zusammen gezwirnet (gedrehet) ist, der fünfte breite fadem ist aber nicht von seiden, sonder entweder von Gold oder silber, wie ein fascia oder remel, daß allzeit 4 seiden breite fädeme zwischen zwoen metallinen seyn, wenn die breiten fedem seyn von gelber seide, so seyn drunter gemenget güldine remel, seyn sie von weißer Seide, so seyn silberne remel drunter gemenget.

p. 3

[[16]]25 May

The same [[thread]] will also pass over the eighth (inclusive) wide one [[thread]]; one can pick it up with the needle and pull it out so [[you can]] see that ABCD is one thread. EFGH is a thread; so the broad thread FBAE passes over the six subtle threads, which pass for this between AB and GH. A broad thread consists of three [[threads]] simply lying next to one another, each of which is twisted together from two threads; but the ffth broad thread is not of silk but either of gold or silver, like a ribbon or Remel, so that at all times 4 silk wide threads are between two metal ones; if the wide threads are of yellow silk, then gold Remel is mixed [[lies unseen]] underneath; if it is of white silk, then silver Remel is mixed [[lies unseen]] underneath.

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Group 4: The folios in this group compare the fabrics atlas and damask (fols. 37r and 36r); fol. 37r is dated December 1639, and both are paginated and symbolized with “Iam.”

37r p. 1

Iam.

1639 Dec.

In Atlas et Damasceno serice stamen est ex tenuioribus, subtegmen è crassioribus flis, Latitudo utriusque panni est ulnae circiter, von einer bunten eggen zur andern (limbo var.) In Attalico panno subtiliora fla in nobiliore paginâ, sive adversa, transcendent plura crassiora fla, . ideo in aversâ paginâ ductus crassiorum florum apparet solus quasi, ita in adversa sive nobiliori pagina subtiliora fla fere sola sunt conspicua. Si inter lumen et oculum duo frustra attalici panni ita ponas ut nobilior pagina sit superior, sive superior et unius fla (subtiliora) sint directa, alterius transversa, illud quasi cineraceum, hoc nigerrimum apparebit. Si oculum transferas ad eandem plagam, in qua lumen, apparentia invertetur cuius n. [[non]] fla subtilia sunt directim sita, id nigrum, cuius transversim sita, id {grave} videbitur. Damascenus pannus itidem ex crassioribus flis, quae subtegmen sunt, et subtilioribus contextus est, ita ut modo crassiora promineant (h.e. [[hoc est]] prae subtilioribus appareant, modo subtiliora prae illis. Illa a. [[autem]] prae aliis conspicua sunt, quorum singula pluribus simul incumbunt. Ex permutatione textura oriuntur fores. Quantum ex veste, quam prae manibus habebam (schurztuch) coniicere poteram, pagina adversa sive nobilior habetur, in cuius foribus crassiora fla dominantur, sive in cuius fundo sive area dominantur subtiliora fla.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 1

Iam.

133

1639 December.

In atlas and damask silk, the warp is of slenderer [[threads]] and the weft is from thicker threads, the width of each [[of the two]] cloths is approximately an arm’s [[elbow’s]] length, from one colorful side [[corner]] to the other (changing border, edge [[limbo]]) In atlas cloth, on the better side [[of it]], or the opposite side, the thinner threads will pass over several thicker threads; for this reason, on the opposite side, only the lead [[weaving thread]] of the thicker threads appears, as if in such a way that, on the opposite [[facing]] or the better side, the thinner threads alone are barely visible. If you happen to place two atlas cloths between the light and [[your]] eye in such a way that the better side is uppermost, or on top, and the threads (the thinner [[threads]]) of one are straight and [[the threads]] of the other are crosswise, [[hence]] one will appear as if ash colored, and this one will appear very black. If you transfer the eye to the same region in which the light [[is]], the appearance will be inverted in the case of the one with thin threads not positioned directly [[straight in front of you]]; and that one [[with threads]] positioned crosswise will appear dark [[heavy]]. In the same way, damask cloth has been woven together from the thicker threads, which are the weft, and from the thinner [[threads]] in such a way that, at one point, the thicker ones now stick out (that is to say that they appear in front; at another point, the thinner [[threads appear]] in front. Moreover, those threads which are seen [[to be in front]], are those whose single [[threads]] lie over many [[other threads]] at the same time. From this permutation, fowers [[fower patterns]] appear in the weave. However much I was able to conclude from the cloth which I had in front of my hands (apron [[schurztuch]]), the opposite side is considered to be the better [[side]], the thicker threads of which are predominating in its fowers, or the thinner threads of which are predominating in the area at its bottom [[underside]].

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36r p. 2

Iam.

Semper in quâ parte in unâ pag. [[pagina]] dominantur crassa fla, in eiusdem partis opposita pagina dominantur subtiliora fla. Area sive fundum der grund. Phaenomena ex varietate directorum vel transversorum florum, item oculi ex adverso luminis, vel in eadem plagâ cum lumine, ut in Attalico. Ideo a. [[autem]] pagina illa Damasceni panni nobilior videtur, in cuius foribus crassa fla dominantur, 1. quia area plus spacii occupat, quam fores, atque ita in eâ pag. [[pagina]] plus subtiliorum florum, ut in Attalico nobilior pag. [[pagina]] in qua subtiliora fla. 2. Quia fores ob fguram venustae sunt, ideoque crassioribus flis contenti esse possunt. [[at the bottom of the page:]] Zohrß, davon ist die rechte seite seide, die unrechte seite ist forett, sieht mir wie seid[[e]] ruff.

p. 2

Iam.

Always, in any part, the thick threads are predominant on one side, and on the opposite side of the same part the thinner threads are predominant. The area or the base [[bottom; fundum]] [[is called in German]] der Grund. The appearances are either of a variety of straight and crosswise threads; likewise the eyes are either [[situated]] from opposite the light or in the same region with the light, just as with the atlas. Moreover, that side of damask cloth seems better [[fner]] where the thick threads are predominant in its fowers for this reason: 1. because the open space [[area]] occupies more space [[spacii]] than the fowers, and so, on that side, there are more of the thinner threads, as, in the atlas [[weave]], the side is fner in which the threads are thinner. 2. Because the fowers, on account of their shape, are beautiful, and for this reason the fowers can be held together [[stretched tight]] by thicker threads. [[at the bottom of the page:]] Zohrs of it the right side is silk, the not-right side is as small fowers, looks to me [[as]] silk, Ruf.

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135

Group 5: This group presents investigations with a microscope or with a magnifying lens (fols. 15r, 16r); all the folios are symbolized with , are paginated, and are dated January 1640.

15r

136

p. 1 40 Jan.

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Taffetum ita p[[er]] anchiscopium apparebat

[[to the left of the diagram is written: Stamen; above: Lux; to the right: trama; below: Oculus]] [[to the far right of the diagram is written:]] area oblonga qua flis nuda depinguntur nigerrima apparebant. Est textura simplex et uniformis, Id primum ex limbo apparet, ubi stamen est album viride rubrum; subtegmen (trama) nigrum. Deinde etiam in ipso taffeto nigro, quod quamvis ita apparet p [[per]] anchiscopium sicut depinxi, ABON fla splendentia directa, itemq[[ue]] EFQ, IKS, MUX, directa inquam raoe {ratione} allapsus luminis (p. 21) fla splendentia transversim OBC, FGR, KTL, MUX, et ita in reliq[[ui]]s, quia simul intuitus sum extremitates florum trama, nudata flis aliquot staminis, item extrema fla staminis, nudata flis trama, ob[[servavi]]

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p. 1 [[16]]40 January.

137

Tafeta appears thus through a microscope13

[[to the left of the diagram is written: Warp [[Stamen]]; above: Light [[Lux]]; to the right: weft [[trama]]; below: Eye [[Oculus]] ]] [[to the far right of the diagram is written:]] The oblong [[long]] area in which nude [[colorless areas]] are colored by the threads appeared very dark. [[This]] is a simple and uniform weave; It frst appears from the edge [[to be]] green [[and]] red when the warp is white, the weft (trama) black. Then also in that same dark tafeta, which, however it appears, I painted it so14 [[just as]] it appears through the microscope: threads ABON are shiny, having been directed, and likewise EFQ, IKS, MUX having been directed, I say, having guided them [[glided toward]] in relation to the light (p. 21);15 OBC, FGR, KTL, MUX crosswise [[are]] shiny, and so too with the rest. Because, at the same time, I have observed [[examined]] that the edges of the threads in the weft, however many there are of the threads of the warp, are nude, [[and]] likewise the outer threads of the warp, [[the same number]] of threads [[as are]] in the weft, are nude16

13 The meaning of the term “anchiscopium” is not clear: it is either a microscope or a magnifying lens. 14 See the drawing on fol. 15r. 15 It is not clear to which text or page Jungius is referring here. 16 The text continues on fol. 16r, where the frst word is “observavi”.

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16r p. 2

.

observavi p[[er]] lentem vel et nudo visu, florum [[above the line: tramor]] situm multo rariorem ee [[esse]] situ florum staminis: ideo fascia CFQP triplo longior videtur fascia QZ, tertia a. {autem} pars fascia CFQP, nimirum EFQ splendidior est, qa {qua/quia} obiicitur lumini (anteriora autem apparent posteriora ex dextra apparent sinistra per anchiscopium) est n. [[notitia]] pars acclivis fascia fasciam trama transcendentis pars media et {ex} [[above the line: pars]] declivis nigra apparent sive tenebrosa. alia scheda hülzern matten Taffetum est instar textura istius q [[quae]] ex sectilibus ligni fasciis constat, vel storea q [[quae]] ex latis phyliris texitur. Multa enim fla (6, 7, 8) sive licia non torta seu ordine juxta seu invicem posita unum flum texturae, sive unam fasciam constituunt, tam in stamine quam in trama. Hac [[haec]] ex Anchiscopio deprehensa sunt. Quia trama stamine rarior est, ita {utimur/utuntur}. Quis fla adhuc aliud quasi interponi posset, hinc ft, ut versus sive stria staminis magis appareant, qa [[quia]] portiones fli cuiusque trama in pagina panni apparentes sibi invicem [[separating line]] ex alia scheda miscellaneorum warumb wann etliche scherungs oder Zettelfädeme ausgezogen, die einschlagsfädeme oder räigen in den taffeten weiter von ander liegen als im {Zohrs} oder ruff.

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139

p. 2 . I have observed through a lens or by the naked eye that the position of the weft threads is much sparser [[looser]] than the position of the warp threads; for this reason the band CFQP appears to be three times longer than band QZ. Moreover, a third part, EFQ, is certainly shinier [[brighter]] than band CFQP, because it is exposed to the light (moreover, the earlier [[bands]] appear to be later; the left appears [[to be brighter]] from the right [[as seen]] through a microscope [[anchiscopium]]). It has been noted: the sloping upward part, the band, the weft, the part in the middle of [[what is]] going over the band, and the part sloping down, [[all of these parts]] appear black or dark. other notes

wooden mats

Tafeta is a weave [[fabric]] similar to that which consists of cut sections of wood, or a straw mat [[storea]] which is woven from broad strips from a linden tree. For many threads [[fla]] (6, 7, 8) the strands [[licia]] [[that are]] not twisted have been placed either in order nearby or alternating. They constitute one thread of the weaving, or one band – just as in the warp, so too in the weft. These things have been detected from [[with]] the microscope. Because the weft is looser than the warp, we use it thus: in whatever way it is possible for the threads to be posited between themselves [[interwoven]] in addition to another [[with another thread]], in this way it happens, so that they appear as row [[line]] or more [[as]] a furrow [[pleat; stria]] of the warp, because the pieces of thread of each section of the weft appear in the side of cloth alternating with themselves [[separating line]] of other notes of miscellaneous [[remarks]] why when some warp [[Scherung]] or warp [[Zettel]] threads are pulled out, the weft threads or Räigen [[rows or furrows]] in the tafeta [[fabric]] lie farther [[differently]] from others than in the {Zohrs} or Ruf.17

17 Ruff may have originated from Riffel, which designates a comb for fax. Hence Ruff may designate a fabric made from fax.

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141

Group 6: This group contains notes on the flum sinuosum and introduces porca and sulca (fols. 11r, 12r, 18r). The folios in this group are numbered and symbolized with .

11r

142

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Filum primarium sive sinuosum Licium extremum • porcale flum Licium medium | sulcale flum Licium extremum Filum primarium s. [[sive]] sinuosum

Licium 1mum oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten

2dum

unten odr oben

sulcale filum 10mum 9. 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1mum

Superficies deterior

3um oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten

Licium 1um unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben

erat

superior

unten odr oben

alia scheda p. 1

unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben unten oben

Das mittlere licium liegt unter allen sulcalibus Ergo ists vermuhtlich, das es allzeit über beide porcalia fla tritt, damit stimmet überein, die sinus dieses licii, denn der kleinere sinus ist gegen den grössern fast wie 1 gegen 2. in dem ehrsten und dritten licio ist der kleinere sinus (der gar spitz und nicht rund scheinet) gegen dem grössern wie 1 gegen 3 oder 4. [[separating line]] Das folgende ehrste licium tritt unter den ehrsten oben oben den andren et ita alternatim das folgend zweite licium tritt unter alle. das dritte wie das ehrste

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143

The frst or sinuous thread [[flum]] The outer strand [[licium]] The middle strand The outer strand The frst or sinuous thread

• porcale flum | sulcale flum other notes p. 1

[[the table apparently describes the relations – above (oben) and below (unten) – between the sulcale flum and the licium]] [[in the last row of the table is written: The upper surface is worse]] The middle licium lies under all the sulcalibus; ergo it is probable that it always passes [[steps]] over both porcalia fla; with it corresponds the sinus [[shape]] of this licium, for the smaller sinus is against the larger [[one]] almost like 1 against 2 [[sinuses]]; in the frst and third licium the smaller sinus (which seems to be pointed and not round) is against the larger like 1 against 3 or 4.18 [[separating line]] The next frst licium enters under the frst, above the other, and so, alternately, the next second licium passes under all[[;]] the third like the frst

18

The numbering of the sinuses probably refers to the fgures on fol. 12r.

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12r

145

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p. 2 Weil das flum sinuosum, post exempta tria licia, nach der edlen seite hinaus felt, folget, das[[s]] es von dem sulcali flo nicht gehalten werde, daraus zu ersehen, daß immer 1 sulcale zwischen zwejen porcalibus ist, und das sulcale im mitteln sinu der dreyen kleinen sinuum, Die beiden porcalia fla in den exterioribus fli sinuosi sinibus 1, 4, 7, 10 sunt sulcalia fla, ǀ 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11. porcalia. p. 3. Sup[[er]]fcies deterior ist oben. Licium primum liegt oben dem primo sulcali, und unter dem andern et sic alternatim etc: idem licium primum liegt unter allen porcalibus (da die sulcalia fla weggezogen [[below the line: ist]])

[[to the side of the fgure:]] deter[[ior]]- sup[[er]]f.[[icies]] licium primum melior sup[[er]]f.[[icies]] [[separating line]] Licium secundum geht unter allen sulcalibus ǀ Die sulcalia fla werden mit strichlin u. respectu

die porcalia fla mit {pünkten} unten gezeichnet.

1 2 3 4 5

paris porcalium ists oben. paris ---------------- unten paris - ists oben paris ists ------------ unten paris ists ------------ oben

[[to illustrate the two sides (i.e. the superfcies) and the way Jungius designates the two types of weft thread with points and lines, the following drawing appears next to the list:]]

[[separating line]] 3tium licium et subtilius] prioribus respectu sulcalis, licium 1 ist oben 2 ist das licium unten et alternatim, idem licium liegt unter allen porcalibus

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147

p. 2 Because the sinuous thread, after three threads were removed, is absent at the {noble} side, it follows that it is not held by the sulcale thread, to be seen [[from the fact]] that there is always 1 sulcale [[thread]] between two porcalia [[threads]], and the sulcale [[thread]] is in the middle curve [[sinu]] of the three small sinus. Both porcalia threads in the exterior curves of the sinuous thread

1, 4, 7, 10 are sulcalia threads ǀ 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 [[are]] porcalia. p. 3 The worse surface is above. The frst strand [[licium]] lies above the frst sulcale [[thread]] and below the other and so alternatively etc.; the same for the frst strand [[licium]],which lies below all the porcalia [[threads]] (as the sulcale thread is pulled away)

[[to the side of the fgure:]] the worse surface the frst strand better surface [[separating line]] The second strand [[licium]] goes under all the sulcalia [[threads]] and respectively

The sulcalia threads are marked with a small stroke the porcalia threads with a small point.

1 equal, suitable [[even; paris]] porcale [[thread]] is above 2 equal -------------------- below 3 equal is ----------------- above 4 equal is ----------------- below 5 equal is ----------------- above [[separating line]] The third strand [[licium]] and [[is]] fner [[slenderer]] than the frst respectively the sulcalia [[threads]], licium 1 is above 2 is the strand [[licium]] and alternatively likewise the strand lies below all of the porcalia [[threads]]

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18r p. 4 Tria licia Licium primum lingt respectu sulcalis Primi -- unten 2di [[secundi]] -- oben 3ti [[terti]] -- unterer idem liegt unten allen porcalibus [[separating line]] licium liegt resp[[ectu]] sulcalium oıum {omnium} unten primi paris porcalium unten 2di ---------------- oben 3tii ---------------- unten obener [[separating line]] alia scheda in 4, complicata in forma 8 in qua duo segmenta sammet Duo proximi transversi in ora marginis cohaerent

estq[[ue]] unum flum, idq[[ue]] bilix non contortum.

über 40 23 hic rursus duo proximi transversi cohaerebant quorum posterior erat transversus porcea, quem subtus (h.e. in aversa superfcie) transcendebant tenuia

fla, multum inter se distantia

transversus porcae medius sulci porcae medius sulcis

porca ist gravelecht, und die transversa fla scheinen daran schwarz sulcus ist schwarz, also daß die transversa fla dagegen gravelecht scheinen

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149

p. 4 Three threads [[licia]] The frst thread lies with respect to the little sulcalia Of the frst -- below Of the second -- above Of the third -- more below [[separating line]] likewise it lies below all of the porcalia [[threads]] the thread [[strand]] lies with respect to all the sulcalia [[threads]] below of the frst equal to the porcalia [[threads]] below of the second -------above of the third -------below more above [[separating line]] other notes in [[folio]] 4 [[having been]] folded up in an octavo [[format]] in which [[there are]] two segments [[concerning]] samite Two [[threads being]] crosswise nearby cling on the edge of the margin and there is one thread and it is doubled,

not twisted.

above 40 23

here again two [[threads]] nearby crosswise cling whose back end was crosswise of the porca [[thread]], [[and]] under it (i.e. on the rear side) delicate threads were going over,

[[and]] the distance between them was great

crosswise of the porca [[thread]] the middle of the sulcus [[thread]] the middle of the sulcus [[thread]]

the porca [[thread]] is grayish [[gravelecht]], and the transverse thread appears to be black the sulcus [[thread]] is black, so that the transversal thread, however, in contrast seems to be grayish

150

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Group 6 (additional folios): Although neither numbered nor consistently symbolized with , as the folios in Group 6, these additional folios (fols. 19r, 10r, 44r) deal with similar topics to the folios in Group 6. The symbol does appear in two of the folios, and hence this group can be considered as associated to the ‘main’ group of folios, that is, to Group 6. Moreover, it is probable that fol. 10r was ‘logically’ ordered to go before fol. 11r (the frst folio in Group 6), and fol. 19r was placed immediately after fol. 18r (the last folio in Group 6); however, these two folios (10r and 19r) are not numbered; hence the choice to order this group and Group 6 as they are presented here. Note also that fol. 44r is dated both 1647 and 1649.

19r ANALYSIS VELUTI INTONSI Fila staminis superiora, quae scissa villosum et tonsum effcient velutum ex e textura extricata dupliciter sunt sinuata, videlicet ita Major sinus est, qui scissus dat pilos sive villos tonsi veluti. Minor sinus convexum versus eandem partem vertens, versus quam major sinus vertit, sursum videlicet, est inter duos parvos sinus, qui deorsum vertunt convexum, ita ut tres hi sinus sint aquales. alia scheda Velutum tribus rectis ordinibus florum constat, quorum duo inferiores terna fla habent sibi invicem supposita, atque ex his tela [f. stamen] constat: duobus quoq[[ue]] transversis, quorum inferior medium rectorum inferiori, superior medium superiori jungit. Rectorum supremus unico aut duobus flis constat, hisq[[ue]] simplicibus aut duplicatis. Si uno simplici est unius pili: si uno et duplicato, duorum: si duobus, altero simplici, altero duplicato, trium: si duobus duplicatis, quatuor [pilorum]. Superstant a. [[autem]] fla sibi invicem è regione, ut pannus crassior evadat [[eudat]]. Tertius ergo seu supremus ordo rectorum suppositâ naviculâ scinditur eâ parte, quae transversa fla ob naviculam immissam interiacet. Cardanus in fne capitis 63 libri XIII de Varietate Munsterus quoque telam pro stamine ponunt; l. [[liber]] 3 Cosmogr. de Suevis. Panni, inquit, genus faciunt, cuius tela linea e [[est ; or: d, as in dicitur]], intextum bombycinum [bommasin Emmel. Sax. Boomsidan] seu gossapinum, barchat illud vocantes [gossypinum voluit dicere] p. 581.

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151

Analysis of unshorn velvet The upper threads of the warp, which, having been separated, will bring about shaggy [[villosum]] and shorn [[tonsum]] velvet; they have been doubly curved [[sinuate]] from [[due to]] the weaving having been disentangled The greater curve [[sinus; the bigger curved thread]], which, having been cut [[split, separated]], brings about hairs or threads of shorn velvet. The lesser curved [[thread]], turning the convex [[part]] toward the same part in the direction toward which the greater curved [[part]] is turning, [[that is]] clearly upward, It is between two small curved [[parts]] which turn the convex [[part]] downward, such that these three curved [[parts, bends]] are equal. other notes Velvet consists of three straight series [[ordinibus]] of threads, of which the two lower have three threads in a row, placed next to one another in turn, and the warp consists of these [[threads]], with two [[threads]] also crosswise, the lower of which joins the middle of the lower of the rows, [[and]] the upper [[of which]] joins its middle to the upper row. The uppermost of the right [[ones]] consists of either one or two threads, and these are either with one single [[thread]] or doubled. If it is with one single [[thread]], it is of one hair [[unius pili]]; if it is with one single and doubled, [[then it is]] of two [[hairs]]; if [[it is]] with two [[threads]], with one single and with the other doubled, [[it is]] of three [[hairs]]; if it is with both doubled, [[then it is]] of four [hairs]. The threads stand above one other alternately by section [[regione]], so that the cloth avoids [[being]] thicker. Therefore the third or highest series of lines is split [[separated]] by this boat-shaped region having been placed near, which lies between the transverse [[crosswise]] threads [[and]] in proportion to the boat-shaped [[region]] placed between. Cardano [[writes about this]] in de Varietate at the end of chapter 63 of book XIII Munster [[Sebastian Münster]] too – they put [[use]] tela in place of stamen; [[see]] book 3 in the Cosmographia on the Suebi. It says that they make a type of cloth, the tela [[warp]] of which is the linea [[linen]], an interwoven silk [[bombycinum]] [ [[which is called]] Bommasin [[by]] Emmel. [[and by the]] Sax. [[Saxons]] Boomsidan], or Gossapinum [[cotton]], (with some) calling it Barchat [[fustian]] [he wants to call it Gossypinum] p. 581.

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10r

153

154

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Velutum

flum staminis leniter sinuatum tale apparet, huius Sinus amplior ad strictiorem sinum ea est proportione, ut ille capiat tria vel 4 eorum florum, quorum hic capit unum. Quaerendum utrum arcus amplior an strictior an neuter in superfcie aversa veluti appareat.

Si margo sie ad sinistram porca vel vel Si margo sit ad dextram

Filum continuum Hic plus apparet, quam latet Hic minus apparet, quam latet

flum interruptum, cuius partes longiores intervallis flum interruptum, cuius partes breviores intervallis alia scheda

sulcale / porc. / sulc.

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155

Velvet the thread of the warp should appear to have been curved [[sinuatum]] such that its more ample curve [[sinus]] is in the same proportion to its narrower curve, with the result that that one [[i.e. the more ample curve]] captures three or four of those threads of which this one [[the narrower curve]] captures [[only]] one. It must be examined

If the edge [[border]] is to the left whether a more ample or a narrower curve [[arcus]] porca [[a drawing]] or [[a drawing]] or a neutral curve has been avoided on the surface or [[a drawing]] just as it appears [[to have been]]. If the edge [[border]] is to the right A continuous thread This shows more than it hides This shows less than it hides

sulcale / porc. / sulc.

a thread interrupted, parts of which [[are]] of longer intervals a thread interrupted, parts of which (are) of shorter intervals other note

156

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44r A[[nno]] 1647.

1649.

Zwischen zween sinuosis flis (geschweifften fädemen[[ )]] seyn drej licia oder subtiele fedeme oder drey dräte, und diese machen die lenge des Sammittes. Die fla sulcalia und porcalia seyn der einschlag und machen die breite des Sammittes. es seyn al[l]zeit 2 porcalia fla zwischen 2 sulcalibus, und 1 sulcale zwischen 2 porcalibus. Die fla porcalia und sulcalia machen die braite des Sammitts, und gehen durch die drey kleine sinus des viel schweiffgen fadems. in dem ungeschornen Sammitt, den ich A[nno] 1649 im Sept. besahe war die egge (margo) hoc colorum ordine innerst, und dem Sammitt am nechsten gelb, root, gelb, root, gelb, root, gelb, endlich purpurfarbig, das war 3 mahl so breit als die andern streiffen, durch diese egge, durch diese streiffen gingen die schwarzen fedeme des einschlages. Sinus, Krümme, bucht, falte, rancke [[Ranke]], maske [[Masche]]. reep, reeper, räiff rieffel, gerieffelte büchse.

Circulus dolii lignei räiff (cl. reyff, prava, orthogr.)

duo porcalia fla simul absonduntur à flo citrino, ita ut fat scala alternatim habens scalas invicem altitudine duplas. [[below is the bottom part of this folio, containing several drawings]]

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

Year 1647.

157

1649.

Between two sinuosa fla (curved threads [[ ) ]] are three licia or subtle threads or three strands, and these make the length of the samite. The threads of sulcalia and porcalia are the weft and make the width of the samite. There are always 2 porcalia threads between 2 sulcalia [[threads]], and 1 sulcale between 2 porcalia. The porcalia and sulcalia threads make the width of the samite, and pass through the three small sinus [[threads]] of the much entwined thread. in the unshorn samite, which I saw in September 1649, the edge [[border, margin; margo]] was with this order of colors, starting with the most inner, and the samite most nearly [[colored with]] yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow, yellow, fnally purple, which was 3 times as wide as the other stripes through this border; through these stripes went the black threads of the weft. Sinus, bend, bay, fold, tendril [[or twine]], stitch. rope, rope, rope [[reep, reeper, räif]]19 stripes, grooved box.

Circular rope of wooden hogshead (cited [[written]] as rope, crooked, orthography)

two porcalia threads are hidden together by a citrine [[yellow]] thread in such a way that a ladder [[pattern]] alternately appears, having a double ladder [[pattern]] in turn by height.

19 Reep, Reeper, and Räiff (or Reif) are all words meaning ‘rope’ or ‘cable.’ Reep and Reeper are still common in the north of Germany.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

159

Group 7: The folios in this group present refections on velvet, sulcus, and porca (resp. stria and striga), as well as an investigation of velvet with a microscope or with a lens (fols. 23r, 24r, 20r, and 25r); on the terms sulcus and porca, see Sect. 4.3. All of the folios (starting from the bottom part of fol. 23r) are paginated, and all of them (except fol. 23r) are symbolized with VL, which most likely stands for velutum (i.e. velvet). Some of the folios are dated January 1640 (as in Group 5).

23r

160

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Velutum Sammit. verblümet Sammit und Kaffa werden gewircket, gedrückt sammit wird also gedrücket mit formen, daß er blumen gewint an alten Sammitten bohrten od[er] riemen, drauff silberne Spangen lange Zeit gesessen, hat der Sammit auch blumen nach form der Spangen, Verblümet sammit hat mehr fedem und auch einen andern grund, dann [[als]] Kaffa, oder Kaffhahr. An dem ungeschohrnen Sammit ist das die braite oder zwerche, wie die riefeln (sulci et porca, sive stria et striges) hergehen, er ist gemeinlich eine ele [[Elle]] brait. Stria et striges werden alhie verstanden auff der besten seiten, da er aufgeschnitten wird. Wie wo[[h]]l auf der schlimmen, od[[er]] abgewandten (aversa sup[[er]]fcie) seiten die sulci und porca eben also gehen. alia scheda p. 1 lumen huc allabitur 40 Jan

[[to the side of the diagram: a porca; and below: a porca repetita]] in aream primam cadit {tria} porca q[[auae]] {tu} areae latitudinem explet ita veluti pagina aversa apparet p [[per]] anchiscopium Area prima ê [[est]] inter primam et tertiam porcam, Area 2da [[secunda]] inter 3ium [[tertium]] et 4tam [[quartam]] porcam, Area 3ta [[tertia]] inter quartam et primam repetitam.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

161

Velvet, samite. Flowered samite and Kafa are knitted [[woven]], pressed; so samite is pressed with forms so that it gains fowers at old samite edges [[Borten]] or the narrow leather strips on which silver clasps have been sitting for a long time; the samite also has fowers according to the shape of the clasps; Flowered samite has more threads and also a diferent Grund than Kafa or Kafhahr. On the unshorn samite, this is the width or the Zwerch, as the grooves (sulci and porca, or stria and striges) appear; it is commonly a cubit [[Elle]] wide. Furrows [[stria]] and windrows [[striges]] are understood here on the best side, where it is cut open. As well as on the bad or averted sides (back side) the sulci and porca appear just so. other notes p. 1 the light is moving toward this [[16]]40 January [[to the side of the diagram: [[away]] from the porca; below: [[away]] from the repeated porca]] into the frst area three [[the third]] porca occur which fll out the width of the area the back side appears similarly through the microscope [[anchiscopium]] The frst area is between the frst and third porca; the second area is between the third and fourth porca; the third area is between the fourth and frst, having been repeated.

162

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

24r VL. Prima porca (series) prorsus continua est, maiori ex parte directis hoc est “““ flis constans, quamvis alicubi videatur etiam transversa habere ≡ idq[[ue]] è regione hiatûs minoris, qui est in tertia porca, et nondum expressus est, ita a. [[autem]] exprimi potest.

Prima porca latior est tertia et quarta porca Hiatus quartae porcae respondet minori hiatui tertiae porcae. Areae tres dictae latitudine aequales apparent nigriores porcis, et latiores. p. 2 Lumen huc allabitur. 40 Jan

Ita veluti pagina aversa apparet per anchiscopiu[[m]] ab A ad B, à C ad D extenduntur porcae apparentes q [[quae]] clarius apparent, si transversim ponantur ad allabens lumen quam si directim Lumen ______ ______ ______

direc˜m Lumen

oculus oculus

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

163

VL. The frst porca (row) has been continued forward, coming [[remaining constant]] from the larger area with straight threads, [[as]] this is “““, although it also seems to be crosswise in some places ≡, and that [[crosswise area is coming]] from the area of a minor gap, which is in the third porca and has not yet been described; however, it can be expressed [[described]] in the [[following]] way. The frst porca is wider than the third and fourth porca. The gap of the fourth porca corresponds to the lesser gap of the third porca. The three areas identifed [[as]] equal in width appear darker and wider than the porci. p. 2 The light is moving toward this. [[16]]40 January The back side appears similarly through a microscope; from A to B, the visible porcae are extended from C to D, which appear more clearly if they are placed crosswise toward the fow of light than if they are placed in direct [[relationship to it; directly]] Light ______ ______ ______

directed Light

eye eye

164

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

20r VL p. 3

Rursus ad túm [[trium]]

A C

B D

Subtilis simâ seu flum candidum subtile infgebam aversa pagina véluti, quantum feri poterat, observans ut flum parallelum esset porcis vel sulcis. Verum cum deinde per anchiscopium intuerer flum per quartam aream intrans per tertiam exibat, ita ut tres particulas porca quarta tegeret. Observabam simul portiones porcae quartae in duabus proximis strophis sibi ita respondere, ut hiatus scilicet unius porcae

sint e regione meditulli portionis elevatae alterius porcae, sicut hic depictum e [[est]].20

item secundae porcae monticuli in secunda strophâ sunt e regione hiatuum in secunda porca primae strophae atq[[ue]] ita et [[etiam]] se habent hiatus et monticuli tertiae seriei sive porcae, si conferas secundam stropham cum prima. [[separating line]] alia scheda. Cum per lentem utrinque convexam intuerer paginam aversam veluti, versus in ea ita apparebant. [[separating line]] p. 4 VL in situ

A C

B D

Hoc iam satis comprobatum p [[per]] infxa fla, quod versus, q [[qui]] per lentem apparet elevatior, lucidior sive gravior 20

On the left margin of this passage, the word CORRECTIO is written.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

VL p. 3

165

Again concerning [[weaves]] of three

A C

B D

I was imagining a fne [[thin]] group or fne [[thin]] white thread, just as on the opposite side, however [[fne]] it can happen [[be]], observing that the thread was parallel to the porci or sulci. But then when I was looking through the microscope [[anchiscopium]], the thread through the fourth region [[area]] going through the third [[region]] was going out in such a way that the fourth porca was covering three small parts. I was observing, at the same time, that parts of the fourth porca are balancing out [[correspond]] to one other in the two nearby bands [[twists; strophis21]] to such an extent that clearly the gaps of one porca are [[coming]] out of the region of the middle of the elevated part of the other porcae, just it has been depicted [[here]].22 Likewise, the small ridges [[mountains]] of the second porca in the second band [[twist; strophae]] are [[coming]] from the region of gaps in the second porca of the frst band, and they themselves also have gaps and small ridges of the third row or porca in the same fashion, if you compare [[join]] the second band with the frst. [[separating line]] other materials. When I was looking through a magnifying lens [[glass; lentem]] from both sides, the convex just as the opposite side, the rows on each [[side]] appeared thus. [[separating line]] p. 4 VL on the position

A C

B D

This has already frequently been confrmed by a fxed thread, [[namely]] that the row, which appears higher [[more elevated]] through the magnifying lens [[lentem]] is shinier or heavier

21 Strophe is a borrowed Greek word. The main meaning of στροφή (strophe) in Greek is ‘turning, twisting, bending,’ but it can also designate a band, like an ancient Roman girdle. 22 On the left margin of this passage, “correction” is written.

166

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

25r VL. {constet} ex quarto et primo versu et areâ tertiâ ideo apparet ita per lentem

At versus alter, qui apparet depressior et nigrior per lentem, {is} constituitur ex area 1a et 2dâ et 3tio [[tertio]] versu per anchiscopium apparente. fla verò ≡ {di} versus ita in situ

A B

C D

apparent p [[per]] anchiscopium, at spatium

aliquod sit inter fla haec secundi versus et fla tertii versus, dextram versus sequentia, quod in prioribus diagrammatibus non est observatum sive expressum [[separating line]] p. 5 VL Quod si convertas sensim in orbem anchiscopium manente objecto in eodem situ respectu anchiscopii quadrante conversionis peracti fla ista transversa, q [[quae]] recedunt sensim ex areâ primà sive area ν  ω, jam spectabuntur in area α eruntq[[ue]] respectu lucis directa, quod si porro conversioD- C nem continues, donec alter quadrans sit emersus, adeoq[[ue]] situs proveniat, B A iam fla ista erratica ex area23 inter fla 3tii [[tertii]] versus sive tertia por [[per]] ea migraverunt in aream ε  η et affngunt fla q [[quae]] iam sunt ad sinistram, et ab initio erant ad dextram. Ita primum apparent fla ae latentibus flis ei et iy. Deinde ei fla latentibus ceteris. Deniq[[ue]] iy fla latentibus ceteris.

23

On the left margin of this passage, the word MIRARES is written.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

167

it should be correct [[correspond]] from the fourth [[row]] and from the frst row and from the third area for this reason: [[as]] it appears [[to be]] so through a magnifying lens [[lentem]] But another row, appears lower [[depressed]] and darker through the magnifying lens. This [[darker row]] is determined [[fxed]] from the area, [[namely?]] from the frst, the second, and the third row appearing through the microscope [[anchiscopium]]. A B indeed, the threads ≡ of the row appear in this position [[situ]]: through C D

the microscope, but there may be some space between these threads of the second row and the threads of the third row, following the right [[side?]] of the row, which has not been either observed or expressed in the previous diagrams [[separating line]] p. 5 VL Because if you gradually rotate the microscope in a circle with the object remaining in the same position with respect to the microscope, with one quarter of the complete cycle having been carried out, those crosswise threads which gradually recede [[pull away]] from the frst area or from area ν ω, they will now be seen in area α and they will be straight [[in a line]] with respect to the light, because if, in turn, you continue the complete cycle [[rotation]], until another quarter has been D- C carried out and to such a degree that the position of moves forward, now B A those wandering threads have moved from the area24 between the threads of the third row or the third [[thread]], [[they]] have moved through them into area ε  η, and they join the threads which are now to the left and were initially toward the right. And so threads ae appear frst with threads ei and iy hiding. Then threads ei [[appear]] with the others hiding. And fnally, threads iy [[appear]] with the others hiding.

24

On the left margin of this passage, “you may wonder” is written.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

169

Group 8: This group deals with what is termed textura sinuosa or sinuous weave, that is, with knitting. Indeed, both folios in this group (42r and 43r) are titled “Textura sinuosa” and paginated and symbolized by

42r

. Fol. 42r is dated 1644.

170

p. 1

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

TEXTURA SINUOSA

44 Sept.

Sinus abcd habet mediam partem transversam bc, duas obliquas, aut oblique directas, ab, cd, ita Sinus cdef mediam partem de habet transversam, laterales duas oblique dicrectas cd, ef. Sinus efgh, mediam transversam fg, laterales obliquas sive oblique directas ef, et gh. Transversae partes florum extant in cava sive inferior superfcie, oblique directae in convexa sive exteriore et pulchriore superfcie, et visui exhibent florum situm quasi spicatum, sive instar cantheriorum ({two indecipherable words in brackets} um) ita ut alternatim anguli cantheriorum antrorsum et retrorsum spectent, sicut appingimus. Verum in nonnullis ordines s. [[supra]] series oblique directorum florum alternatim sunt districtae, ut AB, EF, et compressae ED, GH. Distincta series latior apparet, et flis constat inter se quasi intervalla habentibus; et compressa series strictior unius instar fli recte directi conspicitur. Differentia aliquo modo et conspicua e [[est]], si flum aliquod ex textura eximas, id enim sinus suos retinet, et ex lateribus ad eundem sinum pertinentibus alterum altero magis conspicuum visui offerunt. Causa forsan rei est quod dextra manus majorem vel minorem vim adhibit. Nam sinistra manus veteres sinus aliquot {stylo} series trajectos tenet, manus sinistra novos sinos facit

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

p. 1

Sinuous weave

171

[[16]]44 September

A sinuous [[thread, curve]] abcd has a middle transverse part bc, two oblique, or [[rather]] obliquely straight [[parts]], ab [[and]] cd. So too, the sinuous [[thread]] cdef has a middle transverse part de [[and]] two lateral, obliquely straight [[parts]] cd [[and]] ef. The sinus efgh has a middle transverse part fg [[and]] lateral, oblique or obliquely straight [[parts]] ef and gh. The transverse parts of the threads exist in a hollow, whether on the inner surface, arranged obliquely [[crosswise]] on the convex [[side]], or on the outer more beautiful surface; and by appearance [[visui]] they show a position [[situm]] of the spiked threads, or in the likeness of trellis pieces {indecipherable words}, in such a way that the angles of the trellis pieces look alternately forward and backward, just as we paint [[them]]. But of course, in some cases, the orders governing the rows of obliquely straight threads have been alternately drawn [[pulled]] apart, as [[is the case]] with AB, EF, and also compressed [[as with]] ED, GH. [[Each]] distinct row appears wider and remains constant in itself, with threads [[lying]] as if they have intervals; the compressed row is seen as tighter, observed like one thread which has been guided straight. The diference has also been observed in this way, [[namely]] if we take out a certain thread from the weave, it indeed retains its own sinuous [[parts]], and they [[the sinuous parts]] visually give the appearance that one is greater than the other, from the sides pertaining to the same sinuous [[part]]. The cause of this is perhaps because the right hand applies greater or lesser strength. For [[while]] the left hand maintains the old sinuous [[parts]], however many rows have been crossed through by the stylus, the left hand [[also]]25 makes new sinuous [[parts]]26

“while” and “also” have been added, since without them the sentence is less comprehensible. One might think that Jungius is comparing the left hand (maintaining old folds) with the right hand (making new sinuous threads) – but Jungius uses sinistra (the left hand) for both clauses; this may mean that in the last clause Jungius (or the copier) should have written manus dextra (right hand). 26 The text continues on fol. 43r. 25

172

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

43r p. 2

TEXTURA SINUOSA

dum stylum suum p [[per]] proximum veterem sinum traiicit (von fornen und von der lincken seiten her) et deinde flum obvolvit suo stylo von der rechten seiten und von unten her) postea flum stylo apprimens stylum cum novo sinu p [[per]] veterem sinum retrahit, denique sinistra stylum suum ex illo veteri stylo extrahit. Hic ordo motuum toties repetitur, quot funt novi sinus. Si partes texturae inversas facere placet, uti ft circa talos in tibi alibus, dextra stylum suum p [[per]] veterem sinam traiicit, et flum obvolvit stylo suo, von oben her.

p. 2

Sinuous weave

as it crosses its stylus through the nearby former sinuous [[thread]] (from the front side and from the left side) and then it covers up the thread by its stylus from the right side and from below) after pressing the thread with the stylus, and [[the hand]] draws back the stylus with the new sinuous [[thread]] through the old sinuous [[one]], and then the left [[hand]] draws out its own stylus from that old stylus. This order of movements is repeated as many times as new sinuses [[bends]] arise. If it is pleasing to make parts of the weave inverted, as it happens around the ankles, the right [[hand]] crosses its stylus through the old sinuous [[thread]] and covers up the thread by its own stylus from above.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

173

Group 8 (additional folios): This group consists of additional folios dealing with textura sinuosa and stockings; note that according to Leibniz’s copy, the following group of four folios appear in the following order: 40r, 38r, 42r, 43r; folios 33r and 47r also appear in Leibniz’s copy on separate sheets and deal with similar topics (stockings and garters). Hence this set of pages is associated to Group 8, although it is neither numbered nor symbolized with VL. Note, however, that fol. 47r is dated April 1641, while fols. 42r and 43r (from Group 8) are dated 1644.

40r

174

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

TEXTURA SINUOSA Calza ò calzetta, tibiale ein strumpf Calzoni femoralia. alia scheda. In den groben wullen strümpen, item in den seiden strümpen, ist der spicatus situs florum, sparren echtig lager (ligend) der fädem wohl zu sehen in den sechsdrätigen wollen strümpen kan[[n]] man gar übel die sparren sehen, denn die eine riege fadem ist mercklich, die andere ist gar dichte, daß man die fedem die schlimlich überzwerg liegen, nicht unterscheiden kan[[n]]. Inwendig siehet man frontem sinuum, sive transversam et mediam partem fli sinuati, und gibt einen solchen situm, als die steine in einer mau[[e]]r in einem sechs dratigen strumpf sieht man an einem ort die fadem gantz spar renweiß [[sparrenweise]], an einem andern ohrt nur schlimme treppen und linien, oder sparren, denen keine sparren entgegen streben.

Sinuous weave Sock or ankle sock, leggings, a stocking Trousers, short trousers [[breeches]].27 other notes. In the coarse woolen stockings, just as in the silk stockings, the spiked position [[spicatus situs]] of the threads, as the threads are lying as real spears, can be seen well. In the six-strand woolen stockings, one can see the spears quite badly, because the one row [[of ]] thread[[s]] is noticeable, the other [[however]] is quite dense, so that one cannot distinguish [[between]] the threads, which lie badly, in a crossed [[position]]. Inwardly one sees a sinuous front, or the traverse and middle part of a bent thread, and [[it]] gives such a position [[situm]] as the stones in a wall in a six-strand stocking one sees in one place the threads all spear-wise, in another place only bad stairs and lines, or spears, with no spears striving toward them.

27 These two lines present various terms in Latin, Italian and German, all mean kinds of stockings and trousers.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

38r

175

176

TEXTORIA

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Gestrickte Strümpffe

Interior superfcies (seite) tibialium (Gestrickte Strümpffe) insutilium (Beza c. 19 Joh. 23.) vel inconsutilium, est talis quasi ex quadratulis nitentibus ex obscuris, seu elevatis et depressis alternatim positis, et deinde aeqealtis et aeque depressis in quicuncem positis, at [[autem]] exterior spt superfcies talis est intar spicati pavimenti Demonstrao Exteriorem superfciem si aspicias, tum unus obliquus ductus tegit duos transversos ductus, interiorem si aspicias, unus obliquus ductus tegitur à duobus transversis, hinc omnibus arcte[[.]] Contractis ex constipatis in exteriori superfcie apparent obliqui ductus spicata serie, in interiore transversi quincunciali ordine, cohamare dt [[dicitur]] stricken, hamatim conflata tibialia (hamata lorica) Quinctil. 1. 8. c. 3. Quid illo quincunce speciosius, quem in quamcunque parcem spectaveris rectum est Cic. Cat. Cum miraretur Lysander et proceritatem arborum, et directos in quincuncem ordines. Vid. Et Col. 1. 3. c. 13. Non satis est dicere, arbores in quincuncem esse collocandos, sed addere oportet, num respectu alicuius lateris horti {sylvas} an respectu alicuius loci, e quo spectari debent arbores, an resepctu climatis caeli v.g. [[verbi gratia]] orientis, Meridiei, et deinde rationes addere, quincuncialis externa dispositio et diagonalis dici posset, nam diagonios linea collatur in situ directo.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

On weaving

177

Knitted stockings

The inner surface (side) of stockings (knitted stockings), either unsewn or not sewn together, (Beza c. 19 Joh. 23) is such, [[namely]] as if it were from shining [[supporting]] squares or from dark, indistinct [[ones]], whether [[the squares]] are placed alternately raised or recessed, and then with things placed in equal positions or equally recessed in some way; however, the outer surface is such that it is like spiked pavement Proof If you look at the outer surface, at the time that the one crosswise [[oblique]] lead [[thread]] touches the two transverse leading [[threads]], [[and]] if you look at the inner surface, the one crosswise lead [[thread]] is touched by the two leading [[threads]]; for this reason it rightly [[occurs]] for all [[cases.]] The oblique leading [[threads]] appear on the outer surface to be [[coming]] from a narrow and compacted [[area]] in the spiked [[spicata]] row [[series]]; on the interior [[surface]] the transverse [[threads are]] in quincunx order;28 it is called cohamare, to knit, to hook, threaded-together stockings (hamata lorica)29 Quintilian 1.8 chapter 3. What is more spectacular than [[How spectacular is]] a quincunx, which, from whatever side you view it, is straight[[?]]30 In Cicero’s Cat. When Lysander is marveling both at the height of trees and their clear order in the quincunx [[formation]]. See also Col. 1.3 chapter 13. It is not enough to say that trees must be placed together in a quincunx [[formation]], but it is ftting to add whether, in respect to the woods of one side of the garden or with respect to the woods of one area [[of the garden]], from which trees should be seen, or with respect to the parts [[regions; climatis]] of the sky, for example of the rising [[of the sun; i.e. the east]], of noonday, and then to add [[the additional]] rationale that the outward position of the quincunx [[arrangement]] can also be called diagonal, since a diagonal line is created in/by its straight position [[situ]].

28 Quincuncialis: the arrangement of a quincunx, as fve dots on a die (four dots in each corner and a center dot). 29 Cohamare: ‘to hook together’ (from co = ‘joint, together, with’; hamus = ‘hook’; hamare = ‘to hook’; hamata = ‘hooked.’ Lorica means ‘cuirass’ or ‘breastplate,’ although it can also mean ‘a corselet of thongs’ and ‘to clothe in mail.’ 30 An alternative translation is: “What fairer sight is there than rows of trees planted in echelon [[quincunx]], which present straight lines to the eye from whatever angle they be viewed?”

178

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

33r

Gestrickte Strümpe auswendig.

sinus maske [[masche]]

[[drawing]] eiusdem fli sinuosi ductus – transversi sunt bc, de, fg, hi, kl – obliqui ab, cd, ef, gh, ik, lm inwendig

Knitted stockings outside.

a sinuous stitch

[[drawing]] the lead [[thread]] of the same sinuous thread – transversal [[parts]] are bc, de, fg, hi, kl – oblique [[are]] ab, cd, ef, gh, ik, lm internal/inside

180

47r

3

The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

181

Englische Kniebender 41 April. Fila alba et fla nigra transversa sunt ejusdem coloris in textura Anglica. ita qualibet triga directorum florum transscendit bina transversa fla, in utraque pagina, verum inter trigam A et B, ut et E et F interjiciunt fla 6; inter trigas C et D fla 8 Alia scheda; it[[em]]. Englische Kniebender Fila nigra nigris, alba albis intelliguntur esse continua ubi autem interrumpuntur, ibi intelliguntur esse in aversa pagina. ita triga qua libet in pagina mihi ad versa transcenderet unum flum transversum, in pag. [[pagina]] aversa tria fla transversa, atque ita pagina paginae foret dissimilis. Atque in pagina textura una alteri est {similis} {Ergo autem}31

English garters [[16]]41 April. The white threads and the black threads are opposite in the English weave of the same color. and so the triad of straight threads passes across [[goes over]] the two crosswise threads on both sides even so 6 threads lie between the triad A and B, just like E and F; and 8 threads [[lie]] between triads C and D Other notes; also on English garters Black threads are understood to be with black [[threads]] and white threads are understood to be with white [[threads]] continuously; however, where they [[the colors/threads]] are interrupted, in that area they [[i.e. those threads]] are understood to be on the reverse side. thus any set of three [[threads]] crosses over one transverse thread on the side [[that is]] opposite to me, and on the opposite side three transverse threads [[cross over]], and so one side will be dissimilar to the [[other]] side. And on one side the weaving is {similar} to the other [[side]], {hence, but}

31 The words in the last (second) curly brackets were added from Leibniz’s copy, as the margins of this folio (i.e. fol. 47r) were cut.

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Group 9: This group contains refections and explanations on textiles and threads (fols. 56r, 57r, and 58r). The reason for grouping these folios is that they appear together in Leibniz’s copy, though reorganized and restructured; for example, in Leibniz’s copy parts of fols. 52r and 53r appear in the middle of the copy of fol. 57r.

56r [[drawing on the left side:]]

[[on the right side:]] TEXTORIA Filum ein Faden, Licium ein draht Filum est quod texitur, Licium quod torquetur. h.e. [[hoc est]] plura licia contorquentur in unum flum Ein fadem zwirn bestehet aus 2 draten oder ist zweidrätig. Hinc 3, 4, 5, 6, drätige gestrickte strümpfe trilices, quadrilices, etc. Trilices vestes dici vident[[ur]] ubi singula fla tribus liciis constant Vide an pluribus liciis texere (Plin. 1.8. c. 48) (πολυμυθον) sit vieldrätig Zeug.32 Si v. [[vedilicet]] fla contorqueantur, et tortilia fla iterum contorqueantur, oritur funis, webergeräiß licium, sulcos? Käden Belg. i.e. schäringe Sax. triplicatum stamen, dreifacher zettel der Gaden i.e. laden Defoccatus pannus, i.e. detritus die lade 1. laken helt

24 elen

1 laken, ist 24 elen lang 7 g breyt 60 od[[er]] 70 stige gänge. The passage beginning with “Ein faden zwirn” and ending with “vieldrätig Zeug” is struck through with a single line. 32

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183

On weaving The thread [[flum]] is a thread [[Faden]], the licium is a strand [[wire; Draht]]. The thread [[flum]] is that which is woven, the licium is that which is twisted. This is to say, many stands are twisted into one thread [[flum]]. A thread of twisted yarn consists of 2 strands or is two stranded. Here [[are]] 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-stranded knitted stockings having triple thread, having quadruple thread, etc. They seem to be called triple-threaded garments when single threads consist of three strands See whether there may be weaving with many strands (Pliny 1.8. chapter 48 (πολυμυθον), multiple-stranded textile [[Zeug]]. If clearly the threads are twisted together and the twisted threads are twisted again, a rope [[cable]] is made. {Webergeräiß} licium, sulci?33 Käden Belgian. That is Schäringe [[in]] Saxony34 A triple warp, triple warp [[triplicatum stamen, dreifacher Zettel]] Gaden, i.e. beater [[laden]] shorn cloth, i.e. worn out Beater 1 sheet [[laken]] has 24 cubits 1 sheet is 24 cubits long 7 g wide 60 or 70 warp threads

The meaning of the German word Webergeräiß is unclear – Weber is ‘weaver,’ but Geräiß is not identifable; it may come from rusten or rüsten, ‘to prepare, to equip.’ The same word appears in fol. 48r (Group 10). It might also be a reference to a dictionary. 34 Schäringe probably comes from the verb schären, meaning ‘to warp the threads, to obtain warp threads of the same length wound up parallel to one another.’ 33

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57r TEXTILES MATERIAE Textura ex bulbo 1.7. c. 13 θφρ Linscot p. 1 c. 6

Qui texuit Camelotum à Camelo jubas sumpsit Scalling. p. 31. VASORUM NOMINA Qualos crates, fscinas texere. Plin 1.18. c. 16 ibid. ridicam a palo distinguit, ut et Colum. Dolia quassa sarcire, ipsorumque laminas scabendo purgare aut novas facere. Ibid. Non videntur haec intelligenda de fctilibus doliis. Quaeritur, an stäbe oder daùben dici possint laminae? Vix opinor dari propius vocabulum. Diction Belg. Kottongossypium, xylon vulgò Cotoneum, Galli cotton, itali Cotone, Angl Cotton. Kottonn – {starger} Gossypii carminator.

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185

Woven materials Bulbous weavings [[see]] 1.7. c. 13 θφρ Linscot p. 1. c. 6 Weave

of threads of twigs

One who weaves uses the hairs of a camel from a camel Scalling. p. 31. Names of vessels Weaving wicker baskets, hampers, and rush baskets. [[See]] Pliny 1.18. Chapter 16 in the same place he [[Pliny]] distinguishes a vine prop from a pole, so too Colum. To fx broken vats, to clean their shells [[layers]]35 by scraping them or to make new ones. In the same place [[Ibidem]]. These things do not seem to be understood concerning earthenware [[clay]] vats. It is asked whether Stäbe [[sticks]] or Daùben [[the curved side boards of a barrel, a container]] can be called shells? I hardly think that the term has been applied appropriately. [[From a]] Belgian dictionary: the cotton tree, xylon, commonly cotoneum, Gallic cotton, Italian cotone, English cotton. Kotton – {starger} a carder [[comber of fbers]] of the cotton plant. 363738

Lamina designates an overlying layer, shell. Jungius refers to Pliny (Natural History, book XVIII, chapter LXIV), but rather than laminas, Pliny uses lanas (which means ‘wool’ in Latin). See Sect. 4.5 for Pliny’s citations. 35

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58r TEXTURA Enodis Textura

Recta Sinuosa

Nodosa, ut retium, et haec {taxa}.

[[separating line]]

Textura Clavella [ein] Knüppel

Decussativa [[Decus sativa]], weben. Die Weber auch leinwandweber können, auch wapen [[Wappen]] und allerlej bilder einweben Sinuosa, Knütten stricken. Clavellaris, Knüppeln, {Zenichen}, spitzen (nädemachung. Viminalis, flechtung, ita Cortes, Nassae sellae texuntur. Ferramentorum

[[separating line]] Textura alia est variegata sive figurata [s. pictu.rat], alia uniformis. Variegata vel Vulgaris, drelwercken vel Damascena, flores Animalia, et curvilineas figuras exhibens Uniformis vel Similis in utraque pagina, vel Dissimilis Dissimilis, ut Atlass et Sammitt, Uniformis et Similis, vel Simplex, ut Pannus laneus vel Linea gemein lei[[n]]wandtuch. Tuch ist auff d[er] einen seiten anders, das kompt vom scheren oder kemmen. Ex aequalibus filis, vel Ex inaequalibus, ut atlas

Gradata, wie Krissey, rasch. vid. Doxosco. Phis. min [[Doxoscopiae physicae minores]] part. 2.s.1 Prooem[[ium]] Ass. 6. et Notas 7 [[F]].

Textura Hamata pt et gestricket od[[er]] geknüttet

dici Sinuosa.

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Weave [[Textile]] Without knots Weave

Straight Sinuous

Knotted, as a net and this {taxa}

[[separating line]]

Weave

With little knots Lace making

A sown ornamentation [[Decus sativa]], to weave The weavers, also the canvas weavers can also weave in emblems and various images [[make tapestry]] Sinuous, To knot, to knit With little knots, lace making [[Knüppeln]], {zenichen},36 lace making [[spitzen]] (thread with a needle. Basket-like, plaiting, thus to the court, bow nets chairs are woven. Of a ferr˜mentum37

[[separating line]] One weave is variegated or with figures [or decorated], the other is uniform. The variegated or common [[weave]], Drelwercken or damascene [[weave]], exhibiting flowers, animals, curvilinear figures Uniform [[weave]] is either similar or dissimilar on both sides Dissimilar, like atlas and velvet [[Sammitt]], Uniform and similar or simple, like woolen cloth or linen, a common linen sheet [[cloth; leinwandtuch]]. Cloth is different on one side, this comes from warping or combing. Of equal threads, or Of unequal threads, as atlas

gradated, like kersey, Rasch. see Doxoscopiae physicae minores part. 2.s.1 Prooemium Ass. 6., note 7 [[F]].38

Hooked weaving pt et knitted or knotted pt et [[can]] be called sinuous.

It might be that the word written here is zeichen, ‘to draw.’ Ferramentum designates an iron tool or implement, or a tool made of iron or shod with iron. 38 The digit ‘7’ can be also interpreted as the letter ‘F’. 36 37

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Group 10: This group contains mostly references to dictionaries (fols. 9r, 48r, 35r). It is not clear whether the order proposed here is indeed the order Jungius wound have intended to present. One should note also the last passage of fol. 57r (in Group 9), which is not included in this group but clearly deals with this topic, as it also refers to dictionaries. Note also that the left side of fol. 9r contains drawings of several twills which are discussed in the ‘geometrical’ theorems of Group 1, and hence are presented there.

9r [[right side:]] Brocada ist verblümet atlaß in Dittionario italico. Broccato, ex imbroccato riccio Sopra riccio ] textum basilicum. Attalicum Riccio

1. erinaceus: quadrupes it[[em]] {pisces} 3. echinus castonea 4. chi ha chi ha capelli terti, crispi, o maneli lati. Crispus cirratus.

Riccruto, i.e. aliquanto riccio ] crispulus, subscripus grograni non reperitur in diction. [[dictionario]] Philippi Venuti utitur tn [[tamen]] ea[[dem]] voce Guicciardinus in Belgio suo. grobgrün quomodo italis mocajari, ossette. Tripa, in Eumelii Nomenclat. Bubensammit vestis heteromalla lanea de trippe, de camois veloute [velutum è pilis camelinus] [[several words are scored through and hence undecipherable]] tripes omasum, intes intestina, tripior allantopola lex. Galli forsan tripa dr [[dicitur]] quod qd [[quod]] {Sammet} se dr [[dicitur]] sicut {Raldannen / Rallannen } geigen {gegen} feisch.

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189

Brocade is an atlas decorated with fowers In an Italian dictionary. Broccato, ex imbroccato riccio Soprariccio [[brocaded velvet textile; also termed as riccio sopra riccio]] ] woven royal robe. Attalicum39 Curly

1. of the hedgehog: quadruped, likewise {fish} 3. a hedgehog[[-like]] 4. which has [[washed?]], curled, or {maneli} hair, or wide [[broad]] curled fringed.

Riccruto, i.e. somewhat curly ] curly, somewhat curly of grogranus it is not found in the dictionary of Philippus Venutus, it is used, however, in the same language of [[Ludovicus]] Guicciardinus in his own Belgian [[tongue]]. Grobgrün just as in Italian mocajari [[and]] ossette. Tripa, in the nomenclature of Emelius Bubensammit [[Bubensammet]], a cloth with woolen Heteromalla From tripe, from camois veloute [[a velvet from camel, goat, or antelope hairs]] [[several words are scored through and hence undecipherable]] tripes, tripe [[omasum]], the intestine, tripior allantopola in the lexicon of the Galls, perhaps it is called tripa because velvet [[Sammet]] is defned just as {Raldannen/Rallannen} against the fesh.

Attalicum is another name for brocatelle, a rich fabric with brocade designs, knitted and woven with gold and silver threads. 39

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48r SERICAE TEXTURAE Diction. Belg. Taffet vulgo taffeta Gal. taffetas. Angl taffeta vestis bombycina, multitia, orum. Cartäke et taffeta an differant. doppeltaffet, quomodo distinguatur, num limbo. _____ Satin Belgis est atlass. At Eumelius in Nomencl. Satin harin kleid, licium. wabergeraiss licium julcos [[sulcus]]. Satyn vestis serica, Gal. Satin. in diction. Burschet, subsericum, satin d [[dicitur]] cypres. Eumelius ____ Velluto, drappo di seta, holosericum villosum. vello, pelo, lana lunga, vellus. Ita lexicon fac[[it]] Pergamini velluto peloso adj: ibid. [Ergo velluto suâ naturâ ê[[est]] adjectivum] e

aperta chiusa

in App[[endice]] Ormisino drappo di seta Raso drappo di seta.

Pergamini notario, notarius rasoro, rasorum novacula Ghiaja, i.e. glarea.

In Appendice Dictionarii Belgici Corn. Kiliani armasynen pannus sericus vulgo Ormurinus, ex Ormur insulâ primum allatus [ex alia scheda: Ormesino, Ormurino, armesino, ist taffeta] Caffa i.e. armeseijn, genus panni serici in dictionario kerseijn, karseijn, genus panni Borat genus panni serici (male [[materiale]]).

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191

Silk weaves [[From]] a Belgian dictionary Tafet, commonly tafeta, in Gal. [[Galician]] tafetas. English tafeta, silk clothing, multitia, orum.40 Cartäke and tafeta, whether they difer. Double tafeta, how it may be distinguished, whether [[it is]] with fringe [[a hem]]. ____ Belgian satin is atlas. But Emelius, in [[his]] nomenclature, [[calls]] satin men’s cloth [[harin Kleid]], thread. wabergeraiss [[calls]] thread sulcus. Satyn is a silk garment, Gal. [[in French]] Satin. in the dictionary Burschet, half silk, satin is called cypres. Eumelius ____ Draped velvet [[velluto drappo]] [[made]] of silk, rough whole silk. feece, hair [[fur]], long wool, wool. And so the lexicon gives shaggy feece of Pergamum, adj.: same. [Therefore feece by its very nature [[is]] an adjective]

from

open closed

in the appendix: Draped ormisino of silk Satin drape of silk

Pergamum a scribe [[note taker]] a razor, a sharp knife Ghiaja, that is, gravel

In the appendix of Cornelius Kilianus’s Belgian dictionary armasynen [[ormisino]] is a silk cloth, commonly [[called]] Ormurinus, having been frst brought from the island [[of ]] Ormur. [from other notes: Ormesino, Ormurino, armesino, is tafeta] Cafa, i.e. armeseijn, [[is]] a type of silk cloth Kerseijn, karseijn (is) a type of cloth. Borat [[is]] a type of silk cloth (material).

40

Multitia is another term for taffeta.

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35r Vide supra text. Fustagno garchet [[barchet]], veste di fustagno, vestis fustanica L. Vivi et dict. Ital. Venuti in lex. Belg: karsey panni genus. karseije, karseije Append. Corn. Kiliani Carsejas non habet Ludovicus Guicciardinus, cum alias texturae species plurimas nominet. Sajen neq[[ue]] in dictionario, neq[[ue]] in appendice Borat genus panni serici (male.) in Append. Dict. Belg. Kiliani in dictionario Drille Genus telae [drellwerck] Drille, tornus, verticillum, trepanum, terebrum, ital. trivello.

See the weave above. Fustian, Barchent, fustian cloth, vestis fustanica also [[in]] the Italian dictionary of L. Vivus of Venutus in the Belgian lexicon, a type of kersey cloth, karseije, karseije in the appendix of Cornelius Kilianus Ludovicus Guicciardinus does not have [[the term]] carsejas, although he names very many other types of weaving. Nor does Sajen [[appear]] in either his dictionary or appendix Borat [[is]] a type of silk cloth (male.) [[to be found]] in the appendix of the dictionary of the Belgian Kilianus. Drille [[drill, in this dictionary]] is a type of web [[weave]] [drellwerck] Drille, a turner’s wheel, the whorl of a spindle, a trepanum,41 an auger [[instrument for boring]], a trivello.42

In medieval Latin, a trepanum is a saw for cutting out small pieces of bone from the skull, from the Greek trypanon, ‘a borer, an auger, a carpenter’s tool, a surgeon’s trepan,’ from trypan, ‘to bore,’ related to trype, ‘hole.’ 42 Trivello is ‘drill’ in Italian. 41

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193

Group 11: The folios in this group (fols. 26r, 32r, 27r) are mainly the notes of Heinrich Sivers dated 1647; but they also contain notes by Jungius dated 1638 and 1641. All of these notes are probably collected from various separate sheets written by Jungius, which were then brought together in this group. This is seen for example already in fol. 26r, the folio which contains notes from 1638 and 1647. Note that the frst paragraph of fol. 26r (and only this section) is thematically linked to fol. 46r (see Group 14), both of which deal with “texturae imbricatae s. gradatae” (and are dated December 1638). The last section of fol. 29r (from Group 12), which also deals with “graded weave” and dated December 1638, also belongs to this group of pages.

26r TEXTURAE IMBRICATAE S. GRADATAE. Kirsey ist unterscheiden von tuch, daß es ein Kepper [[Köper, Köperbindungen]] hat, oder ist. ex alia scheda TEXTURA GRADATA Kirsey und rasch, beides ein 38. Decemb Keppergeweb, aber Kirsey ist dichter, rasch ist loser gewircket. ex alia scheda., ex rel. Henr. Siverti. 47. Jun. Rasch wird mit 4 Kemmen gewebet gemacht und 4 treden. /: Die Käte, oder das scherfell wird mit leimwasser gepappet: der Einschlag ist fett / /: :/ vr recentior scriptura. Wann es gewebet wird, so werden die wollen fädeme mit öhl, die leinen mit leimwasser geschmieret. Darnach seyn besondere leute, die das geschmier wieder herausbringen.

Tiled or graded weaves Kersey is distinguished from cloth in that it has or is a twill. from other notes, Graded weave [[16]]38 December Kersey and Rasch, both are twill weave, but kersey is denser, Rasch is more loosely woven.43 from other notes, from the notes of Heinrich Sivers; [[16]]47 June. Rasch is made woven with 4 heddles and 4 treadles. /: The warp, or the warp pelt, is glued with watered glue: the weft is [[glued with]] grease / /: :/ [[see]] the recent manuscript. When it is woven, the woven threads are lubricated with oil, the linen threads with watered glue. After that, there are special people who take out the grease again. In Leibniz’s copy the two lines starting “kersey and Rasch” and ending “more loosely woven” are immediately followed by the last part of fol. 29r, titled TEXTURA GRADATA: “Dicke Englisch baje ist dem weissen Kirsey sehr seer gleich, aber er ist nicht Kepper [Köper], sondern schlecht, wie Tuch.” (See LH 38, fol. 37r.) 43

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32r Ex relat[[ione]] Henr. Siverti 47. Jun. Wollen damasch wird von solcher wolle gemacht, wie rasch. alia scheda Damasch | die rechte seite, da die blumen graw scheinen oder glentzend und erhaben, das feld ist schwarz, wenn mans aufrecht helt, es sey A oder B oben, helt man aber C oder D oben, und das man oben helt als C, das helt man dem gesicht und fenstern oder licht näher als das D, das man unter helt, so werden die blumen schwarz, und das feld graw, aber die blumen bleiben erhaben. auf der andern seiten seyn die blumen schwarz, Es muss ein ganz Stück besehen werden, daß man wisse, was scherung und was einschlahg ist alia scheda TEXTURA VARIEGATA Pausias cum bovis longitudinem ostendere vellet, bovem adversum pinxit, non transversum. Plin. l. 35 c. II. hinc fla adversa {aut} transversa respectu visus et luminis. 1641 Aprilis In ducationibus .Venetis Leo S. M. adversus, in fustineis transversus exprimitur. Varro magnifcat Arcesilaum plasten. 35, 12. Plin. Tabulas exemplar, quod apographon vocant. Plin. l. 35. c. II. {Copej / Copei}

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From the notes of Heinrich Sivers [[16]]47 June Wool damask is made of such wool as Rasch. other notes Damask | the right side, since the fowers seem gray or shiny and sublime; the background is black if one holds it upright, let it be A or B above; but if one holds C or D above, and one holds it above as C, one holds it closer to the face and windows, or to the light, closer than D, that one holds below, so the fowers turn black, and the background gray, but the fowers remain sublime. On the other side, the fowers are black, a whole piece must be seen, so that one knows what is warp and what is weft. other notes: Variegated weaving When Pausias wanted to show the length of an ox, he painted the cow in an adverse position, not a transverse position [[he painted it with a front view and not sideways]]. Pliny book 35, chapter II. Here the thread [[is]] either adverse or transverse with respect to its visibility and the light. 1641 April Among Venetian dukes [[with regard to]] Leo, S. M., the adverse is described as the transverse in regard to fustian [[cloth]]. Varro values Arcesilaus [[with regard to]] the plastic arts. Pliny 35, 12. Tables and an exemplar which they call an apograph. Pliny book 35, chapter II. {copy}

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27r Sajenmacherarbeit rasch oder sajen, wird mit 4 kam, Fünffkam mit 5 Kamm gemachet, tritt ein fadem über mehr als zwej ex alia sceda: Ex relaoe [[relatione]] Henr. Siverti. 47. Jun. Fünffkamm ist die scherung linnen, und der einschlag wollen, hat auch ein Keper, wird besser gehalten als gemein rasch, denn dieser kan nicht zu Kläidung gebraucht werden, fünffkamm wird zu Kläidung gebraucht, ist glatter. ex eadem {prXXX iterum}44 Sajenmacherarbeit Wollen herren Saje hat man vorzeiten zu klei platen gebraucht, nun wird dafür wollen damasch gebraucht. Seiden herren Saje hat man vorzeiten zu Kleidern gebrauchet. Wann die Sajen macher das beste aus der wolle ausgelesen (das langhärichste) das übrige wird von den tuhchmachern verbraucht. expriori. Sajenmacherarbeit relat. Henr. Siv. Wollen herrn Saje wird von lammwoll Seiden herrn Saje die Kette von seiden, und einschlag wolle. der einschlag wird loser gesponnen, die scherung harter, die ist mehr gedreet, od[[er]] draller, idem Plato in Politico p. 544. 545

Hundes Koten parmi p. 368. arrische Haken, von Arraß.

Ossettae, semiossettae, mocajarri. Was für die Sajen d[[die]] wie atlas.

44

The erased letters are unreadable.

Wo von die niederlendische Söiden gemacht werden ob ihr grobgrün? Von barat borrat.

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The work of Saje makers Rasch or wool, is made with 4 combs [[heddles]], Fünfkamm [[fve-comb; fveheddle]] with 5 heddles; one thread passes over more than two other notes: From the notes of Heinrich Sivers [[16]]47 June Fünfkamm [[fve-heddle]] is the warping fax, and the weft wool, also has a twill, is kept better than Rasch in general, because this cannot be used for clothing; [[but]] fve-heddle is used for clothing, [[because it]] is smoother. from the same {again} work of wool makers Herrensayen from wool has been used in the past for clothing fat [[clothes]], now it is used for damask wool. Herrensayen from silk has been used for clothes in the past. When the wool makers have selected the best wool (the longest), the rest is consumed by the cloth makers. from the former. The work of wool makers from Heinrich Sivers Herrensayen from wool is [[made]] of lambswool. Herrensayen from silk, [[its]] warp is of silk, and weft of wool. The weft is spun more loosely, the warp more tightly , which is more twisted, or sturdier, idem Plato in Politico p. 544, 545 Hundekothe45 parmi p. 368. Arrassian hook, from Arras. Ossettae, semiossettae, mocajarri What for wool, which is as atlas.

45

Where from the Dutch silks are made, when they [[are]] Grobgrün? From Barat Borrat.

Literally ‘dog’s feces,’ Hundekothe is also a designation of a fabric from linen and wool.

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Group 12: This group contains notes taken from a report of a citizen of Liège (fols. 34r, 31r, 29r); it also contains a note by Jungius from December 1638 (see fol. 29r).

34r revisum est hoc foliu[[m]] et addita recen˜ori scriptura [[quae]] linealis interrup˜s hic signata sunt.

TEXTORIA

Ex rel [[relatione]] civis Leodiensis Hospitis Crispini Flugii.

So viel Kemme, so viel Klappen, oder fußtritte, oder Pedahlen, was mit zwo Kemmen et p[[er]] consequens mit zwo pedahlen gemacht wird, das ist, wie leinwand oder tuch, ohn[[e]] Kepper, oder treppen, Was mit 4, 6, 8 Kemmen gemacht wird, das hat Kepper oder treppen an beiden seiten, Was mit 3, od[[er]] 5 Kemmen et p[[er]] [[con]]seq[[uens]] Klappen gemacht wird, das hat Kepper nur an einer seiten [wie das?] NB inquirendum sicatera sparsim invenies cum nota rel. civ. Leod. Hic civis Leodiensis mihi comes in itinere Lubeca Rostochium. Von wollen gemacht gläntzet, leinen gläntzet nicht, Beyerwand ist halb wollen halb leinen.

this page has been revised, and to the more recent [[note]] have been added writings which have been marked here with interrupted [[underlined with dashed]] lines

On weaving From a report of the citizen of Liège, a guest of Crispinus Flugius.

So many heddles, so many faps [[Klappen]], or foot treadles [[fußtritte]], or treadles [[Pedahlen]], what is done with two heddles and per consequens with two treadles, that is, like canvas or cloth, without twill, or stairs, What is made with 4, 6, 8 heddles, that has twill or stairs on both sides, What is made with 3 or 5 heddles and per consequens faps, that has Kepper only on one side [how so?] Note this well: to be investigated you will fnd etc. here and there with the report of the citizen of Liège. This citizen of Liège was a companion of mine on the route from Lübeck to Rostock. [[What is]] made of wool shines; linen does not shine, Beyerwand [[Baje]] is half wool, half linen.

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31r [[left side:]] Sajenmacher haben den triepmachern übergeben, den fünfkam[m] zu machen, die haben darnach den Sajenmachern wehren wollen den vinfkam[m] zu machen, aber umbsonst. Ungefehrl. 60 sajenmacher sind zu Hamburg. [[right side:]] Textoria.

rel. civ. Leod.

Brückisch bohms[[e]]ide wird mit dreyen Kemmen geweben, auch mit fünffen, der wird aber gar dichte. NB. inq[ui]rendu[m] hat nur an einer seiten Kepper, NB. inq[ui]rendu[m] Boratt, ist viel subtieler und gläntzender, als brückisch boms[[e]]iden, hat auff beiden seiten Kepper, wird mit 4, auch mit 3 6, 8, auch mit 3, 5, Kemmen geweben, Boratt wird aus gar feiner wollen gemacht, und wird gar hart zugeschlagen, denn die pedahl seyn gar hart gespannen, und ist viel bley an dem ding damit man zuschlegt, der auf diesem getow arbeiten will, muß ein starcker Kerl seyn, denn sie müssen oft zuschlagen, daß ihnen das bluht aus den beinen springt.

[[left side:]] The Saje weavers [[Sajenmacher]] have handed over to the velvet weavers the [[task of ]] making [[a fabric with]] the fve heddles. They [[however]] then wanted to oppose the Saje weavers from making [[fabrics with]] the fve-heddled [[loom]] but in vain. There are about 60 Saje weavers in Hamburg. [[right side:]] Weaving.

A report of a citizen of Liège

Brückisch Bohemian silk is woven with three heddles, also with a ffth, but it becomes very dense. Note well: to be examined [[it]] has twill on one side only, note well: to be examined Boratt is much subtler and shinier than brückisch Bohemian silk, has on both sides twill, is woven with 4, also with 3 6, 8, also with 3, 5, heddles. Boratt is made of very fne wool, and is struck very hard, because the treadles [[pedals]] are stretched very hard, and there is a lot of lead on the thing to strike; [[hence the one]] who wants to work on this [[instrument]] must be a strong guy, because they often have to strike, such that the blood jumps out of their legs.

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29r rel. Civ. Leod. Grönen (Grofgrün) wird mit 2 Kemmen gewebet, aber die scherung ist gezwirnet, so kompt der draht hoch im weben, Es wird auch ein ahrt gemacht zu Leiden, heist, Leidisch-türckisch, ich gleub das sey derselbe Zeug der halb Kameelhaar, halb seiden ist. rel. civ. Leod. ex alia scheda Im Grobgrün gehen die striae überzwarch, nicht weil der einschlag gröber ist, sondern weil die fädeme des einschlages etwas weiter voneinander, als die fädeme der schärung, es seyn die fädeme des einschlages schier subtieler, denn die von der schärung alia scheda ex sub Tit. SERICAE TEXTURAE reposta Polymint, oder leidisch türkisch, wenn mans ausfaset, so befnden sich die fädeme des schärsels voll Krümmen oder falten, aber der einschlag ohn[e] Krümmen, draus abzunehmen, d[as]s der einschlag härter und steiffer, weil ihm das schärsel weichet, wo es nicht aus der manier des webens herkompt. ex scheda: TEXTURA GRADATA 38 Decembr[is] Dicke Englisch baje ist dem weissen Kirsey sehr seer gleich, aber er ist nicht Kepper, sondern schlecht, wie Tuch.46

These three last lines, under the heading “TEXTURA GRADATA,” are to be found in the Leibniz copy immediately after the part from fol. 26r dealing with the same topic. 46

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

201

A report of a citizen of Liège Grönen (Grobgrün) is woven with 2 heddles, but the warp is twisted, so the wire [[Draht]] comes up in the weaving, There is also a kind of [[this fabric]] made to [[in]] Leiden, called leidisch-türckisch; I think that is the same stuf that is half camel hair, half silk. rel. civ. Leod. from other notes In the Grobgrün, the striae [[furrows]] go across, not because the weft is coarser but because the threads of the weft are slightly farther apart than the threads of the warp; it is the threads of the weft that are almost subtler than those of the warp. other notes under the title: Of silk weaving remote Polymint, or leidisch [[from Leiden]] türkish, when one frays it,47 the threads of the warp48 are full of bends or folds, but the weft without bends, from which it can be deduced that the weft is harder and stifer, because the warp softens it, where it does not come from the manner of weaving. other notes: Gradated weave [[16]]38 December Thick English Bayen is very similar to the white kersey, but it is not twill, but [[of ]] bad [[quality]], like cloth.

That is, pulls out or plucks out the threads, making the fabric fringed. Jungius uses the word Schärsel for ‘warp,’ that is Schär with the suffx -sel. In his notes Jungius uses more often other terms, such as Schärung or Scherung. 47 48

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Group 13: This group consists of two folios (fols. 28r and 13r) containing refections on pressing cloth and on Meßing.

28r kalte presse ist für Tuech besser als die warme, mus[[s]] aber lenger drin stehen. Wenns regnet, bleiben die fekken auf dem Tuech so in warmer presse gepreßet. es werden pappapieren zwischen eingelegt. die warme presse wird gehitzet mit kohlfeuer. D[as] kupferne blat mus[[s]] so heiß sein, d[[ass]], wie ich dran speie, es zische. Drauf werden pappenp. 3, od[er] 4 {brenner} genant, die werden naß gemacht. Messingmutter in Eisen ist die beste Schraube. In Engel. haben sie Eiserne mutter in Eisen, d[[as]] feiße, nun geht sanfter. werden hieher gebracht. Die Mutter von Meßing kommen aus Holland kostet 50 Rp. Die Eiserne Schrauben wird verkauft pfunden 12 f [Gulden] das Pf [[Pfund]]

cold press is better for cloth than the warm, but must stand longer in it. When it rains, the stains remain on the cloth, so [[it should be]] pressed in warm press. Cardboards [[paste-boards]] are inserted between. The warm press is heated with coal fre. The copper sheet must be so hot, so that, when I spit on it, it hisses. On it pasteboard 3 or 4 [[plates]] called {Brenner}, which are made wet. Brass nut in iron is the best screw. In England they have iron nut in iron, which fows, which now goes more smoothly. [[They]] are brought here. The brass nuts from come from Holland, costs 50 rp. The iron screws [[are]] sold for 12 f [guilders] the pound

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

203

13r D[er] ohfe, darin Meßing bereitet wird, muß nimmer kalt werden. Des Sonnabends nachts u. Son[[n]]tags mittags gieße sie nicht in {Premus / Kremus} {mulen / mülen}, sonst allezeit. Wenn sie nicht gießen, machen sie die {löcher} etwas zu.

The furnace, in which brass is prepared, must never get cold. On Saturdays at night and Sundays at noon, do not pour {for the frst times}; otherwise do it all the time. When you do not pour, then close the {holes} a little.

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Group 14: The folios in this group (3r, 3v, 14r, 21r, 30r, 41r, 41v, 46r, 49r, 50r, 51r, 52r, 55r, and 59r) could not be classifed into other groups, as they do not deal with themes that are similar to those appearing in these other groups. Hence they are collected here, as each folio deals with a distinct subject. Note that fol. 46r is dated December 1638 and December 1639.

3r Schiertuech wird fon Neßels {Dörten/Dörner} waksend gewirkt. Joan. Cuno Hoffarts {Casten} p. 89.49

The [[duck]] cloth is done with {the thorns of } Urtica dioica [[nettle]] with wax. [[See]] Johannes Cuno’s Hofarts {Casten} p. 89.

49 The reverse side of fol. 3r (i.e. fol. 3v) contains several calculations: 26·8 (being 208), 208 – 80 (being 128), and “128 – 7 – 14 rp.”

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

205

14r Cairi oes [[omnes]] ta [[tam]] viri qui Fciars [[foeminæ]], ta [[tam]] nobiles q [[quam]] ign [[ignobiles]]. Barracano seu Fragto [[fragmento]] q. [[quodam]] lanea ma–a [[materiae]] inconsuitili , quod illis p [[pro]] pallio inservit , utuntur. Fciars [[foeminarum]] tn. [[tamen]] Barracana laxiora, fuxioraque st [[sunt]]. Gab. Sion et Joan. Hesron. d [[dicunt]] nonn. [[nonnullus]] or. urb. c. 9 fn.

All men as well as women of Cairo, and nobles as well as non-nobles, use barracan or a certain seamless [[inconsutili]] fragment of wool material, because it serves them for their cloaks. However, the barracan for women is looser and more fowing. Gabriel Sionita and Joannes Hesronita say [[regarding]] some or. [[oratio; speech]] urb. [[urbis; of the city]] from the end of chapter 9.

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21r Daniel le cont Siedenreder (i. seiden beräiter) Die Seiden beräiter verdienen oft mehr als die Kaufeute die mit Seide handeln, das ist, welche die Seide aus Italien bringen lassen. Sammetmacher bejm roden Sode {Seide} hinder dem Venusberge, der machet auch Caffa.

Daniel the count, the speaker of silk (silk consultant). The silk consultants often earn more than the merchants who trade with silk, that is, who have the silk brought from Italy. The silk maker at [[of ]] the red turf {silk}, behind on the Venus Mountain, also makes Cafa.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

207

30r RECAMATORES Seidensticker Teppichmacher Pictores aequalitatem luminis desiderant item {et} q [[qui]] acu pingunt, sive simpliciter sive tomento confarciant, ut ii sunt, quos recamatores et imbotitores nominamus, quos Latini plumarios vocant: et ii qui in Flandria mantilia texunt, et aulaea, quos alazos [[Arazos]] dicunt, desiderant n [[enim]] aequalitatem luminis et constantiam ut verè quod verum est, imitent[[ur]], quare eorum offcinae vel texturae ad septentrionem vergere debent. [Textores proprie dicti non videntur luminis aequalitatem adeo desiderare, denn was ihnen die Kemme geben, das weben sie.] alia scheda teppichmacher Die Teppichmacher ligen aufm rücken wenn sie arbeiten, und haben das tuhch oder gewebe oben sich, wenn drin sie wircken.

Embroiderers, silk embroiders carpet makers Painters [[illustrators]] wanted an evenness of light, and likewise also those who design with a needle [[i.e. by sewing]], whether they press [[confarciant]] [[the weave]] together simply or by compressing, as these are those which we call embroiderers and imbotitores,50 whom the Latins call feather-stitchers; and those who weave in Flanders towels [[napkins]] and tapestries which they call Arazos, they do indeed desire an evenness and a constancy of light, with the result that, as indeed it is true, they may be imitated, whereby their workshops and weaves ought to face toward the north [[septentrionem]]. [Those appropriately called weavers do not seem to desire an evenness of light for this reason: for what the combs [[heddles]] give them, they weave.] other notes: carpet makers The carpet makers lie on their backs when they work, and have the cloth or fabric up above them when they are weaving [[knitting, working]] inside.51

Imbotitores, which designates a special type of weaver, may originate from Italian or, more exactly, from the Italian verb imbottire (‘to stuff, to fll’); the noun imbottitura designates, among other things, either a material of an appropriate consistency or elasticity inserted into the gap between, for example, two fabrics in order to impart a quality of comfort or functionality, or the weft that is inserted into double fabrics to increase their weight. 51 The verb here is wircken, or in modern German wirken, which can also be translated as ‘warp knitting.’ 50

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41r [[What are the fabrics, designated by several words in this folio, remains sometimes unclear. When this is the case, the words have been left (in the translation) in the original, but italicized.]] Genueser taf. [[tafetta]] Korde[n] taf Seegrün taf Swarz Kaffa (Kafhahr qda [[quidam]] scripsciat) ungeschoren Swarz Settin:

Düfel im Busch (ist Swarz und Grün).

Türkisch grobgrün. Kosiant (roht, grün)

Armesiede geblömt armes. Ital. tobien: 2 ellen brait.

Karleh Kersei Karmesin Kersei oferkieker.

Swarz Perpetuahl. frael Wullen Dammasch

Kronensaje. Frisade (swarz) Harren Saie leidischer Herr[[ensayen]] {Baje} Rasch. Kronenrasch. Bökwahl. Ulmer Parchen Betparchen {Foßein/Costein} Flokfrensen fllesel (fein, grob)

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

Tafeta from Genova Tafeta from cords [[corduroy]] Sea-green tafeta Black Kafa (some people write Kafhahr) unshorn Black satin: Armesiede fowered sleeves. In Italian tobien: width of 2 cubits.

Karleh Kersey Crimson kersey Oferkieker.

Black Pepetuan Frael Woolen damask

52

This might refer to Bockwoll – ram wool.

209

Düfel [[as]] in the bush (is black and green).

Turkish Grobgrün Cosiant (red, green) Kronensaje Fresaden (black) Herrensayen Herrensayen from Leiden {Baje} [[Bayen]] Rasch. Kronenrasch. Bökwahl.52 Barchet from Ulm Barchet for the bed {Foßein/Costein} Flock of fringes string (subtle, coarse)

210

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41v [[the following two lines are scored through:]] Et obstruit {ini stiqum} 1654, 18 May Et idem 27, 28, 30 ms [[May]].

And it obstructed {ini stiqum} 18 May, 1654 And the same for 27, 28, 30 May.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

46r

211

212

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

TEXTURAE IMBRICATAE Sive GRADATAE treppenechtig gewebe Daß einen Kepper [Köper] hat Kepper (der nahm[[e]] kompt von tritt) nennen die weber und schneider, wenn ein faden zween fäden decket, doch also daß der nechste nur einen von den gedeckten dr[[dicitur]] imbricata ob similitudinem cum structura imbricate 38 December Structura laterum imbricata, qua unus later duobus invehitur. Plin. 1. {13}. C. 43. gradatis corticum pollicibus. Plin. Jun. ep. 101. maceriam gradata buxus aperit. Gradata vel

aequabilis inaequabilis

TEXTURA GRADATA INAEQUABILIS in hac pag. [[pagina]] staminis flum quodvis bina fla subtegminis: subtegminis verò quodvis flum transcendit53 singula staminis: in altera pagina subtegminis flum tegit bina fla staminis, et flum staminis singula subtegminis NB 1639. Dec[[ember]] Stamen / Subtegmen

53

The verb transcendit is written above the word flum and the following word, singula.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

213

Tiled [[overlapping]] or gradated weavings Stair-wise fabric That has a twill. Twill (the name comes from treadle) is what weavers and tailors call it when one thread covers two threads, but so that the next one covers only one of the [[these two]] threads. it is called imbricata on account of its similarity with tiled structures [[16]]38 December A tiled structure of the sides [[is one]] in which one tile is brought into [[i.e. inserted into]] two [[other tiles]]. Pliny, 1. {13}, chapter 43: bark with gradated [[with steps]] knobs [[stumps]]. Pliny the Younger. Letter 101, a gradated boxwood tree covers a maceria.54 Gradated

either equal gradation or unequal gradation A gradated weave unequally

on this side any thread of the warp crosses over two weft threads at a time: but any thread of the weft crosses over only one thread at a time of the warp; on the other side the thread of the weft covers two threads at a time [[of the warp]], and the thread of the warp [[covers]] only one thread at a time of the weft Note well [[NB]] 1639 December weft/warp

Maceria in Latin designates a brick or stone wall; so Jungius (and Pliny the Younger) may mean here the pattern of a stone wall. 54

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49r TEXTURAE PICTAE unicolores vel

figuris rectangulis picta figuris curvilineis

multicolores [[pale and smeared:]] TEXT Recamatores seidensticker teppichmacher dicti et imbotitores, Latinis plumarii Qui Flandrica mantilia texunt, et {aula} quos alaros [[alazos]] dicunt.

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

215

Painted [[colored]] weavings one-colored

colored with rectangular shapes bright

or

with curvilinear shapes multicolored

lively

[[pale and smeared:]] {Weavers} Embroiderers, silk weavers, carpet makers, are also called imbotitores, in Latin plumarii [[those who embroider with feathers]] Those who weave towels [[napkins, tablecloths]] of the type in Flanders, and at court those whom they call alaros.

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50r TEXTURA Textura mihi dicatur alia recta

recta sinuosa

Recta quae ft è stamine et subtemine. Sinuosa ({gestrickt}, . italic Scutulata textura Plinii 1.8, c. 48 vel est nostra sinuosa, in hac n. [[nostrae]] virgae apparent et scutula. Scutulatam vero suam etiam virgatam vocant Veleres.

Scutulata textura aranearum maxime proprie dicitur, quamvis proprie non sit textura. fla n. non alternantur situ, aut implicant[[ur]], sed affnguntur. Araneus n. [[non]] in eadem, semper plaga manet.

[[separating line]] TESSELLATUM pavimentum, gewürffel, mit gewürffelten vierecken steinen (rautecht, oder das die spitzen der steine gegen den seiten des Estrichs gekehret seyn) Tesselatus pannus, tesselata textura, rautecht [[rautenförmig]], würffelecht [[würfelig]], wie rauten Damas. Hamatiliarius posset dici ein Stricker oder Knüttel, ut Coactiliarius, qui coactilia parat, ita hic quia hamatiles texturas facit, Ex. 28 et 1. Reg. 17.

Textura catenata, hamata vel hamatilis, ἁλυσίδετος pro quo alii legunt ἁλυσίδετος, quod extat apud Hesych. ἅλυσις, ἁλύσεως. Hamatilis piscatura Plauto, q [[qui]] hamis ft, o [[oportet]] retibus. | Ex. 28, 24 per catena. maske, masche καὶ θώρακα ἁλυσιδωτόν          | 1.1 Reg. c. 17, v. 5. aske, asche rectius asche. αὐτὸς ἐνδεδυκὼς, καὶ ὁ σταθμὸς τοῦ θώρακος αὐτοῦ πέντε χιλιάδων σίκλων χαλκου καὶ σιδηρου. loricam hamatam indutus

217

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

Weaving Another weaving may be called by me straight

[[either]] straight [[or]] sinuous

Straight [[weaving]] which comes from the warp and the weft. Sinuous [[weaving]] (knitted, Italian A checkered [[mail]] weaving – [[see]] Pliny, 1.8, chapter 48 – is actually our sinuous weaving; in this [[weave]] our twigs [[rods, stripes]] and diamond shape appear. But the sail makers [[silk weavers]] also call their own checkered weave striped. Checkered weave is very rightly called a weaving of spiders, although, in a strict sense, [[a spider’s web]] is not a weave. The [[spider’s]] threads do not alternate in [[their]] position, nor are they entwined, but [[rather]] they are fashioned together. A spider’s web is not in the same [[arrangement in that]] the net [[web]] always remains. [[separating line]] Small square tiling, cubed, with cubed squared stones (diamond-shaped or so that the tops of the stones are turned against the sides of the Estrich55). Tessellated cloth, tessellated weaving, diamond-shaped, cubic, like diamond damask. A hook [[weaver]] can be called a knitter [[Stricker]] or a knot maker [[Knüttel]]; just as a felt maker, who provides felt, so too [[is]] this one, because he makes hooked weaves, [[see]] Exodus 28 and 1 Kings 17. Catenated [[chained]] weaving, hooked or by hook, [[in Greek]] bound with chains, in support of which, others say bound with chains, which comes from Hesychius [[from the Greek noun]] – chain. Hooked fshing [[is]] in Plautus, who provides the word hamis [[with hooks]], rightly with nets. | See Exodus 28, 24 regarding a chain. mesh and a breastplate wrought in a chain fashion [[in chains]] | See 1 Kings, chapter 17, 5. {Aske, Asche} more properly {Asche} [[dust]]. He himself, having put on the [[full]] weight [[σταθμός]] of his breastplate of 5000 little pieces of bronze [[copper]], iron. Having been clothed in a hooked breastplate

It may be that Jungius here is referring to the form of a stoned foor (i.e. a foor tiled with diamond-shaped stones), as Estrich means ‘screed.’ 55

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51r Text. Vielheit der Stöcke gibt die lenge des leinwandes. 2 Stöcke aufen rahmen machen ein stiege (20 elen) In der scherung sind 20 Spolen, ergo 20 fadem. Die Vielheit der genge gibt die breite des leinwands. 36 genge muß dar sein in der schärung. 40 fedem in einem gange 45 1800 fedem in d[[er]] gantzen breite.

36 geng 40 1440.

Parchet, daran ist der aufzug oder die schärung leinen, der einschlag wollen, aber von baumwoll nicht von schaafwoll, denn der fadem ist gar subtiel. Die egge, das ist die lenge des gewebes, oder gewandes. ita partim ipse obsesuavi, partim refer. sartores Weaving The number of sticks [[pegs]] gives the length of the fabric. 2 sticks on a frame make one unit [[Stiege]] (20 cubits [[ells]]). In the warp there are 20 reels [[bobbins]], ergo 20 threads. The number of the warp threads [[Gänge]] gives the width of the fabric. There must be 36 such [[bundles of ]] warp threads in the warping. 40 threads for each bundle 36 windings 45 40 1800 threads in [[for]] the entire width 1440. Barchent [[Parchet]], for it the warp [[Aufzug]] or the warp [[Schärung]] is of linen, the weft [[of ]] wool, but of cotton not of sheep’s wool, because the thread is quite subtle. The Egge, that is the length of the fabric, or garment. Thus I have observed sometimes in person, sometimes tailors [[sartores]] [[were]] reporting

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

219

52r PANNIFICIUM tuhchmacher werden vom gemeinen gesindlein schmalzratten genant, denn sie brauchen schmalz von selbstgestorbenen schweinen, und ander fette, die wulle damit zu schmieren, wenn sie das tuhch weben, so besprengen sie es oft mit Urihn, haben ein gefäss mit menschenurihn bey sich, und einen quast. Wandbereiter 1. in Wasser gelegen 2. Karten sie es mit den Kartendiesteln, das nennen sie rugen. (die Wulle wird aus den diesteln ausgestochen, und den fltern oder Huhtmachern verkaufft. 3. Darnach wird es beschoren mit einer grossen scheer, mit einer feder die von sich selbest aufgehet Hae praeparationes aliquoties repetuntur. Defoccatus pannus i.e. detritus

Cloth making Cloth makers are called lard rats by the common folk, because they need lard from self-dead pigs, and other fats, to lubricate the wool with; when they weave the cloth, they often sprinkle it with urine, have a vessel with human urine with them, and a wide brush. Preparation [[making]] of a cloth 1. placed in water 2. Card it with card teasels, they call it Rugen. (the wool is cut out from the teasels, and sold to the flter [[felt]] or hat makers. 3. Then it is sheared with a large pair of scissors, with a feather [[thread]] that unravels by itself Several of these preparations are repeated. Bald [[shorn, rubbed]] cloth, i.e. worn out

220

55r

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The Translation of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

3.2 The Translation of Texturæ Contemplatio

221

Textoria Kam Einschlag schlauff vel

schlauff

pedahl [[separating line]] Ein Zwele est surcula lignea, damit scheid[[en]] sie die scheringe in obersten parallehl darnach scheiden sie dieselbe gleicher gestalt unten an den holzen nägeln des ramen. Diese beide scheidung geschehen damit [[above the line: sie]] darnach den Kam recht brauchen, oder darein stecken mügen.

Weft

On weaving

Heddle loop

treadle

or

loop56

[[separating line]] A branch is a wooden twig; with this, one separates parallel-wise the warp on the top [[branch]]; then one separates according to the same shape below on the wooden nails of the frame. These two separations are done so that they can then use the comb [[reed]] properly or can [[be]] put in it.

What is meant here is, in today’s German, a Schlaufe: the loop of one of the threads of the warp around one of the heddles.

56

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59r Textores Textores etiam {A}, die fransenmacher gebrauchen ein holz, wie ein gletholz, (da man d[[as]] papier mit faltet) über welches sie die faden bringen von spuelen durch kleine eiserne löcher geführet. Die faden werden aufgesnitten auf dem gletholz, welches an dem langen ende eine rönne hat, da die faden hineingehen, d[[ass]] man mit den meßer sie aufsneiden kan.

Weavers Indeed weavers, the fringe makers use a [[piece of ]] wood, like a smoothing wood (since one folds the paper with [[it]]), over which they bring the threads from the spools, which are led through small iron holes. The threads are cut on the smoothing wood, which has a groove at the long end where the threads go in, so that one can cut them with the knife.

3.3

Appendix: Glossary of German and Latin textile-related terms

223

3.3 Appendix: Glossary of German and Latin textile-related terms This appendix contains numerous weaving and textile-related terms and fabric names, most of them of which appear in Texturæ Contemplatio. (I) Basic terms Einschlag (Lat. subtegmen, trama): weft. Also spelled as einschlahg in Texturæ Contemplatio. The term trama appears only in fols. 15r and 16r, both written in January 1640 and belonging to the same group of folios. Aufzug, Scherung, Schärung, Schärsel, Kette, Käte, Zettel (Lat. stamen): warp. Jungius uses also the Latin term tela to denote both the warp (fol. 19r) and the weave or fabric (see the various folios of Group 1, and fol. 35r). sulca, sulcale, sulcus (stria), porca, porcus (striga): a set of terms which Jungius himself probably invented, signifying the shape of the threads involved in velvet weaving (see Sect. 4.3). The term sulcus means a furrow made by a plow and is employed in a transferred sense, whereas sulcale is the derived adjective. The term the porca means in this context the ridge between two furrows. (II) Particular terms A Armesiede: a fabric used, among other things, for aprons. See (Schmidt 1962: 218). Atlas: atlas, a type of a textile weave in which most of the warp threads are found on one face of the cloth, and most of the weft threads on the other. As Hilts notes, the fabric damask “is often made with a 5-shaft Atlas interlacement.” (Hilts 1990: 82) See the fgure below.

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A schematic drawing of atlas weave, where one weft thread goes under four warp threads.

B Bayen, Baje: a fabric with a plain weave (Tidow 2007: 67). Barchent, Parchet: fustian. “A fne thickly beaten twill cloth with a linen warp and a cotton weft. Finished by being napped and rubbed with pumice.” (Hilts 1990: 82) Tidow (1992: 247) notes that, in the south of Germany during the late Middle Ages, this designated a mixed 3/1 twill made from linen and cotton. Bild: “In treadle-loom weaving, the tie-up for a hin-und-wieder pattern,” meaning a certain order of pressing the treadles. “In drawloom weaving, a point paper design.” (Hilts 1990: 82) Jungius uses the term Bild only once (fol. 58r), but not to designate a tie-up, but rather in the sense of bilder einweben, that is, tapestry weaving with a drawloom. Blatt: in the 17th century, according to Hilts (1990: 82), a reed; in the nontechnical sense, a leaf. Rather than Blatt, however, Jungius uses the term pagina (which may also mean ‘leaf’) in the sense of a particular side of the fabric. Moreover, as the reed resembles a comb, it is important to note that Jungius uses the term Kam (or Kamm, plural Kemmen, i.e. ‘comb’) in the sense of a heddle not a reed.

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Boden: in treadle-loom weaving, according to Hilts, “a tie-up that determines a weave structure: most often used to denote tie-ups for gebrochene twills and for block pattens. In drawloom weaving, ‘Boden’ denotes the weave structure formed by the front harness of a drawloom with a compound mounting.” (Hilts 1990: 82) Rather than Boden, Jungius uses the term Grund, which also means ‘ground’ or ‘base.’ However, he uses it in several folios with various meanings, but only on fol. 23r does Jungius note: “Flowered samite has more threads and also a different Grund than Kaffa.” Here Jungius uses the term in the sense of Boden. Bomsin, Bomosin, türckische Bomosin: “A cloth woven in 5-shaft satin. Bomosin has a fne worsted warp and a fne woolen weft and is fulled slightly in fnishing. Originally a silk stuff used for linings, but later made from silk and wool, from silk and camel hair, or from all wool.” (Hilts 1990: 82; Heiden 1904: 94) Jungius refers to this fabric as “bommasin” in fol. 19r. Burat, Barat, Borat, Boratt: “A light weight singles woolen woven in a basket weave. Later, a light weight stuff woven from silk waste yarn and worsted yarn, made in France” (Heiden 1904: 104); according to Tidow (2010: 64), a fabric with a 2/2 twill. Burschet: “A cloth woven in 5-shaft satin. The warp is worsted with a fairly close sett, approximately 33 to 40 ends per inch, and the weft is a fne woolen yarn.” (Hilts 1990: 83) D damask: a woven fabric with a contrast in texture that allows the image (e.g. a pattern of fruits, fowers, or other designs) to be brought out. These fabrics, woven on drawlooms, are often monochromatic in order to highlight the pattern. The drawloom, in contrast to simple treadle looms, allows various different heddles to be lifted for each passing of the weft thread. Jungius mentions damask several times in Texturæ Contemplatio. Drill: drill. “A fne thickly beaten twill cloth with a linen warp and a cotton weft, similar to Barchent, but entered like a Dornick twill. Not to be confused with drell, used by other authors to denote various block-pattern cloths.” (Hilts 1990: 83) Jungius uses Drell (fol. 35r, 58r) and Drel as well as Drill and Drille. Düffel, Düfel (also Tüffel): a ragged, coarse wool fabric or a thick wool cloth.

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E Elle, ell: a measure of length usually ranging between 26 and 27 inches (66 cm and 68.6 cm). Jungius uses the term ‘ell’ several times, although it is not clear how many centimeters he considered this measure to be. Tidow notes that in Hamburg an ell (known as the ‘Hamburger Elle’) was 57.3 cm (Tidow 1978: 30). F Fresaden, Frisade: a woolen fabric with a 1/1 weave (Tidow 2010: 70). G Grobgran, Grobgrün: according to Hilts, a fabric “woven in a 4-shaft satin and made from washed and dyed yarn; it requires little fnishing. An old type of Grobgran was heavy and thick, with a two-ply warp and a three- to six-ply weft, often made from goat hair, wool, or camel hair.” (Hilts 1990: 83) Grund: Jungius uses this term the signify to signify usually the tie-up; the term means also the ‘ground’ or ‘base.’ See also Boden. H Heren Soy, Herrensayen: according to Hilts, a fabric “similar to Saye with a fne two-ply [2/2 twill] worsted warp and a woolen weft. Heren Soy is a fairly light weight cloth, woven in the grease, then washed, but not fulled. Later, a light weight twill cloth made from hard twisted worsted.” (Hilts 1990: 85) Hundekothe: a fabric from linen and wool (i.e. a Mischgewebe) with a 3/1 twill; the term appears, for example, in the Lüneburger Musterkarte from 1678 (as do various other fabrics which appear in the translation). See (Tidow 2010: 70). K Kaffa, Kaffhahr, Caffa, Caffard: in 17th-century Germany, and especially in Hamburg and Lübeck, a foral-patterned plush or velvet with a silk warp and woolen weft. See (Meier, Ruge 2000: 911; Tidow 2010: 64). Kakfhahr is also spelled as Kafhahr. Kamm, Kam: literally ‘comb,’ but used by Jungius to denote the (various) heddle(s), and not the reed, as one could think.

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Kepper, Keper, Köper, Köperbindungen: twill – which, along with plain weave (1/1 twill) and satin, is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves (see for example Fig. 3.1). It is made by passing the weft thread over one or more warp threads then under two or more warp threads. Kersey, Kersei, Kirsey: kersey. A coarse woolen cloth with a 2/2 twill (Tidow 1978: 27). See the fgure below. The name might derive from the Suffolk village (Kersey) where it may have originated.

A schematic drawing of a 2/2 twill.

knüppeln: according to the Grimm dictionary, in the north of Germany, meaning bobbin lacing (“spitzenklöppeln, daher knuppeln, knüppeln, klöppeln [...].”57) Kölsch: “An all-linen cloth with a white warp and a blue weft, usually woven in complex twill pattens. Some Kölsch was also woven with blue stripes in the warp, and white stripes in the weft. Later a blue resist printed cotton.” (Hilts 1990: 85) While Jungius does not use this term, he was certainly aware of it, as it appears in a passage in book 3 of Cosmographia: Beschreibung aller Lender durch Sebastianum Munsterum (1544) by Sebastian Münster which Jungius partially copied (see fol. 19r). Kosiant, Cosiant: a kind of English camlet (which might have originally been made of camel or goat’s hair) with a foral pattern. See (Jünemann 1852: 57).

See the entry for Knüppeln in the Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm: https://www.woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB?lemid=K09551, accessed on 23.08.2021. 57

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L Laken: a fabric with a 1/1 twill. Leim glue used for warp dressing or seizing (Hilts 1990: 85). Jungius uses the term Leimwasser. P pagina: Jungius employs this term in the sense of a particular side of the fabric. Means also ‘leaf’. See also Blatt. R Rasch: a fabric with a 2/2 twill, whereas Cronrasch (or Kronenrasch) is a fabric with a 1/1 plain weave (Tidow 1992: 262). rassa, raxie: in Italy, a medium-quality woolen cloth which was assimilated to panni bassi (low- and medium-quality cloths) rather than panni alti (high-quality cloths). These cloths spread during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when European fashion introduced new (lighter) fabrics in order to imitate silk. Rohr: “Any material used for making the teeth of a loom reed, and also the tooth of the loom reed itself. Occasionally used to mean the entire loom reed. In a nontechnical sense, Rohr refers to the reed plant.” (Hilts 1990: 85) Rather than Rohr, Jungius uses the term Zohrs, which in some contexts may also designate a reed. S Sajen, Soy, Say: a fabric with a 2/2 twill (Tidow 2010: 64); Say is made of a mix of wool and linen, silk, or cotton. Samt, Sammet, Sammit, Samite: samite, a luxurious and heavy silk fabric. spicatus, -a, -um: a Latin adjective meaning ‘spiked’ used by Jungius to describe the appearance of a knitted fabric (see the fgures below). The obtained fabric, knitted with a method which is now called ‘stocking stitch’ (Emery 2009: 40), has a ‘V’ pattern – see fgure (a) below, that is, a herringbone pattern (in today’s German Fischgrät or Fischgrätmuster), which may be the reason why Jungius called it spicatus; see Fig. 3.2. The reverse side has a bar pattern, which Jungius terms ‘stones in a wall’, as can be seen in fgure (b) below (see Group 8).

Bibliography

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(a) The smooth side of a knitted fabric. (b) The reverse side of (a).

T taffeta: in the 14th century, a plain, silk fabric; later, a thin, glossy silk with a wavy luster. Tripe, Trip: a fabric made of, among other things, wool, which imitated velvet. Tuch: either a fabric structure, as in plain weave, or a fulled wool cloth, or a garment made from such cloth. Z Zohrs: see Rohr. Also spelled as Zohrß in Texturæ Contemplatio. zwerch, zwerche: an adjective meaning ‘measured according to the width,’ but also possibly ‘across, crosswise or diagonal’ (Hilts 1990: 88).

Bibliography Emery, Irene. 2009. The Primary Structures of Fabrics. Washington: Thames & Hudson. Heiden, Max. 1904. Handwörterbuch der Textilkunde aller Zeiten und Völker. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke. Hilts, Patricia. 1990. The Weavers Art Revealed: Facsimile, Translation and Study of the First Two Published Books on Weaving: Marx Ziegler’s Weber Kunst und Bild Buch (1677) and Nathaniel Lumscher’s Neu eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch (1708). Part I: Marx Ziegler’s Weber Kunst und Bild Buch. Ars Textrina, 13. Jünemann, Friedrich. 1852. Reichhaltigstes und wohlfeilstes Universal-Waren-Lexikon. Leipzig, Vienna: Dorfmeister.

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Meier, Jürgen, and Jürgen Ruge. 2000. Hamburgisches Wörterbuch: Auf Grund der Vorarbeiten von Christoph Walther und Agathe Lasch, vol. 2, F – K. Neumünster: Wachholtz. Schmidt, Maria. 1962. Bürgerliche Frauenkleidung in Münster (1500-1750). Rheinischwestfälische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 9: 200–233. Tidow, Klaus. 1978. Die Wollweberei im 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Neumünster: Wachholtz. ———. 1992. Die spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Wollgewebe und andere Textilfunde aus Lübeck. In Untersuchungen zu Bau- und Kulturgeschichte Lübecks, 237–271. Bonn: Habelt. ———. 2007. Die Lüneburger Musterkarten von 1678. Denkmalpfege in Lüneburg: 67–73. ———. 2010. Tuche, Zeuge und andere Wollgewebe aus dem nördlichen Mitteleuropa: ein Beitrag über die textiltechnischen Veränderungen vom späten 11. bis in das frühe 19. Jh. Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae 23: 61–71.

Chapter 4

On Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Abstract This chapter investigates Texturæ Contemplatio from various points of view. Starting with an examination of the order of Texturæ Contemplatio, the main two axes of this chapter present, on the one hand, Jungius’ geometrical-scientifc refections on and empirical investigations of textiles and texture, and explain, on the other hand, his various encounters with artisans and accounts of artisanal practices. Having discussed these various points of view, the chapter offers to view Texturæ Contemplatio as a rhizomatic and at the same time precarious text. This is not only because it was edited, copied and incorporated citations from various sources, though never offcially published, but also because of the nature of Jungius’ own observations; in this sense, the question arises whether Texturæ Contemplatio can or even should be considered a ‘meeting’ or even a ‘trading zone’ between natural philosophy, mathematics and textile practices.

Having presented the transcription and the translation of Texturæ Contemplatio in Chap. 3, one may ask how the abundance of information presented in this manuscript should be analyzed. Is it a mere description of weaving and knitting practices? Does it contain pioneering ideas on the symbolization and manipulation of pretopological relations of the ‘crossing’ of threads, which were then extensively developed in knot theory in the 19th century? Do these ideas or, to give another example, the microscopic investigations, result in new geometrical or optical theorems, or even a novel perspective on the structure of materials? Does Texturæ Contemplatio codify or restructure the embodied artisanal knowledge, ignore it, or present it as something that cannot be transmitted? How can one consider the various sources of knowledge presented in Texturæ Contemplatio, ranging from frsthand testimonies to citations from dictionaries and references, such as Pliny’s Natural History? These questions will be answered in the course of the current chapter. However, to fully comprehend what is unfolded here, the technological and philosophical background presented in Chap. 2 is also essential to see that almost, if not all, of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_4

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17th century thought directions of natural philosophy on weaving, textile practices and texture are to be detected, in one way or another, in Texturæ Contemplatio. But while this manuscript refects those conceptions, there is no single idea around which Texturæ Contemplatio revolves: Texturæ Contemplatio is not a complete, fnished manuscript, but much more of a rhizomatic one, having numerous focal points. This can be seen not only in the various groups of the translation, but also— and already—in the title: “Texturæ Contemplatio,” which can be translated in (at least) two ways: “contemplation on weaving” and “contemplation on texture.” From the discussions in Chap. 2, it is clear that both the conception of ‘textura’ and the weaving and textile instruments and technologies were changing and evolving during the 17th century. Does ‘textura’ designate for Jungius the artisanal activity of weaving, functioning as an umbrella term for several textile-related artisanal practices? Does it designate the spatial structure of the investigated materials? Is it a concept that is metaphorically laden? One way to answer the latter question is to see that the conceptual borders of the afore-listed questions are rather vague and non-delineated, in the sense that the notion ‘textura’ could function in several semantic felds and be loaded with different meanings at different times. Hence, the answer to all three questions is positive, but with the caveat that these questions (and the corresponding answers) do not necessarily exclude each other with respect to the meaning of ‘textura’. Before beginning our analysis of the content of Texturæ Contemplatio, Sect. 4.1 examines its order and form, as well as the variations introduced by copiers or other interventions to the manuscripts. Section 4.2, one of the main sections of the chapter, lays out the mathematical refections found in Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as the empirical ‘scientifc’ investigations. This section deals with a variety of questions: how did Jungius attempt to extract geometrical knowledge from weaves? What is the nature of the geometry of weaving (or of weaves)—if one can indeed term Jungius’ refections as geometrical—as presented in Texturæ Contemplatio? Taking into account that the frst folios of the manuscript are titled “ad scientiam situs,” can one indeed claim the existence of pre-topological ideas in Texturæ Contemplatio? This section also deals with the connections seen by Jungius between woven or knitted fabrics and the structure of materials, with his theory on hypostatic and synhypostatic parts, as well as his optical investigations with a microscope. In this sense, the variety of ‘scientifc’ approaches in the 17th century to ‘textura’ and weaving unfolded in Sect. 2.2 is indeed to be detected here. The following two sections make up the second focus of this chapter: Sect. 4.3 and Sect. 4.4 deal with Jungius’ treatment of artisanal practices, as well as his acquaintance with the communities of weavers, weaving and knitting practices. Section 4.3 deals with Jungius’ own terminology of weaves and textiles, which was at times invented or ambiguous. Section 4.4 then moves to not only inspecting the history of the community of weavers and of the textile trade in Hamburg in the frst half of the 17th century, but also to Jungius’ own account of artisans and artisanal processes. Hence, the two sections should be considered together, as they deal not with the restructuring of artisanal knowledge, presenting it geometrically, optically or materially (as discussed in Sect. 4.2), but rather with how Jungius viewed and gave space to the artisanal knowledge and embodied practices themselves.

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This discussion leads us to the question of sources: from where did Jungius obtain access to this knowledge? While Jungius relied on frst-hand observations and testimonies, he also quoted from and referred to various sources, from the Old Testament to 16th century dictionaries, in order to assemble ‘facts’ on artisanal knowledge; this abundance of citations and references will be discussed in Sect. 4.5. Having discussed these various themes, the concluding Sect. 4.6 will unfold my central thesis that Texturæ Contemplatio can be considered a rhizomatic, and at the same time precarious text. This is not only because it was edited and re-edited although never offcially published, but also due to the nature of Jungius’ own observations. These observations range from ‘mere’ descriptions, presented as frst-hand observations and a collection of ‘facts’, to a complete restructuring of artisanal knowledge in the form of ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’. This section ends with the question of whether Texturæ Contemplatio can or should be considered a ‘trading zone’ between natural philosophy, mathematics and textile practices (such as weaving and knitting), or whether this text should be viewed as a meeting zone, prompting the emergence of new knowledge, which was not necessarily traded with either the artisans or the natural philosophers.

4.1 Textual Analysis of Texturæ Contemplatio: Order, Form and Variations Before examining the content of Texturæ Contemplatio in detail, I would like to inspect its form and order. How were Jungius’ writings and notes ordered? As mentioned in Sect. 1.1, Jungius usually used octavo sheets to write down his notes, with each sheet devoted to one subject. These notes consisted not only of Jungius’ own refections, but also of literary excerpts, descriptions of Jungius’ own observations as well as those of other people, and critical remarks on those refections. Jungius usually gave those notes a rubric, and when a suffcient number of sheets on the same topic had been collected, they formed a manipulus with a cover and a general title. Several such manipuli were eventually united into bundles termed fasces. To recall, at Jungius’ death, Martin Fogel identifed 330 such bundles. Moreover, while Jungius’ Nachlass consisted of hundreds of bundles of octavo and quarto sheets, it included no search devices, let alone indexing (see also Sect. 1.1, Sect. 4.5 and Sect. 4.6). One may assume that Jungius found his way within the collection with the help of a mnemonic system of cross-references consisting of ideograms and various symbols, the meaning of which is often no longer quite recognizable (Meinel 1984a: ix–xx; Meinel 1995).1 This can be clearly seen with the various groups of Texturæ Contemplatio, which are often notated with various symbols. Texturæ Contemplatio has, however, a different form, because it is a rearranged and restructured copy, probably from the no longer extant collection “Texturarum theoria modo sciendi physico inserviens” (see Sect. 1.1). Though I will discuss it 1 On the various ‘indexing machines’ existing during the 16th and 17th centuries, see: (Krajewski 2011: 9–25).

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below, it is already remarkable to note that the rearrangement and restructuring can be seen in at least two levels: frst, when “Texturarum theoria” was copied (if indeed it was this text which was copied), several themes were sometimes gathered and written down on one single folio, a practice which Jungius avoided. This is to be noticed when in several of the folios, a separating line is drawn between the different themes. Second, when inspecting the order of the sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio, one notes that the current physical partitioning of the folios into ‘packages’ (see Sect. 4.1.1), on the one hand, brings folios from several different groups together, and on the other, separates folios from what may be assumed to be their thematic groups, ‘spreading’ them across several packages. In addition, Leibniz’s copy, which will be briefy examined in Sect. 5.2.2, can also be considered a restructuring or reordering: either of “Texturarum theoria” or of Texturæ Contemplatio, though obviously, since the original manuscript has been lost, it is not clear to which manuscript Leibniz’s order is ‘closer’. Comparing Leibniz’s copy with Texturæ Contemplatio is outside the scope of this book; however, to prepare for such a comparison, one ought to carefully inspect how Texturæ Contemplatio is structured, which is the aim of the following sections.

4.1.1

The current physical arrangement

We come now to a closer examination of the physical structure of Texturæ Contemplatio. I intentionally do not use the terms manipulus or fascis, because they are reserved for how Jungius’ manuscripts were arranged and structured; here, however, we are dealing with a restructured copy of one of his manuscripts, which was afterwards reordered several times over. The frst thing to be noticed when examining the existing manuscript as one fnds it today in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek in Hanover is that it is partitioned into ‘packages’. By ‘package’ I mean a collection of sheets, being either double sheets folded in half or single sheets, assembled together inside a folded sheet that bundles them together. For example, package num. 3 contains folios 10r–17r (where fol. 13r and fol. 14r are separate, small sheets), which means that the two sides of the outer sheet are numerated as fol. 10r (being the ‘front cover’) and as fol. 17r (being the ‘inner back cover’); see Fig. 4.1 for a detailed presentation of this package. To re-emphasize: due to the numeration of the sheets, and as noted in Sect. 1.1.1 (and in the introduction of Sect. 3.2), fol. 17r is also considered fol. 10v, and fol. 10r is hence fol. 17v (that is, the verso side of fol. 10r, being fol. 10v, is numerated with the modern pagination as ‘17’, and is thus also considered to be fol. 17r. In the same fashion, fol. 11v is fol. 16r and fol. 12v is fol. 15r). Note that for fol. 13r and fol. 14r, the verso side is empty. However, the fact that these sheets are bundled together does not mean that all of them belong to the same group in the translation presented in Sect. 3.2. This is also why the translation was arranged according to a mostly thematic ordering, assisted

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Fig. 4.1 A depiction of how the various sheets are arranged inside “package” num. 3. Note that fol. 10v is fol. 17r, fol. 11v is fol. 16r and fol. 12v is fol. 15r

by the various symbols written at the top of the page (when present). If we look again at package num. 3, one can see how a reorganization was made, combining several thematic groups together. More explicitly, this package contains not only three sheets, which are folded into two, but also two separate, small slips of paper (fol. 13r and fol. 14r); all of these sheets are bundled as depicted in Fig. 4.1. Which folios does package num. 3 contain? Folio 10r has the title “velurum,” and fol. 11r and fol. 12r are numerated (by Jungius or the scribe) as “p. 1” and “p. 2,” respectively, and in their upper left corner one fnds the symbol . While folios 10r, 11r and 12r deal with similar subjects and all contain the depiction ,2 the folios coming after (i.e., 15r and 16r) deal with another subject, are symbolized by

and are also numerated as “p. 1” and “p. 2,” respectively.3 Folio

17r also deals with another subject, is symbolized by and numerated as “p. 2” (note that fol. 45r is already symbolized also with this symbol and is numerated by “p. 1”).4 The slips fol. 13r and fol. 14r again deal with different topics: fol. 13r is part of a group dealing with cloth pressing;5 fol. 14r is an excerpt from the book Arabia, seu Arabum vicinarumque gentium orientalium leges, ritus, sacri et profani mores, instituta et historia.6 Just from inspecting the order and topics of this package, it is clear that it is a later reordering of sheets which did not originally belong together, thereby providing another indication of why the current order cannot be considered the original one. Before discussing this issue further, let us review which folios the various packages contain. Texturæ Contemplatio currently contains 11 packages, which are described in the following table. Unless stated otherwise, all of these folios are folded in the middle, except the single notes (i.e., sheets). When the verso side of the single, non-folded sheets also contains text, this is noted explicitly.

Note that in the translation (Sect. 3.2), fol. 11r and fol. 12r belong to Group 6, and fol. 10r belongs to Group 6 (additional pages). 3 Folios 15r and 16r belong in the translation to Group 5. 4 Folio 17r belongs in the translation to Group 3. 5 Fol. 13r belongs in the translation to Group 13. 6 Fol. 14r belongs in the translation to Group 14. 2

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Contains the following folios fol. 1r–7r fol. 8r–9r fol. 10r–17r (fol. 13r and 14r are separate, small notes) fol. 18r–25r fol. 26r–32r (fol. 28r is a single sheet) fol. 33r (a single sheet) fol. 34r–37r fol. 38r (a single sheet) fol. 39r–48r (fol. 41r is a single sheet, probably written by Fogel himself; fol. 41v contains several crossed-out words dated to 1654; fol. 42r and 43r are single sheets) fol. 49r–54r fol. 55r–63r (fol. 59r is a single sheet, probably written by Fogel)

This ordering and grouping into packages raise the question of whether the current bundling of the packages refects how they were meant to be presented, or if another order could have presented the topics of the manuscript in a better way. Can one suggest that several packages should have been inserted into other packages? For example, one can suggest that package num. 4, starting with fol. 18r, which is also symbolized by and numerated as “p. 3,” should be inserted into the sheet of fol. 12r and fol. 15r, a sheet which belongs to package num. 3, to create continuity with folios 11r and 12r. However, this insertion may create other problems with respect to other folios and their order. *** Having surveyed the present physical structure of Texturæ Contemplatio, and some of the evidence of its restructuring (more will be surveyed below), it is essential to remember that Texturæ Contemplatio was a part of Fogel’s Nachlass, which itself had a unique history of transmission, as it also went through certain rearrangements. Hence, it is worth reviewing how Fogel’s own collection of notes reached Hanover, and in what state. This collection has been thoroughly researched and examined in Maria Marten and Carola Piepenbring-Thomas’ extensive study of Fogel’s library and his Nachlass (Marten, Piepenbring-Thomas 2015), which I will follow. Martin Fogel built up an extensive collection of notes during his lifetime, helping him organize his fndings, observations and knowledge. He had learned this technique of storing knowledge from Jungius. As already noted in Sect. 1.1.1, after Fogel’s death, Leibniz not only acquired Fogel’s extensive collection of books for the Hanoverian library, but also borrowed some of Fogel’s notes from his widow. It is not clear whether Leibniz took 86 or 87 convolutes,7 but it is very clear that he never returned them, despite several requests from the second husband of Fogel’s 7 A convolute refers to a found bundle of notes that was inserted into a folded quarto sheet and usually bears a contemporary title.

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widow (ibid.: 258, footnote 307).8 Some 32,500 notes and slips of paper have survived till today, among them the manuscript Texturæ Contemplatio. The main holdings of the collection of Fogel’s slips of paper in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library bear the shelfmark Ms XLII 1923, where Texturæ Contemplatio bears the signature: Ms XLII 1923, delta 28. The individual slips of paper were neither numbered nor paginated, except when they were copies of an already paginated or symboled manuscript, such as (parts of) Texturæ Contemplatio. Fogel’s collection of notes is, however, bundled in several convolutes, notated with Greek letters and numbers; the Greek letters, used for precise identifcation, were written down by the science historian Hans Kangro between April 1959 and February 1960 (Kangro used the letters α to ω), while he was examining Fogel’s Nachlass (ibid.: 45ff). Kangro, however, did not numerate the sheets themselves in every bundle, which makes re-identifcation of the sheet(s) to which he refers in his works highly diffcult. When Kangro sifted through the Nachlass, he presumably had a stock of notes in front of him that had previously been subjected to various interventions; these interventions were rarely documented. However, one such intervention, probably the most recent one, is well known: the collection of notes was partially damaged by a food of the river Leine in Hanover in 1946, and was consequently reordered by folding and assembling the dried notes anew (ibid.: 46). In the course of processing Fogel’s notes, done at the beginning of the present century by Marten and Piepenbring-Thomas, the individual sheets were transferred to folders and were also paginated. Kangro’s pre-existing order with its Greek designations remained unchanged. The numbering, using consecutive Arabic numerals, was placed on one side in pencil, in the bottom right corner. In the last few years, the entire collection of notes has been completely digitalized, and can be found online.9 Since Texturæ Contemplatio was part of Fogel’s Nachlass, questions arise as to how Fogel organized his notes, how he ensured access to stored information and fnally, how he stored the notes. While one may be able to answer these questions (very) partially with respect to Texturæ Contemplatio, and while one may assume that Fogel’s collection of notes came to Hanover with his library in the fall of 1678, the way in which the slips of paper were stored is not documented (ibid.: 47). Nevertheless, it is reliably documented that Leibniz worked through Fogel’s collection of notes and sometimes removed, or cut out pieces of some of the individual sheets which were relevant to his work (ibid.: 46).10 This seems to have also been the case for Texturæ Contemplatio, as we will see in Sect. 4.1.2. However, aside from Leibniz’s probable removal of notes, the history of the reception of Fogel’s notes and paper slips lacks documentation. This stands in contrast to Jungius’ Nachlass, which was organized posthumously; Fogel’s Nachlass fell into an increasingly disordered state—not only due to Leibniz’s interventions or later research activities, but also due to the food in Hanover in 1946. See also Sect. 5.2.2. See: https://digitale-sammlungen.gwlb.de/sammlungen/ (accessed on: 27 August 2022). 10 See also: (Marten, Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 183–200, and esp. 188ff). 8 9

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As Marten and Piepenbring-Thomas note (ibid.: 51), following Martin Mulsow (2012), Fogel’s collection of notes can be considered precarious knowledge: they emphasize the history of its transmission, not only due to the collection’s content (as each note is unique in carrying a ‘small fact’),11 but also due to its materiality: every slip of paper is itself precarious, as it may be burnt (as indeed happened with parts of Jungius’ Nachlass), taken away by someone else (for example, by Leibniz) or reused for other purposes (as done by Fogel himself). I will discuss this subject more thoroughly in Sect. 4.6, but for now I would like to stress that a similar precariousness characterizes Texturæ Contemplatio, although for different reasons—that is, because this manuscript was a result of having been copied from another manuscript.

4.1.2

Macro- and micro-changes

When discussing the copying of manuscripts,12 two layers of copying are addressed in the current book. The frst is that done by Jungius himself, where he copied citations from other sources (see Sect. 4.5, where I discuss these citations) or copied images: that is, Jungius drew what he saw with the microscope, with a magnifying lens, or with his own eyes. The clearest example of this action of copying images is Jungius’ drawing of a lily (i.e., a feur-de-lis), which was probably being woven with a drawloom to create a damask fabric (see fol. 32r in Group 11). The second layer of copying should be clearly separated from the frst, i.e., the copying of Jungius’ notes and writings by Fogel and his colleagues—among them former students of Jungius—and afterwards, by Leibniz, resulting in Texturæ Contemplatio and in Leibniz’s copy, respectively. While the frst layer will be discussed later, I now discuss the changes introduced due to the second layer of copying.13 Although the original manuscript written by Jungius is not available, one may conclude the existence of several variations, which were introduced when preparing Texturæ Contemplatio, variations which attest to modifcations in the original text (made while, for example, being copied). Can one offer a typology of such variations? Here I focus on and differentiate between macro- and micro-variations or changes—macro-changes being more global in nature (e.g., the reordering of passages), and micro-changes being more local and restricted, occurring through the copying process. These changes already show that copying—“both its process and how we understand it – has not been a stable concept” (Fransen, Reinhart 2019: 211); and while it is clear from the current study that copying was a catalyst for knowledge transfer, contributing to the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and therefore operating in and of itself as an epistemic operation—as can be seen in See Sect. 4.6.3 and also (Mulsow 2015). On the making and copying of manuscripts, see for example: (Grafton 2020; Fransen and Reinhart 2019; Blair 2016; Blair 2010). 13 On the “perfect true copy,” i.e., printed books or pamphlets which claim to be an exact copy of private manuscript papers, see (Yale 2019). On the practices of copying images (in the archives of the early Royal Society), see: (Fransen, Reinhart and Kusukawa 2019). 11 12

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the case of Leibniz copying Jungius’ writings—one should be careful to consider not only these positive aspects. Indeed, one should defnitely question (although in this case, there is no answer) whether the copying—in either of the layers introduced above—not only changed the function of the original or future manuscript, but also marginalized or deleted parts of it. 4.1.2.1

Macro-variations: reordering, recopying and inserting texts

One may claim that the order of the various sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as the topics found on the various folios, are a result not only of decisions taken by the scribes, but also of the reordering that took place due to (among other events) the 1946 food. This claim is supported by the fndings presented above concerning the order and content of the various packages. One may assume that the scribes attempted to preserve Jungius’ order, as Jungius wrote each topic on a single sheet. However, as we will see, there were numerous folios of Texturæ Contemplatio that contained several topics, and the scribes did attempt to separate and differentiate between them, either by drawing separating lines or writing “other notes.” Hence, in this section, I do not refer to ‘(re)copying’ as the action of Jungius himself copying excerpts from other books (with or without mentioning the fact that he was copying, both of which happened),14 but rather to the copying by the scribe (most likely Fogel), resulting in Texturæ Contemplatio. How was this copying done? Can one draw tentative conclusions on how the copying rearranged the original manuscript? First of all, the existence of drawn separating lines, which differentiated between different themes on the same folio, was already noted above. An example of this phenomenon, indicating a rearrangement of Jungius’ own set of notes, can be seen on fol. 18r (belonging to Group 6 in the above translation). The folio bears the title “p. 4,” meaning that it was the fourth page in a set of folios that probably dealt with weaving velvet, describing ‘porca’ and ‘sulcus’ threads (see Sect. 4.3.2 for an explanation of these types of threads). On this folio, after the frst third of the page, the scribe drew a horizontal line and then appended what he found in “alia scheda in 4, complicata in forma 8.” The reason for this addition may be that the text following this title seemed to the scribe to belong on this folio in terms of content. But here it should be noted that this sentence can be translated as “other notes [scheda] in [folio] 4, [having been] folded up in an octavo [format],” i.e., here the scribe was referring explicitly to the format and physical organization of Jungius’ notes. Hence, the scribe may have decided to add this text to this folio due to lack of paper, indicating that the following text deals with another subject. Other evidence for this reorganization, in the form of added titles, is easily found: several folios have similar titles added in the middle of the sheet: “alia scheda,” or “ex alia scheda” (e.g., folios 10r, 16r, 20r, 23r, 29r, etc.). An example is fol. 23r, having on the last third of the sheet the title “alia scheda p. 1 lumen huc allabitur 14

See Sect. 4.5.1 and Sect. 4.5.2.

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40 Jan” (“Other notes p. 1 The light is moving toward this [16]40 January”), hence beginning the discussion of a new subject toward the end of the folio. Also remarkable are fol. 29r and fol. 32r, which assemble four different topics on one sheet. As indicated above, Jungius would never have arranged his notes in such a way: for him, each note had its own sheet, which bore a title and possibly a date, and there were no two topics on a single sheet. This is not to say that Jungius did not return to his notes or correct them.15 For example, on fol. 26r, there are copies of notes from 1638 and from 1647. This is also to be seen on fol. 46r: the folio is dated to December 1638, but a diagram is added to that same folio, dated to December 1639 (with the remark “NB”).16 This double dating indicates that the scribe assembled several of Jungius’ sheets together on one folio, or that Jungius returned to these folios and added his corrections. If indeed, for Jungius, every ‘fact’, excerpt or observation had its own sheet, then the scribe’s reorganization not only attempted to create order in this ‘frittered knowledge’, to follow here the term coined by Meinel (1995), but also created his own non-order. Or, to emphasize, in the words of Markus Krajewski, while Jungius’ method may be considered a “non-hierarchical” ordering or indexing (Krajewski 2011: 17), the order brought by the scribe(s) did not necessarily lead to a more structured manuscript. Moreover, while the restructuring was not done by Jungius, it may very well have been infuenced by his way of working. Assembling together sometimes related, but sometimes non-related topics on one folio, when it is sometimes unclear how the notes relate to each other, caused a restructuring of Jungius’ collection of notes, and sometimes not in a ‘productive’ way. By ‘non-productive’ I mean here that the restructuring was not epistemic, that is, it neither led directly to nor prompted the emergence of new knowledge; while the restructuring and assembly of some topics may have occurred due to a shortage of paper, it distorted any possible understanding of a future manuscript which should have been published. These were not the only restructuring and changes that took place. In Group 1, one of the main sets of folios of the manuscript containing geometrical refections on the structure of weaves, the frst few pages are titled “p.1,” “p. 2” and “p. 3” with the additional title “Textura contemplatio ad scientiam situs,” accompanied by diagrams (folios 62r, 63r, 8r and the left side of fol. 9r). These folios are then accompanied by several copies of them, to be found as folios 2r, 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v and 7r. For example, fol. 4r is an almost exact copy of fol. 62r; but fol. 62r has the title “ad scientiam situs,” and the numeration “p. 1,” neither of which appear on fol. 4r. It seems that Fogel (or perhaps even Jungius?) may have aimed to put this second copy in a different manipulus or a different envelope, which perhaps would have dealt with a different topic. Another possibility is that this second copy was supposed to be given to another person, given the fact that several people attempted to edit Texturæ Contemplatio (see Sect. 5.2.3). However, how and why these two copies ended up in the same envelope is unclear. Also unclear is the actual temporal relationship between these two sets of notes: were folios 62r, 63r and 8r indeed the 15 16

See fol. 20r in Group 7. “NB” means “note this well.”

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‘original’ set of notes from which the other folios were copied? Or were folios 62r, 63r and 8r the end result, as part of a ready-to-be-published manuscript, whereas the other set of folios was more like a preparation? Or were these two sets copied independently from Jungius’ notes? Obviously these questions emphasize how careful one needs to be with the usage of the term ‘copy’. *** Apart from the restructuring of the sheets of the manuscript, there are two more macro-changes that are of a different character. The frst consists of the changes that Leibniz may have made: if Leibniz removed sheets from Texturæ Contemplatio (or misplaced them in another bundle), this can obviously be counted as a macrochange. More than likely to be the case, as I will elaborate in Sect. 5.2.2, one may say that this macro-change is present in the absence of these sheets. The second macro-change consists of the opposite situation, whereby two folios—59r and 41r—may not have originated from Jungius’ hand but rather from Fogel himself. These two folios are two separate sheets that cannot be identifed as belonging to any specifc group. While both folios do deal with subjects that also appear on several of the other folios—fol. 59r deals with the work of the fransenmacher (fringe makers) and fol. 41r presents a list of various fabrics, a few words in these two folios are written in Plattdeutsch, as can be seen for example in the way the verb ‘slice’ (or ‘cut’) is written: “aufgesnitten” instead of “aufgeschnitten”, or how the color ‘black’ is written: “swarz” and not “schwarz”. This is in contrast to how this verb (respectively this color) is spelled on other folios.17 Folio 41r warrants a closer look. First, all of the text on fol. 41v is crossed out. It is not clear whether the notes on this side are indeed Jungius’ notes, or whether it was the back side of a piece of paper on which Fogel (or another scribe) wrote, noting at a later stage that the back side contains irrelevant information, a practice which was common for Fogel (Marten, Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 40). Moreover, on fol. 41v, the crossed-out text notes the year—1654, which is the latest date to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio. Hence, there is a 5-year gap between this year and the last year that is explicitly mentioned by Jungius in his notes on textile and weaving: fol. 44r is dated to 1649. However, it is not only the way in which several words are spelled, but also the topic itself which differentiates fol. 41r from the other folios. Folio 41r contains a long list of fabric names, some of which do not appear in Jungius’ notes at all. For example, one can fnd names of fabrics and weaves such as “Düfel,” “Kosiant” or “Kronensaje.” This list points to a great familiarity with the types of fabrics, and perhaps to a closer contact than Jungius had with the community of weavers and textile merchants in Hamburg. It may therefore be that this list originated from Fogel’s hand. Important to note is that Fogel’s father was a cloth merchant, trading with the fabric “Rasch” (ibid.: 17), and that Fogel wrote notes about his mother and probably about their maid concerning various textile-related tasks: the For example, the color ‘black’ is spelled “schwarz” on folios 53r, 54r and 60r, among others. On fol. 46r, the word ‘tailor’ is spelled as “schneider” (and not “sneider”). I thank Carola Piepenbring-Thomas for pointing this out. 17

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processing of textiles, their bleaching, or the dyeing of various materials—wool, Rasch, or yarn (ibid.: 179). This shows, perhaps in contrast to Jungius’ acquaintance with textile merchants, that Fogel was much more capable of composing this list of fabrics. 4.1.2.2

Micro-variations: self-refecting and cutting pages

Along with those macro-interventions, in the form of entire reorganizations of passages and sheets, the addition of ‘foreign’ sheets (probably by Fogel), or even removal of sheets from Texturæ Contemplatio (probably by Leibniz), one can fnd other, micro-interventions or changes in the manuscript, though these variations might have been introduced by Jungius himself. Thus, for example, on fol. 9r, the title “Tripla intermittens inutilis” of one of the drawings on the left side of this folio is erroneous: “Tripla” should have probably been “Textura”; the title “Tripla intermittens inutilis”, which can be translated as “Impractical three-fold intermittent,” does not make sense. The likely correct title can be found on fol. 2v, which is almost identical to fol. 9r. The title of fol. 2v is indeed “Textura intermittens inutilis.” This mistake was probably made by the scribe. Jungius himself also left several self-referring remarks concerning his own text. Folios 34r and 31r, both from Group 12, contain the remark “NB inquirendum,” meaning “pay attention” or “note this well: to be investigated.”18 This is obviously a note that Jungius made to himself. In fact, at the top of fol. 34r, being the frst folio in Group 12, is the following remark: “This page has been revised and to the more recent [note] have been added writings which have been marked here with interrupted [underlined with dashes] lines.”19 This may be considered a clear indication of Jungius’ revisions of his own texts, i.e., micro-revisions, which were later copied by the scribe, without changing this self-refecting comment, but it may also be the scribe’s indication. There are other, more material micro-interventions in the manuscript as well. An indication that the margins of a sheet were cut and as a result, a few lines are missing from Texturæ Contemplatio, is to be seen with fol. 47r. While the lower margins of this folio were cut, the complete sentence is to be found in Leibniz’s own copy.20 The question remains, who cut these margins and why? Was it Leibniz or his assistant Johann Georg Eckhart?21 This is not the only sheet that is cut (for example, the lower parts of fol. 30r and fol. 21r are also cut), but fol. 47r is the only instance of a sheet that was cut after Texturæ Contemplatio had been prepared; for other cut sheets, one may assume that this was the initial form of the sheet of paper which the scribe had at his disposal. Both folios belong to the same group, which contains, among others, documentation of notes of a citizen of Liege. 19 “revisum est hoc foliu[m] et addita recentiori scriptura q [quae] linealis interruptis hic signata sunt.” 20 See (LH 38, fol. 37r) in Leibniz’s copy. 21 See (Marten, Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 183–187) concerning the copies from Fogel’s Nachlass ordered by Leibniz. 18

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4.1.3

243

Conclusion: structuring and restructuring

In this section, I have reviewed the physical restructuring and the thematic reordering done inside Texturæ Contemplatio, concentrating also on the macro- and microchanges occurring during those processes of copying. The physical reordering, resulting in the various packages, and the macro- and micro-variations, already show a certain precariousness of the physicality of the manuscript itself. This is present not only in the unclear (current) order, but also in the fact that the action of copying was a non-stable practice: the copying of Texturæ Contemplatio reveals itself as an ‘unfaithful’ practice, a non-neutral one, where the relations between the source manuscript and the target (or the resulting manuscript) are not relations of identity, even though Texturæ Contemplatio presents itself as Jungius’ manuscript. The copying and the later restructuring lead to the consideration of Texturæ Contemplatio as a fuid text, which could have been reordered again and again. Having this unstable structure in mind, I now turn to an analysis of the themes discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio, starting with Jungius’ mathematical and scientifc investigations.

4.2

Mathematical Refections and Empirical Investigations

While the last section examined the physical structure of Texturæ Contemplatio, the current section—being one of the main sections of this chapter—begins to unfold the content of Jungius’ refections in Texturæ Contemplatio. When examining Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as other notes from Jungius’ Nachlass, one cannot fail to notice that several of its parts present what may be considered either mathematical or scientifc refections, ranging from introducing geometrical ‘theorems’ and underlining optical investigations, to emphasizing a possible structure of materials, and even hinting at connections with botanical research. The question that immediately arises is: what is actually meant by ‘scientifc’? This will be elaborated below with respect to Jungius, as obviously, the “term science is anachronistic for the early modern period” (Smith 2009: 345).22 In this sense, the adjective ‘scientifc’ is used as a general term which includes several domains, among them natural philosophy, optics and medicine, as well as mathematics; but as we will see, Jungius did separate between the scientifc method and mathematics, hence the

See also (Smith 2009: 345): “The new philosophy and ‘active science’ (Francis Bacon’s phrase from The Great Instauration, 1620), as well as the new experimental philosophy, are all terms that were used from ca. 1600–1750 to refer to the innovations in methods of philosophizing that contemporaries perceived going on around them. However, for historians of science the role and defnition of modern science is one dimension of our object of study, so it seems artifcial not to use the term science at times in a self-consciously imprecise and catchall manner.”

22

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differentiation introduced above. Indeed, it must be recalled that Scientia is obviously not what we today call ‘science’: “natural philosophy in the image of its seventeenth century practitioners is distant from the mathematized natural sciences and their related technology disciplines today.” Moreover, at the beginning of the 17th century, what was called ‘science’ was much less unifed than it appears. It is only at the end of the 17th century that “mathematics, natural philosophy and natural history all come together […] Almost as important, something closer to what we now call ‘philosophy’ started to be decoupled from ‘science’” (Sorell, Rogers, Kraye 2010: viii). This transformation was also infuenced how artisanal knowledge was regarded in the 17th century; as we saw above, numerous scholars and natural philosophers were fascinated but at the same time expressed disdain from artisanal practices.23 Concentrating on Jungius, one can certainly claim that he took part in this transformation. For Jungius, the ultimate goal of his ‘scientifc method’, leading to the introduction and reformation of the natural sciences, and found between mathematics and metaphysics, “remained a scientia totalis, a comprehensive, hierarchically structured system of proven conclusions obtained by scientifc methods” (Meinel 1984b: 42), though we will see later whether this project was in any way successful when Jungius investigated textiles and weaving. Though also paying attention to the embodied, singular artisanal practices, he also aimed for a restructuring of this knowledge. With this in mind, this section aims to analyze Jungius’ various points of view, concentrating mainly on the mathematical and scientifc aspects; at the same time, I will also present several other writings of Jungius on texture, weaving and weaves, from published and unpublished materials. The fact that Jungius’ other writings, which are to be found outside Texturæ Contemplatio, examine textile products and weaving practices, emphasizes not only the frittered, scattered character of Jungius’ collection of notes (see also Sect. 4.6), but also that for Jungius, textile practices, as well as the research on texture, were not a marginal, negligible subject, the refections on which could be assembled together in a single envelope. In addition, the fact that numerous sheets, from a period ranging over 25 years, were nevertheless collected and put in a single envelope, indicates the importance of this subject to Jungius. Both of these aspects show—each in its own way—that those topics were, for Jungius, a theme that should be investigated from several points of view. Another aspect should be stressed as well: Jungius’ scientifc investigations of textiles were coupled with his observations of (some of the) processes of their production. That is, those investigations were not only of the fnal product; they also took notice of how those products were fabricated. But those production processes

Smith (2022: 168) describes this view as a “combination of lively interest and continuing low regard for handworkers”; see notes Tommaso Garzoni’s “celebration of Kunst [in his La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo from 1585, which] contained hints of a more longenduring ambivalence toward manual labor and craft, […] expressed by Garzoni as distrust of craftspeople and their ability to deceive until printing makes ‘the made known.’”

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took place in a community, and hence one may suggest that Jungius was aware that artisanal knowledge was grounded in such communities, and not in the inventions of a single artisan; I will further discuss this aspect in Sect. 4.6. This stands in opposition to the scholars and natural philosophers surveyed in Sect. 2.2, almost none of whom took any interest in the production processes of textiles. This also points to Jungius’ own conception of a stronger interlacing between the work and the conceptions of the artisans and natural philosophers, rather than a clear-cut division into two groups, where the latter only inspect the products of the former and then reorganize their knowledge, but are somewhat indifferent to, or ignorant of the nature of the work processes. To unfold and analyze the scientifc and mathematical content of Texturæ Contemplatio, I start with two introductory sections: Sect. 4.2.1 deals frst with a general introduction on how Jungius viewed mathematics and the mathematization of nature. I also discuss the distinction that Jungius himself presents between scientifc and mathematical knowledge. Section 4.2.2 presents Jungius’ conception of geometry, as seen in his book Geometria empirica. Section 4.2.3, being one of the principal sections, turns to Texturæ Contemplatio and presents Jungius’ geometrical and arithmetical refections, as well as his notation of knitted threads. This subsection ends with a detour, examining how Leibniz and Vandermonde considered the ‘same’ knitted structure that had been drawn by Jungius several decades before their own examination. I then continue, in Sect. 4.2.4, to present Jungius’ theory of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts, with woven and knitted textiles considered an exemplar to illustrate this theory. This will lead me to examine Jungius’ conception of the notion of ‘texture’. Before concluding, in Sect. 4.2.5 I discuss Jungius’ optical investigation of textiles, which was—just as the numerous discussions on ‘texture’—also often led by natural philosophers during the 17th century.

4.2.1

Jungius and the role of mathematics

While the ‘mathematization of nature’ remains one of the main narratives accounting for the rise of modern science and how it replaced scientia during the 17th century, as noted above and also in Chap. 1, it has become clear in recent decades that this narrative must be revised and nuanced to account for the various encounters between 17th century mathematics, physics and the new empirical investigations, as well as for the encounters between mathematicians, natural philosophers and artisans.24 It is, perhaps, unnecessary to recall that the various scientifc investigations in the early modern period were still, as Meinel indicates and as was emphasized above, “a conglomerate of different points of view and traditions” (Meinel 1984b: 7). The cornerstone of the ‘mathematization of nature’ narrative was that the method of 17th century science was a mathematical heuristic combined with an

24

See Chap. 1 for references and a more detailed discussion.

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empirical observation of nature. While I do not intend to present the transformations of this narrative from the 20th century till today, I claim that Jungius had a special, if only marginal part (marginal when one considers the historiography of the natural sciences during the 20th century) in promoting the role ascribed to mathematics within scientifc investigation. Jungius can be considered one of “new savants” who was “aware that the [mathematical] procedures enabling that success [of applying mathematics] required compromises and approximations far removed from what was allowed by their own criteria of mathematical rigour, let alone certainty.”25 However, it must be noted from the outset that one cannot necessarily claim that Jungius’ mathematical treatment of weaves culminated in a successful project of applied mathematics, but rather itself was fraught with tension, since, while stemming partially from an interest in technology and instruments (e.g., treadle looms), its mathematization was not present in the practical world, but rather in Jungius’ imagination. As we will see in Sect. 4.2.4, Jungius’ own thinking on textiles and ‘texture’ certainly refected, and contributed to the growing tendency in the 17th century to refect on textiles and weaving in a more scientifc way. Jungius’ refections were, however, somewhat different, because they also attempted to formulate ‘theorems’ for certain weaves. But this does not mean that Jungius’ project of developing such a geometrical theory was successful; Jungius’ attempts to present those ‘theorems’ arising from woven textiles may very well be considered as ending in failure, being partial, for various reasons. One of the main reasons—although there were certainly others—was the lack of tight contact with or transfer to the artisans, as will be further explicated below, even though such theorems may be considered to present an explanatory model for the reasons why different textures give rise to different properties of materials. Before examining this issue in more detail, let me turn to the pressing question of this section: how did Jungius view mathematics and its relation to the investigation of nature? Meinel notes that Jungius supported the inductive investigation of natural phenomena, instead of leading or following “a ‘revolution from above’ in the shape of the hypothetical-deductive method of Galileo with experiment and mathematical abstraction,” thus resembling the Baconian approach. Meinel adds that one will not be able to comprehend “the emergence of modern natural science in the context of its time if we only want to follow it […] from the law of falling bodies and the planetary orbits to Newton’s Principia” (Meinel 1984b: 43). This highlights that, at least in the context of Jungius’ investigation, one should consider more closely how exactly he researched textiles and the notion of ‘texture’. As we will see in the following sections, Jungius’ method consisted frst and foremost of gathering various points of view without attempting to impose an initial framework, though he did consider mathematics as that which may provide a structure for the scientifc inquiry. But this does not mean that mathematics was abstracted in the sense that it was totally disconnected from the other domains of scientifc

(Hodoba Eric, Gal 2019: 242). Hodoba Eric and Gal follow here the views presented in: (Gal, Chen-Morris 2013).

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investigation. For example, Jungius had a more practical vision of how to practice geometry, as we will see in Sect. 4.2.2, which was not uncommon; as can be seen when one looks closely at how weaves were presented in Texturæ Contemplatio, the form of the presentation of the ‘theorems’ was indeed geometrical, but it cannot be entirely subjected to the narrative of the ‘mathematization of nature’.26 *** Jungius’ views of mathematics were presented most clearly during his inaugural speech on 19 March 1629 in Hamburg, a lecture which can be titled “On the propaedeutic usefulness of mathematics for the study of philosophy.”27 The ideas presented in this speech on the essential role of mathematics for the investigation of nature, as well as the idea of preparatory mathematics, were already present in his writings and speeches before 1629, as can be seen explicitly in his other inaugural speeches, in Gießen (1609) and in Rostock (in 1624 and 1626); see (Hübner 1996). Nevertheless, I would like to examine the 1629 lecture, as it most clearly presents Jungius’ view of mathematics. One of the key statements in Jungius’ 1629 speech is that mathematics is divided into pure and applied mathematics (applied in the sense that it is applied to natural phenomena) or, formulated differently, into “abstract and concrete” (“meras et mixtas sive abstractas et concretas”; Jungius 1929: 99); abstract mathematics, according to Jungius, is divided into arithmetic, geometry and protomathematics; and the concrete into, among others, harmony, optics, statics and astronomy.28 After these divisions are presented, Jungius notes: “I am of the opinion that those who wish to pursue science comfortably, safely, and fruitfully, must begin with mathematics,

To make this claim more explicit, and also to unfold what will be elaborated later, Stephen Gaukroger (2010) notes concerning the Cartesian tradition, to which Jungius did not belong but for which he had a certain affnity, that “the criterion of clarity and distinctness is paradigmatically manifested in mathematics, means that those parts of physical theory that can be translated into mathematical terms have a foundational priority” (ibid.: 30). Now, one may say that Jungius expresses similar opinions, but at the same time, as we will see with Texturæ Contemplatio, mathematics served much more as a partial model. Experiments and observations were not only treated as secure in their own right, but as being independent of whatever corpuscularian rationale might be provided for them or whatever mathematical theorem clarifed them. This obviously stems from Jungius’ own method of collecting and gathering knowledge, as was already hinted at above considering the culture of ‘facts’. 27 Jungius’ inaugural speech, to be found in the Hamburger Staats- und Universitats-Bibliothek (Hbg. Mscr. IV, 4, Jungii Orationes III. 4°), does not, in fact, have a title. However, Jungius’ inaugural speech in Rostock, held in 1626, being very similar in content to the Hamburg inaugural lecture, does carry the title: “Oratio de propaedia Philosophica sive Propaedeutico Mathematum usu habita Rostochii cum iterum Matheseos professor introducerer.” This is why the above title was proposed in (Jungius 1929: 94) by Johannes Lemcke and Adolf Meyer in 1929, a proposal which I follow. 28 See also (Hübner 1996: 188–190), concerning the inaugural speech given in 1624 in Rostock, presenting a similar division. The notes to the 1624 speech also contain a more detailed list, where sciences are classifed under ‘mixed sciences’. 26

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namely the pure or abstract, and progress from it via the concrete mathematical sciences to physics and metaphysics”29 (ibid.: 100). Jungius sees pure mathematics as providing a possible structure for scientifc inquiry, because in pure mathematics, there exists not only such “evidence of principles” but also constancy of defnitions and theorems (ibid.).30 Moreover, mathematical proofs give it certainty and power and the axioms of abstract mathematics require almost no experience or observation (“experientiam aut observationis”); consequently, the axioms of harmony, optics and statics do require experience and observation, but to a much lesser degree than those of physics (ibid.: 102). Mathematics has the advantage of immediately obvious axioms, indisputable theorems and conclusive proofs, whereas physical and metaphysical studies are more likely to be fooded with controversies and ambiguities.31 Several advantages of mathematics are given explicitly by Jungius: its unambiguity, clarity and certainty (ibid.: 111). For this reason, and because, as noted above, mathematics requires less experience and observation, one should adopt mathematics as propaedeutic, with the function of a model for the scientifc method. This point should be stressed: Jungius did not advocate the mathematical structure of reality, as might be seen by applying this structure to the observed phenomena. Rather, he ascribed great importance to observation with the senses, from which essential truths would be derived (Meinel 1984b: 40). It is direct observation that is essential, and the particular individual object has to be grasped directly and completely with the senses; this is the method with which one derives conclusions concerning nature. To examine Jungius’ conception of mathematics more clearly, we should turn briefy to the fourth book of Jungius’ Logica Hamburgensis, published in 1638,32 which deals with, among other subjects, the application of logical induction to the natural sciences.33 The main task of Logica Hamburgensis, a learning book composed for the use of pupils at the Akademisches Gymnasium, where Jungius taught, was to present late medieval theories and techniques of logic.34 While the parts dealing with the various syllogisms and materials already appearing in Aristotle and in late medieval logic were not entirely novel,35 “the historical value of the Logica

“Nos a Mathesi et quidem mera sive abstracta ordiendum, ab abstracta dein per concretas Matheseos scientias ad Physicam et Metaphysicam progrediendum illis ducimus, qui et commode et solide et cum fructu in scientiis versari cupiunt.” 30 “in Mathematicis praesertim meris sive abstractis earn principiorum evidentiam, eam praeceptorum et theorematum constantiam, id demonstrationum robur vigere.” 31 On Jungius, his views on the axiomatic method, and its usage with respect to ‘non-scientifc’ domains, see: (Schüling 1969: 72–75). How Jungius considers practicing geometry shows another approach, as we will see in Sect. 4.2.2. 32 The frst three books of Logica Hamburgensis had already been published in 1635. 33 For a modern edition, see: (Meyer 1957). I follow here: (Clucas 2010). 34 For an overview of the book, see: (Risse 1964: 521–531). For the history of its composition, see: (Meyer 1957: vii–xxiii). 35 See: (Ashworth 1967). 29

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Hamburgensis is likely to consist in the extensive collection of formulas, since largely scholastic rules of consequence are also presented here, which have received little attention at that time” (Risse 1964: 526). Nevertheless, Logica Hamburgensis was mostly praised in the 17th century (Clucas 2010: 55–56), and one of its important parts was its fourth book, called Logicae Specialis; its importance lies in the fact that it delineates Jungius’ doctrine of scientifc proof. Already in the opening passages of this fourth book, the concept of scientia is distinguished according to four meanings, whereby from singular or general judgements one deduces singular or general judgements. Jungius then examines the two kinds of scientifc method, i.e., the inductio and the demonstratio,36 and eventually the role of experience. As Stephen Clucas notes, “the place of experience in Aristotelian natural philosophy was strictly subordinate […] [and] appealed to for examples confrming a priori truths”; but in the early 17th century, natural philosophers “began to attend more closely to the distinctions between experience, phenomena and observation, and formulated a conception of observation as regulated experience, which could be legitimately appealed to in making truth-claims in natural philosophy” (ibid.: 57).37 One of these natural philosophers was indeed Jungius.38 Explicitly, in the frst aphorisms of chapter IV of the fourth book of Logica Hamburgensis, a chapter titled “De experientia,” Jungius distinguishes between the various senses with which experience is taken in, ending with that which is likely to be the most important to the natural philosopher. The frst aphorism deals with the most general sense of experience, when experience is generally taken “to mean an accident of the senses, that is an action, passion, change, or event concerning a thing which we investigate or undergo, and approach via the senses. It is otherwise called Experiment or Phenomenon, that is something appearing to the senses.” The ffth aphorism— describing the type of experience that is most relevant for natural philosophers— states: “let us deal with the actual experience […] and with respect to the scientifc method, a Proposition. It is thus called an empirical Proposition, that is to say an empirical Theorem [Theorema empiricum].”39 I will return to how those empirical theorems may be formulated in Texturæ Contemplatio in Sect. 4.2.3. Moreover, in aphorism 30 of chapter IV, Jungius introduces the idea that the truth of premises “should be ascertained by observation” (“veritas observatione See: (Risse 1964: 526–527). Clucas follows here the discussion in: (Reiss 2000: 209f). On the anti-Aristotelian thinking that emerged in the 17th century concerning Scientia, see the short discussion above, as well as the overview in (Sorell et al. 2010) and the contributions in that volume. 38 According to Clucas (2010: 57), Jungius “bridges the gap between the Aristotelian idea of scientia as certainly demonstrative knowledge and a new orientation towards the empirical investigation of nature.” 39 (Jungius 1957: 207): “1. “Experientia interdum pro sensili accidente accipitur, hoc est pro actione, passione, mutatione, eventu circa rem, quam exploramus, experimur, & sensui subjicimus. Dicitur alias Experimentum πειρα item Phaenomenon, hoc est aliquid sensibus apparens. […] 5. Hoc loco de actuali experiential agendum quae operatio est intellectus secunda, videlicet enuntiatio, & respectu scientifcae Methodi Propositio. Dicitur etiam Propositio empirica, item Theorema empiricum.” Translation taken from: (Clucas 2010: 57–58). 36 37

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exploranda est”). Here, experience (whether observational or not) is not to be used to confrm the universal truth displayed in propositions; rather, experience establishes those truths. Hence, in Logica Hamburgensis, Jungius emphasizes experiment and observation (as well as logical induction) as his scientifc method.40 Meinel notes that for Jungius the laws of nature (Leges naturae) were “inductive generalizations of observational facts, without expressing quantitative relations between measurands […] If for Galileo the book of nature was written in the language of mathematics and its letters were the geometrical fgures, Jungius seems to have presented it in the language of natural things themselves” (Meinel 1984b: 41). Here, one can clearly detect the infuence of Bacon’s method; Meinel underlines that in 1630, Jungius knew of Bacon’s Novum organum as well as his Historia vitae et mortis (ibid.: 27).41 While Jungius considers mathematics as a model for the natural sciences (in contrast to Bacon, and somewhat similar to Descartes), he separates mathematics from the natural sciences and concentrates primarily on the individual, concrete objects when formulating the laws of nature, and less on mathematical structures. The task of investigating nature is to reach, via precise observation, a discrete scientifc experience: distincta experientia, and to demarcate this from a “confused experience” (Jungius 1957: 208–209). This distinction, between ‘confused’ and ‘distinct’ experience comes on the background of a similar distinction— between ‘confused’ and ‘distinct’ notion,42 already introduced in chapter XV of the frst book of Logica Hamburgensis (ibid.: 64). While a confused notion—that which may be deduced from the senses—may look or be defned differently to or by different people, a distinct notion has a defnition that cannot be ambiguous. Jungius gives as an example a drawn circle (conceived by the senses) vs. a circle defned as a round plane fgure, whose boundary consists of points equidistant from a fxed point (the center). The fact that the only example given is a mathematical one, as well as the emphasis on the distinction between ‘confused’ and ‘distinct’ experience, shows the difference delineated by Jungius between mathematical and scientifc knowledge. However, in several unpublished and undated notes Jungius elaborates on confused and distinct notions, explicating these notions with textile related examples, which refect the themes discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio. These notes were copied by Leibniz and are titled Logica de notionibus (A VI4: 1211-1299), but the original manuscript is no longer available. I will discuss these notes thoroughly in Sect. 5.2.2, when discussing Leibniz’ copies of Jungius’ texts, but already here one should stress two examples from Logica de notionibus. First, at the beginning

On Jungius’ ‘scientifc method’, see: (Meinel 1987; Meinel 1984b: 40ff). Along with these books, Jungius had numerous books of Bacon in his library, for example: Sylva sylvarum (1635 edition) and The New Atlantis (1635 edition). See (Meinel 1992: 104). 42 This distinction is obviously reminiscent of that of Descartes, but one should note that Jungius became aware of Descartes’ works only in 1639. See: Kangro (1969: 179). 40 41

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of the subsection titled “De notionibus distinctis et confusis” from Logica de notionibus Jungius states that a “confused notion [is to be noted] when we view the inside surface of a sinuous weave [i.e., a knitted fabric]43 from its exterior, with the manner of the insertion of the threads not yet fully understood […].”44 Second, several passages after this section, in a subsection titled “Confusio Conceptuum”, confused notions are exemplifed with a discussion on the “Strumpfband,” i.e., a knotted garter with three knots; Jungius notes that the knots provide a “beautiful example of confused and distinct thought.”45 According to Jungius, the manual activity of knotting begins as embodying confused knowledge, as with a young boy forming words in his mouth.46 But this learning through manual activity is what prompts the emergence of clear (“distincte”) knowledge and notion. Hence, the knotting of the garter serves as an example for the passage from confused to clear notions via manual practice, and is similar to how knitting is considered: by looking at the knitted fabric (that is, deducing from the senses), one only obtains a “confused notion”. While I will discuss Jungius’ understanding of artisanal and embodied knowledge later, the discussion on distinct notions and mathematics is also related to Jungius’ discussion of proofs in chapter XIV of the fourth book of Logica Hamburgensis: “De Speciebus De monstrationis.” Proofs, according to Jungius, are divided into two types: a priori and a posteriori. The a priori proof is then further divided into a priori par excellence and a priori according to one particular aspect (Jungius 1957: 238).47 While the a priori par excellence proofs deduce conclusions from earlier knowledge and according to nature—an example being the proofs of arithmetic and geometry, the a priori proof according to a (particular) aspect is a proof resulting from what occurs according to nature (prior to any observation), but becomes evident to us later through its demonstration, that is, when the proof deduces what occurs later according to nature. Examples of this type of proof are to be found in optics, astronomy and physics (ibid.). Hence, the frst type of a priori proofs refers to proofs in ‘pure’ mathematics, being arithmetic and geometry, and the second to the sciences, approached with experimentation and observation—but for both domains, Jungius claims that a priori proofs are given or can be obtained. As we will see, various weaves can also be classifed with the help of ‘theorems’ and observations, and their investigation can be classifed as either geometrical or optical (among other domains). Therefore, Jungius may have believed that these theorems can also be proven a priori.

43 For Jungius, the term for knitting is “sinuous weave” (“textura sinuosa”). See Sects. 4.2.3.4 and 4.3. 44 A VI4: 1226: “Notio confusa cum discernimus interiorem superfciem texturae sinuosae ab exteriore, nondum distincte cognito modo insertionis florum […].” 45 Ibid.: 1230: “Strumpfbandel binden mit 3 falten ohn die zwey zipfel gibt ein schohn exempel confusae cognitionis et distinctae.” 46 Ibid.: “Wenn dies der scopus ist dass zwey falten oben und eine samt den zipfeln unten kommen sollen, vulgo wird es leichtlich tentando secundum granditatem rectarum gefunden, und also confuse behalten und gewohnt, wie ein knabe die lettern im munde formiren lernet.” 47 “Estque vel simpliciter à priori, vel secundum quid.”

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How should one practice geometry?

If a priori proofs can be deduced from observation and experiments, and if part of the investigation of weaves, weaving and textile practices can be considered a geometric one (as will be explained in Sect. 4.2.3), the question arises as to Jungius’ view of the way one should practice geometry—since one fnds explicitly in geometry, so Jungius in Logica Hamburgensis, the a priori proofs par excellence. Here, however, we will see that Jungius follows—rather than a deductive way of teaching as with Euclid’s Elements, starting with axioms—a much more empirical, instrument-based and experimental method. That is, Jungius’ way of teaching geometry was to follow a more genetic way of approaching defnitions and problems,48 as I will also elaborate below, and in this sense, Jungius’ experimental, empirical method can be considered as infuenced by, as well as continuing the various treatises of practical geometry which were published in the 16th century, and which were slowly demarcating themselves from the purely theoretical approach to geometry represented by Euclid’s Elements.49 To see this, I will turn briefy to his book Geometria empirica.50 This book, used for lectures on geometry and mathematics, was written and published in around 1627 for the students of the University of Rostock, while further editions were published after 1638 in Hamburg. A translation into German called Reiß-Kunst was prepared by Jungius in 1629. The title Geometria empirica clearly conveys Jungius’ pedagogical intentions: as is clear from the book, Jungius not only aimed to teach the students the logical rules and structure of geometry, but also wanted them to use ‘empirical’ experience, allowing constructions that were based on either intuitive considerations or ‘mechanical’ trial and error, for example, with a straightedge and compass.51 Before examining this book more generally, let me look at an example which clarifes Jungius’ empirical method. When instructing how to construct a parallel line to a given one, he demonstrates two intersecting

Recall that a genetic defnition characterizes a geometrical object through its mode of generation rather than through its essential attributes. 49 The literature on practical geometry in the 16th and 17th century is extensive. See for example (Bennett 1991; Bennett 1998; Bennett 2002; Malet 2012; Axworthy 2022). 50 I follow here the introduction of Bernd Elsner, in: (Jungius 2004: 9–14). 51 Note that the introduction to the German translation presents these two approaches clearly, naming the method presented in the book Reiß-Kunst the “empirical method”: “Es [gibt] im ganzen zwei Methoden […] mit denen die Wahrheit der geometrischen Gegenstände gezeigt wird, von denen eine die einzelnen Sätze ohne Anwendung anderer durch Erfahrung bekräftigt, die andere aber vor allem durch Anwendung genereller Prinzipien, indem sie andere vorher bewiesene Sätze benutzt, und durch Schlussfolgerungen dieselben Sätze beweist [...] die erste Methode [garantiert], hinlänglich bekannt unter dem Namen empirische Methode, die durch Anwendung der Sinne jenen ersten Ekel vor der Beschäftigung mit der Geometrie so zügelt, dass die Anfänger in kürzester Zeit und wie spielerisch die Anfänge dieser Wissenschaft in sich aufnehmen” (Jungius 2004: 87). See also (Axworthy 2021: 249): “[E]arly modern practical geometry treatises generally defended a hands-on approach to geometry, in which instruments held a central place, and sometimes reinterpreted some of Euclid’s geometrical principles and propositions according to this perspective.” 48

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Fig. 4.2 A diagram for the construction of parallel lines, drawn based on Jungius’ instructions: the parallel line is obtained when the straightedge is tangent to both circles at G and H (following: Jungius, Elsner 2004: 109). Note that Jungius himself did not draw diagrams in Geometria empirica, and the diagram drawn is a modern addition by Elsner

circles with the same radius, whose centers are on the given line.52 Jungius then instructs to place a straightedge which is tangent to both circles. This construction can be termed experimental or sensuous, as it relies on the student’s visual perception. While the student may start by placing the straightedge when it is only tangent to one circle but intersects the second circle twice, the limit case, being the result of this experimental method—when the straightedge is indeed tangent to both circles—is shown by a diagram which the students should draw themselves, and to which the literal description of the solution refers (see Fig.  4.2). While this construction (among other constructions which are presented to construct parallel lines) provides the student with practical guidance on how to draw parallel lines, the parallel postulate is not even mentioned in Geometria empirica. This, however, is not surprising: the defnitions–theorems structure, with no axioms, was common in early modern geometrical treatises.53 Moreover, the German translation further stresses the empirical–practical character of the treatise as it contains a more elaborate explanation on how one should draw the fgures and which instruments should be used.54 Here it should be emphasized that during the 17th century, and from the end of the th 16 century with the publication of Christoph Clavius’ edition of Euclid’s Elements in 1574, the Parallel Postulate, the attempts to prove it, and its epistemological status were thoroughly discussed. Clavius’ work infuenced the discussion so much during the 17th century that “the entire discussion on the Parallel Postulate in the Early Modern Age started from, and continuously referred to, Clavius’ work” (de Risi 2016: 9).55 Moreover, Jungius’ notion of parallelism “shows the marks of the

See (Jungius 2004: 109). On the development of Euclidean axiomatics in the early modern period, see (de Risi 2016). 54 See: (Jungius 2004: 170–171). 55 For a survey on how the discussions on the Parallel Postulate unfolded during the 17th century, see: (de Risi 2016: 7–19). 52 53

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Scholastic logician” (ibid.: 79), because he does not differentiate clearly between non-incident straight and equidistant lines, and Leibniz notes that Jungius reserves the word “parallelae” for equidistant lines. Taking a closer look at Texturæ Contemplatio, when Jungius describes the threads used for weaving, referring to either weft or warp threads, he notes that these “parallela sunt” (fol. 62r) or, in an earlier note from 1621, that those threads are “parallel oder gleichlauffend” (fol. 53r).56 But de Risi notes that Jungius, with his refections on parallel lines, “seems to propose a notion of direction connected with that of ‘situs’: so that parallel lines are ‘paralleliter situated’ [paralleliter sitis]” (ibid.: 79–80). If this is indeed the case, it may support the hypothesis, which will be discussed below, that ‘situs’ for Jungius was a quasi-geometrical structural property, even when discussing weaves. This short discussion on the nature of parallel lines in Jungius’ work shows its empirical, genetic nature, and it also posits Geometria empirica as refecting 16th century treatises of practical geometry (of, e.g., Fine, Clavius and Billingsley), which underlined the use of genetic defnitions; these defnitions, as Axworthy (2021: 246) notes concerning these mathematicians, “would allow students to obtain a frst-hand experience of the causal relation between geometrical objects and their essential properties.” Having introduced Jungius’ practices and motivations for how to learn and practice geometry, I now turn to the structure of Geometria empirica. Johann Adolph Tassius writes (ibid.: 41–42) in his preface to the 1642 edition of Geometria empirica that the work was intended to free students from the chore of copying, so that they could use it alongside the lectures. While the basis of these lectures in geometry at that time was almost exclusively the frst six books of Euclid’s Elements, Geometria empirica is not a revision of Elements or a selection from it, but rather an independent introduction to geometry; it consists of an empirical approach to geometry that does not follow purely logical deduction. Geometria empirica is divided into two parts, but in neither part does one fnd any mention of axioms, which was, as noted above, common in numerous treatises. The frst part contains more than a hundred defnitions and only three postulates, being genetic (drawing a straight line between two points, continuing to draw a given line, drawing a circle given its center and radius). This is followed by problems and theorems. The second part contains 17 defnitions, also followed by problems and theorems. The problems in the frst part describe the basic geometrical constructions, including various polygons, whereas in the second part, Jungius focuses more on the circle when presenting problems. In Reiß-Kunst, the reliance on the three above-mentioned genetic postulates, and only on them, is presented clearly: after stating the three

As will be elaborated later, the threads are woven as ‘parallel’, but may be considered as such only in an ideal state—once the weft and warp threads are tightened and interwoven, they are not at all straight lines, but rather curves which cannot be embedded in a two-dimensional plane. 56

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postulates, Jungius writes that “by these three demands all the following tasks are fulflled.”57 This absence of axioms will also be seen in Texturæ Contemplatio, when Jungius presents only defnitions and theorems (and sometimes, though less often, their proofs).58 But also the instrumental approach to geometry is present in Texturæ Contemplatio: Jungius, as can be seen in several of the folios of Texturæ Contemplatio (33r, 37r and 38r),59 uses the term “ductus” to describe the motion of the knitting hand. As Axworthy (2021: 233) indicates, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ‘ductus’ was “associated with the operation of leading a geometrical object from one place to another by the action of an external agent in the context of a construction.” Therefore, both in Geometria empirica and with his usage of “ductus,” Jungius displays the connection between physical and geometrical motion by pointing to the homology between the generation of (knitted) structures of threads and the production of their concrete counterpart by instrumental means, i.e., by the stylus. This suggests that the approach presented in both manuscripts to the geometrical investigation of weaving is more experimental, instrument-dependent and observation-based.

4.2.3 A geometry of weaving in Texturæ Contemplatio? With these introductory sections in mind, it is time to turn to a more detailed examination of the various mathematical, and more specifcally, geometrical refections presented in Texturæ Contemplatio. As we will see, the geometrical investigation is also based on a careful observation of weaves, though not necessarily of the practice or process of weaving. The frst indication of such an implicit geometrical thinking on weaves already appears in 1621, while Jungius was in Lübeck, in a set of notes describing certain fabrics and their properties.60 All of the folios in this group are symbolized with: (see Group 2 in Sect. 3.2). One fnds the following statement on the frst page of this set of folios (fol. 53r): “Each fabric consists of two orders [ordnungen] of threads, in such a way that the threads of one order are parallel or concurrent, and the threads of the other order are located crosswise. The one order is Schärung stamen [warp],

(Jungius 2004: 168): “Durch dieser dreien Fordernissen Wirckungen werden alle folgende Auffgaben entrichtet.” 58 Note that in Geometria empirica, the exercises are given without any proofs. A similar structure is also to be found in Jungius’ Phoranomica (See Kangro 1968: 114). 59 All of these folios belong to Group 8 (additional folios), on knitting stockings. 60 See, however, Sect. 4.2.4 for a note from 1619, where Jungius refects on textiles in terms of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts. 57

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the other series or order is Einschlahg subtegmen [weft].”61 While the description is rather obvious for any weaver, it is important to note that the term “ordnungen,” that is, order, is not employed as the Cartesian meaning of ‘order’ or ‘pattern’, which Descartes mentions in Regulae ad directionem ingenii with respect to weaves or tapestry (see Sect. 2.2.2). Rather, Jungius means here two sets of threads—the warp and weft, which are in a specifc position with respect to each other—either parallel or perpendicular. In that sense, the meaning of “ordnung” may be considered to be much closer to how Bacon used it, in the sense of spatial-relational order (see Sect. 2.2.2), though the extent to which Jungius knew of Bacon’s writings in 1621 is not clear. Moreover, the parallelity of the threads is a result of the practice: similar to the construction presented in Geometria empirica, their parallelness should not be proven, but is ensured by the artisanal work and the weaver. However, at the same time, one should note that the material (warp or weft) threads are not really parallel or perpendicular, but rather curved and interlaced: a geometrical idealization allows Jungius to make this claim. 4.2.3.1 ‘Defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ While the note from 1621 is indeed the earliest one that is dated, other notes—those appearing in the translation above under Group 1—are in fact the clearest indication that Jungius was interested in what may be termed a geometrical investigation of weaves. This is already to be seen with the frst folios of Group 1 (fol. 62r) which open with a set of defnitions (“Defnitiones”) and theorems (“Theorema”). Group 1 composes one of the largest groups in this set of notes—even though some folios are copies of other folios in this group. Jungius does not present any axioms, and this absence is consistent with how Jungius presented geometry in Geometria empirica, and also with how he does not subordinate observation and experiment to a predefned mathematical structure. The question therefore arises: what are these defnitions and theorems? The most complete version of the set of defnitions and theorems is to be found on fol. 62r. The title of this folio is: “p. 1 a contemplation of weaving[:] concerning knowledge of position,”62 and this is followed by a series of “defnitions”: Defnitions The threads of one row [series] are defned as those which are parallel to one another in turn [alternately]. The weave [tela] consists of threads in two rows [series]; one is the warp, the other is the weft.

“Ein iedes geweb bestehet aus zwo ordnungen / der fedemen dergestalt, daß einerley ordnung / fedeme einander parallel oder gleichlauffend / und den fedemen der andern ordnung Creutzrecht / gelegen seyn. Die eine ordnung ist schärung stamen, / die ander series oder ordnung ist einschlahg subtegmen.” Note that at the end of this description, Jungius writes the German terms and immediately afterwards, the Latin ones. 62 “p.1 Textura contemplatio [ ] ad scientiam situs.” 61

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Simple weave is defned when a thread is sent beneath so many [other] threads, as many threads, as it goes over. Double weave is defned when it [a thread] is sent below double [the number of] threads, as [the number] it is sent above [on one certain side [[of the weave.]] ]. Triple weave, quadruple [weave], etc. these are defned similarly.63

Even though no date is written on this set of folios, one can consider these defnitions—or at least the frst ones presented above—as a refnement of the 1621 description of weft and warp, for two reasons: frst, the defnitions are given in Latin, rather than in the vernacular language (i.e., German, as in the 1621 notes); second, more defnitions are found here than just of warp and weft, though it should be emphasized already from the start that Jungius’ terms (‘simple weave’, ‘double weave’ – or ‘textura simpla’, ‘textura dupla’ etc.) are his own inventions: weavers or artisans probably did not use such terms. What does Jungius wish to convey with these additional defnitions? Jungius frst of all notes that the most basic form of weaving—“textura simpla”—is obtained by a regular alternation of lifting the warp threads; today, this form of weaving is called plain or tabby weave (see Fig. 4.3). This weave is obtained when the weft thread crosses the warp threads by going over one warp thread, then under the next, and so on. To this description one should add the rule that in the next row the alternation shifts by one thread. The relations between the rows is exactly what Jungius does not describe explicitly, at least not for “textura simpla”; however, if one looks at his diagrams of the various weaves (see Fig. 4.4), it can be concluded that he was certainly aware of it. If one examines the other defnitions, the same partiality appears for “textura dupla,” “textura tripla” and “textura quadrupla”—that is, while Jungius writes explicitly (e.g., for “textura dupla”) that for every row the weft thread goes above one warp thread and then below two threads, he does not note that in the next row this alternation shifts by one thread. This changes with the defnition of “textura quadrupla.” Indeed, the above series of defnitions ends with a more elaborate explanation of the weave called “textura quadrupla” (on fol. 62r): “Textura quadrupla is defned if, on one side of the weave or in the making of one row [series], the threads, when going under four threads at a time of another row, go over a ffth [thread].”64 But here one may notice that even if Jungius claims that in one row, the pattern of the passing of the weft thread is such that the weft thread is to be found only above every ffth warp thread, there is no way to deduce whether in the next row there will be a shift of this pattern by one thread or by several threads. More explicitly, there are also other weaves which can be considered under the defnition of

“Defnitiones / Unius seriei fla dicuntur, quae sibi invicem parallela sunt / Tela constat ex duabus florum seriebus, quarum altera stamen, altera subtegmen dicitur. / Textura simpla dicitur, quando flum tot fla subtus transmittit, quot supra transcendit. / Textura dupla dicitur, cum dupla tot fla subtus transmittit (in una aliqua pagina) quot supra transcendit. / Textura tripla, quadrupla, etc. similiter dicuntur.” (Underlined in the original.) 64 “Textura quadrupla dicitur, si in una tela pagina sive facie unius seriei fla quaternis alterius seriei flis subtus transmissis super quintum scandant.” 63

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Fig. 4.3 Warp and weft in plain weaving (Barlow 1897: 67, fg. 8)

“textura quadrupla.” Thus, for example, the pattern of the weft thread for a 4/1 satin weave is another weave that can be classifed under the defnition of “textura quadrupla,” and its structure is indeed depicted by Jungius in Fig. 4.4, where the shift of the pattern is of two threads.65 The fact that there are several types of “textura quadrupla” is indeed discussed by Jungius in his “theorems,” which are a collection of four statements about these ‘four-fold weaves’. These theorems are to be found on fol. 63r, titled: “p. 2 a contemplation of weaving[:] concerning knowledge of position.” Here, Jungius explicates the relations between the rows of the weft—which may explain why he called these statements “theorems.” To give an example, the frst theorem describes the Explicitly, if in one row the weft thread is above the frst, ffth, etc. warp threads, in the next row of the 4/1 satin weave, the weft is above the third, seventh, etc. warp threads. See also: (Emery 2009: 108): “[...] in the [4/1]-twill [...] each successive weft binds the next adjacent warp, whereas in the satin weave [...] at least one warp intervenes.” Regarding the 4/1 satin weave, Emery notes that “intermittence of the diagonal alignment of foats is a primary characteristic of the structure of satin weave [...]” (ibid.).

65

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Fig. 4.4 Jungius’ (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 6r) depiction of types of twills. Top left: “textura quadrupla in[te]rmittens” (satin weave), top right: “textura dupla” (2/1 twill), bottom left: “quadrulpla continens” (4/1 twill) and “textura intermittens inutilis” (useless intermittent weave). An almost identical drawing appears on fol. 9r

characteristics of a specifc “textura quadrupla” (the 4/1 twill), when passing the weft thread from one side to the other, referring to the diagram presented in Fig. 4.4: Theorem I. In a textura quadrupla [4/1 twill], if the thread in the direction of D of the row [series] extending from A toward B goes over a second [thread], on top of a second [thread] toward A, it follows that the subsequent, following [thread] of the row extending from A to B goes over on top of a ffth [thread] toward B.66

While theorem I deals with what Jungius calls “continuous [continua] textura quadrupla,” theorem II deals with the properties of “intermittent [intermittens] textura quadrupla”: or, in other words, the frst weave describes a 4/1 twill, the second, a 4/1 satin weave; both weaves are drawn in Fig. 4.4. While the satin “THEOR 1. / In textura quadrupla si seriei ab A / versus B extensae flum versus D secundum scandat super / secundum versus A, sequitur quod seriei ab A ad B extensae / secundum scandat super quintum versus B.”

66

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weave is described in theorem II, theorem III declares that these are the only two possible weaves for “textura quadrupla”: “Omnis textura quadrupla aut continua est aut intermittens.”67 Both theorems III and IV then continue to describe the two types of “textura quadrupla.” However, there are other types of “textura quadrupla” which Jungius did not mention (for example, 4/4 twill), which may point that Jungius may have only observed only several fnished fabrics. Looking closely at the theorems, it is remarkable that the word “demonstratio” is only used in theorem III (though not entirely surprising since also in Geometria empirica there are also no proofs). The ‘proof’ itself may be termed visual, or even haptic. Though one can claim that this is (at least for the weavers) a mere description, it may be considered an example of what Jungius called a proof for an “empirical theorem,” to use his vocabulary from Logica Hamburgensis.68 If one follows Jungius’ classifcation of proofs, then this proof is an a priori one, and it is clearly derived from the observation of a single weave (or in fact, two weaves of “textura quadrupla”); the question remains: is it a proof of a theorem belonging to the realm of geometry or arithmetic, or rather to optics or physics? Though the structure of its presentation may be termed a geometrical one, since it is composed of “defnitions” and “theorems,” whether Jungius meant to present an a priori mathematical theory of the classifcation of weaves (or even a theory of spatial arrangements) is debatable. These theorems are much more a result of regulated observation. However, as we will see below, these are not the only mathematical refections in Texturæ Contemplatio: arithmetical calculations, as well as geometrical notations of spatial (knitted) arrangements, are present as well. Having examined Jungius’ theorems, one should note that they are partial in several respects. The frst question to be asked is: why does Jungius stop his theorems with a quadruple weave, i.e., with “textura quadrupla”? There are obviously more complicated patterns and ways to weave, with either more frames or different resulting patterns. Jungius also notes other types of weaves when he mentions on fol. 62r other twills: “sesquialtera” (3/2 twill) or “sesquitertia” (4/3 twill). Moreover, he even mentions an 8-harness satin weave on other folios (woven with a treadle loom with eight frames).69 Jungius also draws some of these other twills. For example, on fol. 8r, titled “p. 3 a contemplation on weaving[:] concerning knowledge of position,”70 Jungius draws 2/2 and 3/3 twills (see Fig. 4.5).71 This may lead to the conclusion that Jungius—while perhaps indicating the possibility of formulating theorems on more complex weaves—either may not have been aiming to develop a general theory for the entire variety of textile techniques Theorem IV (on fol. 63r) begins with a similar statement: “Textura quadrupla sive continua sive intermittens reciproca.” 68 See also fol. 38r (in Group 8 (additional folios)) in Texturæ Contemplatio for another appearance of a “proof,” this time in the context of the “knitted stocking.” This is again, a visual proof, based on observation. 69 See folios 17r and 22r (in Group 3). 70 “p.3[,] Texturae Contemplatio [] ad scientiam situs.” 71 The 2/2 twill is characterized when two weft threads go below two warp threads, followed by a simple alternation in the next row. 67

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Fig. 4.5 Diagrams from Texturæ Contemplatio (fol. 8r). Left: “Textura simpla gemina intermittens” (2/2 twill). Right: “Textura simpla tergemina intermittens” (3/3 twill)

(including knitting, tapestry and basket plaiting)—or only for weaving in particular, or may not have actually been capable of formulating such a theory. Indeed, it seems that Jungius was hesitant about both the terminology he was giving to the various weaves and which theorems should be presented. Folio 39r (in Group 1), which is titled “Textoria,” begins with the “Defnitio” of “textura biplexa,” a 2/2 twill.72 However on fol. 8r, the weave “textura biplexa” is termed differently: “Textura simpla gemina intermittens.” Moreover, on fol. 39r, the defnition is immediately followed by the title “theorem,” but no statement of such a theorem is given. Another aspect should be taken into account: as we will see in Sect. 4.3, Jungius was very much aware of the existence of other, more complicated methods of weaving: an example of such a method is velvet weaving, which may be termed a ‘three-dimensional’ one, having three sets of threads (not only the warp and weft). Jungius discusses properties of velvet weaves explicitly in Texturæ Contemplatio, but presents neither defnitions nor theorems for them.73 *** Along with the ‘internal’ mathematical analysis unfolded above, one should ask whether Jungius’ refections on geometrical structure (had these been published) could have been useful either to weavers or for the development of new domains of mathematics. This question is related to another question, already asked in the introduction, regarding the existence of ‘trading zones’ between weavers and mathematicians or natural philosophers. First and foremost, Jungius’ awareness of

See fol. 39r: “A biplex weave is when the thread of the weft lies over two [warp threads and afterward] it glides [lies] below the next two [warp threads].” (“Textura biplexa est, quando subtegminis flum binos supercubat, et binos subterlabitur et proxim[um] .”) 73 Though he does try to present some arithmetical regularities in velvet weaving. See Sect. 4.2.3.2. 72

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several techniques of weaving—with the treadle loom (as Jungius himself drew on fol. 55r in Group 14), with the draw loom for weaving damask, with high-warp looms for tapestry, or velvet looms for velvet—must be stressed. Hence the groups of artisans implied here cannot be considered homogeneous. But the defnitions written down in Texturæ Contemplatio refer (implicitly) only to weaving done with the treadle loom, hence only to a specifc subgroup of artisans or weavers.74 Hence, in the discussion below, when employing the term ‘weavers’, what is meant, at least in the context of the geometrical refections, are ‘treadle-loom weavers’. Moreover, while Jungius does mention the treadles themselves of the treadle loom on other folios, on the set of folios presenting those geometrical refections, neither the physicality of the loom nor the manual actions involved are addressed. Returning now to the discussion on the existence of trading zones—which I will further elaborate in Sect. 4.6.4—concentrating only on one side of such a zone: the weavers the separation introduced by Jungius between ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ may be considered an artifcial one, even though weavers may consider it as a differentiation between fabric ‘ingredients’ and preliminary processes and between the resulting structure; but as noted above, aside from the discussions on 4/1 twill vs. 4/1 satin weave, which were presented as four theorems, the other defnitions are partial.75 But the theorems presented are sometimes partial as well (due to the ignorance of other weaves which can be classifed as ‘textura quadrupla’), and this would have been disturbing for weavers, since these theorems would not be capable of explaining all of the possible resulting structures. This raises a question concerning the transfer of knowledge between the artisans and the natural philosophers, which I will discuss in Sect. 4.6, but it also indicates that this transfer is always partial. Moreover, the geometrical part is also partial, for other reasons. As already noted above, the proofs are missing, and for certain weaves, an empty declaration of a non-existing theorem is stated.76 This presentation of partial knowledge may result from the fact that the manuscript that we possess is itself partial: missing sheets may have been taken, left in “Texturarum theoria” or were eventually burned. But the partiality may also result from the nature of Jungius’ own refections—being open-ended, with no commitment to reach a defnite conclusion or complete presentation of knowledge. In this sense, one cannot in fact argue that Jungius’ geometrical refections are partial in the sense that there was a complete set of pages, or an entire body of knowledge—in the form of, for example, a ready-to-use printed manuscript on weaving practices, from which Jungius managed to formalize only a part. Rather, the cumulative, non-conclusive, non-hierarchical nature of his writings points to another method of collecting and gathering knowledge, which focuses on the process of gathering it, and not necessarily on obtaining a ‘polished’ end product. 74 Other techniques require more complicated looms, and hence more complicated ways of weaving, and this, one may suggest, would have necessitated writing down more complicated ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’. 75 That is, they do not consider any description of the relations between the consecutive rows of weft. 76 See above concerning “textura biplexa.”

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263

Nevertheless, one should note that the ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ mostly refect an analysis of the end product (the resulting weave) rather than of the practice itself. That is, the underlying operation of the treadle loom, its construction, and especially how and in which ways one binds the treadle with the frames (see Sect. 2.1 for a more detailed explanation)—none of these practices are even mentioned; such practices were developed and transmitted among a community of weavers, and the knowledge was thus shared knowledge. While I analyze this aspect in Sect. 4.6, it is essential to note that an inspection of only the end product marginalizes precisely this communal aspect of artisanal knowledge. Moreover, a focus only on the fnished weave is also to be seen in the idealization performed by Jungius, by referring to and drawing the threads as ‘parallel’ straight lines. This is an idealization because, as already noted, the weft and warp threads may be considered parallel, but once interwoven, they are neither parallel nor even lines: they are curves embedded in a three-dimensional space, where each weft thread curves differently in different fabrics compared to its previous weft thread. This may lead to the conclusion that the future community of readers of this set of notes—had it been published, as Leibniz wished—was not weavers but scholars and even mathematicians—at least when considering the parts of the text written in Latin. This can be deduced from the fact that the presented diagrams are idealizations as well as abstractions of the weaves: to note this, it is enough to consider Fig. 4.4 or Fig. 4.5, which present the threads as strips, having considerable width. But here one encounters another problem: the proposed separation between ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ is problematic for (practical) geometers as well; the ‘theorems’ do not follow logically from the ‘defnitions’, and it is not clear how new theorems are to be formulated, if not by mere description. That is, one should notice that those theorems may be considered empirical, and hence regulated observation of the diagram may suffce to deduce them. One can conjecture that the proposed title of this set of pages “ad scientiam situs” (“concerning knowledge of position”) points to Jungius’ attempt to describe a future geometry whose theorems are obtained by a consideration of relational position (e.g., the relations between the weft rows) and not of metrical relations; however, this hint is barely elaborated by Jungius—though here one must also consider his refections on the notion of ‘situs’, as will be explicated in Sect. 4.2.3.3. Before that however, I would like to examine Jungius’ arithmetical refections. 4.2.3.2 Arithmetical refections Besides the set of folios presenting weaves in a geometrical manner, Jungius also presents several low-key arithmetical calculations and investigations. We already saw in Sect. 2.2.5 that thread counting was practiced by drapers with the help of a magnifying lens to ensure the fabric’s quality, though Jungius does not mention this practice explicitly or implicitly. However, other practical calculations are mentioned. These calculations may indicate not only how Jungius considered the arithmetical capabilities demanded from the weavers, but also which calculations were actually demanded in practice.

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The frst of these low-key calculations is written by Jungius on fol. 51r (in Group 14): The number of sticks [pegs] gives the length of the fabric. 2 sticks on a frame make one unit (20 cubits). In the warp there are 20 reels [bobbins], ergo 20 threads. The number of the warp threads [Gänge] gives the width of the fabric. There must be 36 such [bundles of] warp threads in the warping. 40 threads for each bundle 36 windings 45 40 1800 threads in [for] the entire width 1440.77

At the end of the description, Jungius explicates a certain numerical calculation, most probably done by the weaver: after winding the future warp on a warp frame (or warping board) with several sticks, the question is how to determine the width of the obtained fabric, or how many threads are in the warp. If Gang is a bundle of warp threads, then the total number of warp threads is obtained by multiplying the number of bundles by the number of threads in each bundle.78 I further discuss this warp frame (and Jungius’ depiction of it) in Sect. 4.4.3 (see also Fig. 4.13). For the weaver, these calculations would be obvious; they are done before the weaving is initiated to ensure that one has long enough threads. It is nevertheless remarkable that Jungius found it important enough to write this basic arithmetic down. Moreover, at the bottom of the page he writes: “ita partim ipse obsesvavi, partim refer. Sartores,” which means that these calculations and the work processes were either observed by Jungius himself or recounted to him by tailors and weavers. This might indicate not only Jungius’ contact with weavers but also his awareness of the arithmetical calculations that they performed. But more importantly, this calculation indicates Jungius’ awareness of the preparatory stages needed for weaving and specifcally, for preparing the loom. Another calculation presented by Jungius concerns velvet weaving. While this type of weaving will be described in Sect. 4.3, here it is enough to mention that this weaving method consists of a third set of threads, woven between the basic weave. One of the ways to weave this third set is presented on fol. 12r (in Group 3), where

“Vielheit der Stöcke gibt die lenge des leinwandes / 2 Stöcke aufen rahmen machen ein stiege (20 elen) / In der scherung sind 20 Spolen, ergo 20 fadem. / Die Vielheit der genge gibt die breite des leinwands. / 36 genge muß dar sein in der schärung. 40 fedem in einem gange 36 geng 45 40 1800 fedem in d[er] gantzen breite. 1440.” 78 See: (Tidow 1992: 263, table 13) for very similar calculations. See also (ibid.: 240): “Since the number of thread bundles to be warped and also the thread count per thread bundle are specifed, the setting values (the fabric density) for these cloths can be determined.” [“Da die Anzahl der zu schärenden Gänge und auch die Fadenzahl pro Gang angegeben wird, lassen sich die Einstellungswerte (Gewebedichte) für diese Tuche ermitteln.”] 77

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Fig. 4.6 Numeration of the position of the sulcalia and the porcalia threads as presented in Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 12r

Jungius writes: “Both porcalia threads [are] in the exterior curves of the sinuous thread / 1, 4, 7, 10 are sulcalia threads / 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 [are] porcalia,”79 drawing Fig. 4.6 to the side of this statement. While I will attempt to explain what the sulcalia and porcalia threads are in Sect. 4.3, it is notable that the drawing and the associated numeration of the ‘curved’ parts point to another example of low-key arithmetic—although here it is not clear whether this was solely Jungius’ conceptualization or if the weavers also explicitly formulated it in this way. Jungius presents here an arithmetic sequence (1, 4, 7, 10…) with a common difference of 3; and another, more complicated series of pairs (2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11…), whose general law can be formulated (in modern terms) as: ,x + 1, x + 3, x + 4, x + 6, x + 7, …x + 3k, x + 3k + 1, … . While the frst arithmetical refection concerns a preparatory stage of weaving, the second is more likely to stem from Jungius’ observing an already woven velvet fabric. Though not formulated as a theorem, as was presented in the part containing the geometrical refections, the presentation of two arithmetical series shows Jungius’ attempts to show (arithmetical) regularity at the basis of this particular weaving, which was discovered via observation. 4.2.3.3

Jungius on ‘situs’ and ‘ad scientiam situs’

If we return to Jungius’ theorems, one of the interesting questions that arises with respect to his geometrical refections concerns the title he gave to those defnitions and theorems: “concerning the knowledge of position” (“ad scientiam situs”). Taking into account that the notion of ‘situs’ was also important for Bacon (see Sect. 2.2.2), the clarifcation of Jungius’ usage of this notion is essential, since Jungius was familiar with Bacon’s writings.80 Nevertheless, the discussion on what Jungius meant by ‘situs’ will be unfolded later, after the discussion on his conception of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts (see Sect. 4.2.4). However, if we

79 “Die beiden porcalia fla in den exterioribus fli sinuosi sinibus 1, 4, 7, 10 sunt sulcalia fla, ǀ 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11. porcalia.” 80 The similarities between Jungius and Bacon were already mentioned above. On the relations between Jungius and other Baconians (e.g., Samuel Hartlib, Jon Amos Comenius), and the high esteem Jungius enjoyed in these circles, see: (Sprang 2017; Clucas 2010; Clucas 1994). For example: Jungius’ “Protonoeticae Philosophiae Sciagraphia […] was being circulated amongst English Baconians as early as 1640, was described in Samuel Hartlib’s Ephemerides as ‘a short Idaea of the whole instauration of Philosophy’ ” (Clucas 2010: 65).

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concentrate on the practice of weaving, it is already important to emphasize that what is meant by this notion is not the position of the (intersection) points of the threads,81 but rather the position of the threads themselves, and moreover, their relative position with respect to each other. This may refect a Baconian approach, but here it should be emphasized that Jungius’ approach to textiles may be considered somewhat more mathematical than Bacon’s, as can be seen when comparing Jungius’ and Bacon’s refections on the notion of ‘situs’. I already briefy discussed in Sect. 2.2.2 Bacon’s approach, as well as his suspicion regarding the idea of mathematization of nature; in contrast, one may argue that in the background of Jungius’ geometrical refections there are certain properties (e.g., ‘textura’ or ‘situs’) which may be presented mathematically, though, as we will see later, Jungius’ own conception of ‘textura’ is somewhat convoluted. To see that ‘situs’ denotes here a relative position, and in particular that of threads, one should note that while the explicit expression “situs florum” (“the position of the threads”) does not appear with respect to weaving in Texturæ Contemplatio, it does appear on other folios of Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as in some of Jungius’ other writings. On fol. 40r, titled “sinuous weaving” (“Textura sinuosa”) from Group 8, and probably written in the 1640s, which deals with the knitting of stockings, Jungius notes that in “silk stocking, the spiked position of the threads [spicatus situs florum] […] can be seen well.” In an earlier note (which is not included in Texturæ Contemplatio) from December 1632 titled “Texturarum Aetiasmus,” Jungius opens his statement by declaring that “essentia des drellwercks consistit in situ florum.”82 This statement, that the “essence” of a (certain) weave termed “drellwerck” consists of the position of the threads with respect to each other, points to what one may call today relational thinking about space. More precisely, Jungius refers here to a property which he termed synhypostatic part—the property being ‘situs’—which can determine several characteristics of the resulting weave. In contrast to a hypostatic part, a synhypostatic part no longer exists when the material (the weave, in our case) disintegrates.83 But it is not just that the order and position of certain elements (in this case, the threads) determine properties of the resulting structure which should be stressed; it is also the fact that Jungius chose to title his set of geometrical refections “ad scientiam situs,” which charges the term ‘situs’ with a quasi-geometrical structural character, regardless of any metrical or quantitative measurement.

Note that for the weaver, the position of the ‘intersection points’ between the threads—as an example for the relative position of points—is not of interest, as no weaver designs any pattern by taking into account how the threads intersect, but rather whether and how one (set of) thread(s)— the weft—will be below or above the other set—the warp. 82 See: Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Observationes Opticae” (NJJ : Pe. 71), fol. 6r [13]. 83 See Sect. 4.2.4 for a more elaborate explanation, as well as other examples where Jungius employs the expression “situs florum” in this content. 81

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4.2.3.4

267

Knitting vs. weaving: sinuous curves, lettered threads

As noted above, when discussing weaves and weaving, Jungius does not explicitly mention the position of specifc points or the intersection of the threads. However, for another artisanal practice—knitting—Jungius does indicate points whose location he considers special. This shows the introduction of a certain idealization of textile products in Texturæ Contemplatio. That is, while Jungius employs ‘situs’ with respect to the position of the threads (or to highlight the ‘knowledge of position’), this is not to imply that he completely ignores the position of specifc points of various threads in a few of the textile activities that he surveys. However, this statement must be relativized: similar to Hooke, as was seen in Sect. 2.2.5, the lettered points signify idealized places on the thread, whose location on the real thread is not so evident or clear in practice. But in contrast to Hooke, Jungius’ notation was also a part of his geometrical reasoning when presenting his diagrams; for Hooke, the lettered drawings were much more an attempt to signify certain regions but without attempting to draw geometrical conclusions or theorems.84 Jungius’ notation is most clearly exemplifed in Group 8 of Texturæ Contemplatio, which deals with knitting. Here one should emphasize how knitting is termed by Jungius: “Textura sinuosa”, which is a term he himself coins. To give a frst example, the entire fol. 42r (in Group 8), dated to 1644, is titled: “Textura Sinuosa,” and deals with the relations between ‘sinuous’ (i.e., knitted) threads and the position of points. In the frst sentence of fol. 42r one already sees the notation of specifc points of the knitted thread: “A sinuous [thread] abcd has a middle transverse part bc, two oblique, or [rather] obliquely straight [parts], ab [and] cd.” This notation is obviously an idealization, or rather, an abstraction of what a knitted thread looks like—in practice, these points are neither fxed nor unchangeable. However, once Jungius notated these points as such, he could describe the various properties of the threads geometrically: the thread can be either oblique or horizontal. Moreover, on another folio titled “Textura Sinuosa,” where Jungius discusses the knitting of stockings, he notes “the spiked position [spicatus situs] of the threads, as the threads are lying as real spears” (fol. 40r, Group 8 (additional folios)). As noted above, ‘spicatus’ is Jungius’ term to describe what a knitted fabric looks like, and he employs this adjective often (see also folios 8r and 38r). The obtained fabric, knitted by the method that today is called ‘stocking stitch’ (Emery 2009: 40), has a ‘V’ pattern, that is, a herringbone pattern. Here it is essential to note that ‘spicatus’ was a term coined by Jungius himself to describe the shape of the obtained knitted stocking; it did not stem from already existing terminology.

Note also that Hooke’s notation was presented as ‘external’, that is, as a result of his work with the microscope, whereas Jungius, when notating curved, knitted threads, also describes the manual work of knitting (see fol. 43r). 84

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Fig. 4.7 Jungius’ drawing of what “knitted stockings” (“Gestrickte Strümpfe”) look like (fol. 33r)

To return to the notated points on the knitted fabric: these do not exist as such, but only in relation to other points and threads, or areas of threads (depending on how the threads are curved), similar to the way in which properties of a fabric are determined according to the position of the threads (a topic I will discuss in Sect. 4.2.4). On fol. 33r, Jungius draws what “knitted stockings” (“Gestrickte Strümpfe”) look like (see Fig. 4.7). Referring to the knitting of a stocking, the drawing shows successive rows of threads running in ‘open’ loops, “each loop engaging the corresponding one in the previous row and being in turn engaged by the corresponding one in the following row” (ibid.). Jungius depicts the two sides of this type of knitting, noting that one side looks like “stones in a wall” (fol. 40r). But here it should be emphasized that what is actually drawn is a knitted fat surface.85 The production of a stocking from this knitted surface required not only closing it into a tube, but also knitting several other parts together, so that they would ft on the foot.

85 Similar to what was produced by the stocking frame, though Jungius does not mention it (as he probably did not know of its existence); see Sect. 2.1.1.

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While the notated points are the same points described on fol. 42r, the fact that Jungius draws the ‘entire’ stocking indicates that these points, while not necessarily intersection points, only exist due to the knitted structure, that is, only due to the specifc interlacement between the threads, and to the way that the threads curve in space. The sinuous shape of the thread and the intersection points do not, and in fact cannot, exist as such, but rather as a result of the knitted structure. *** Both knitting and weaving can be classifed as activities whose end result depends on the structure and relative position of its parts (i.e., threads). However, one difference should be noted: though weaving and knitting are both classifed by Jungius under the title ‘textura’, they have very different topological structures. While Jungius does attempt to differentiate between the two practices (by naming knitting ‘textura sinuosa’ and weaving only ‘textura’), the terminological ambiguity does not clearly indicate two different ‘geometries’ in which the threads are interlaced very differently. Moreover, the image of the knitted stocking does not appear in Texturæ Contemplatio by chance; in fact, it was drawn by Jungius more than once, as we will see in the following sections (see Fig. 4.9). It encapsulates Jungius’ conception of ‘situs’ as a relational property, and presents a structure which—apart from being examined as a result of the practice of knitting—should also be examined with other empirical methods, or even mathematically. To recall: Jungius’ conception of ‘situs’ appears clearly when he presents his ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ of weaving. This again shows a terminological vagueness, and a certain problematicity concerning which kind of ‘geometry’ Jungius is aiming to develop—that of a woven fabric or a knitted one? However, the essential role played by ‘position’ also shows the affnity between weaving and knitting, at least according to Jungius. It hence points to Jungius’ conception of geometry, which was reviewed in Sect. 4.2.2. To recall, Jungius employs the term ‘ductus’ to describe the movement of the threads while knitting; this usage accounts for descriptions of both the actual hand motion and the geometrical motion creating the sinuous curve. This points to an understanding of geometry, seen already in Jungius’ refections on weaving, which compared, on the one hand, the “abstract derivation of geometrical objects through the motion of points, lines and surfaces” and on the other, “instrumental processes” (Axworthy 2021: 249). But before returning to the question of what image of geometry Jungius wished to present in Texturæ Contemplatio, a detour is needed to see how the ‘same’ knitted structures appeared in later mathematical writings. 4.2.3.5

Detour: Leibniz and Vandermonde on knitted structures

The question raised at the end of the last subsection should be highlighted: what, in fact, does it mean when we say that the ‘same’ object is being examined by the same scholar but in different frameworks? Or from another, somewhat opposite direction:

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can one argue for the existence of an identity (or continuity) of a (mathematical) object, when the ‘same’ object is investigated by different mathematicians, living in different centuries? I will examine this question by looking at Leibniz and AlexandreThéophile Vandermonde, both of whom, like Jungius, depicted the same image of the knitted structure in their writings. As already noted, Leibniz considered Texturæ Contemplatio important enough to make from it a copy, which he reorganized and edited, also copying the pattern of the knitted threads (see Fig.  4.8(a)). Moreover, it should be mentioned that the frst published attempt to mathematize the pattern of the knitted stocking drawn by Jungius is usually associated with the mathematician Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde who, in 1771, in his paper “Remarques sur des problèmes de situation,” noted that the artisan who makes a braid or a knot conceives these objects in relation to their relative position to each other, and not to their measures and size. Vandermonde draws the end products of two types of textile techniques: nålebinding—also known as ‘knotless netting’ or ‘knotless knitting’ (Emery 2009: 46)—and knitting (Fig.  4.8(b)). In his edited and revised copy of Texturæ Contemplatio, Leibniz not only draws a knitted fabric (Fig.  4.8(a)) but also the pattern of a “knitted seam” (“Stricknate”; see Fig. 4.8(c)), which is not drawn in Texturæ Contemplatio, but it may very well be that the folios in Texturæ Contemplatio, on which such patterns were drawn and described, were indeed written by Jungius, but were later taken out from this manuscript. Along it one fnds other terms, designating other types of knitting.86 Vandermonde declares that he is fulflling Leibniz’s promise to develop a “calcul des Situations,” also introducing a notation for “tissus de fls”: Quelles que soient les circonvolutions d’un ou de plusieurs fls dans l’espace, on peut toujours en avoir une expression par le calcul des grandeurs; mais cette expression ne seroit d’aucun usage dans les Arts. L’ouvrier qui fait une tresse, un réseau, des nœuds, ne les conçoit pas par les rapports de grandeur, mais par ceux de situation : ce qu’il y voit, c’est l’ordre dans lequel sont entrelacés les fls. Il seroit donc utile d’avoir un système de calcul plus conforme à la marche de l’esprit de l’ouvrier, une notation qui ne représentât que l’idée qu’il se forme de son ouvrage, & qui pût suffre pour en refaire un semblable dans tous les temps. Mon objet ici n’est que de faire entrevoir la possibilité d’une pareille notation, & son usage dans les questions sur des tissus de fls [...] Leibnitz promit un calcul des Situations, & mourut sans rien publier. C’est un sujet où tout reste à faire, & qui mériteroit bien qu’on s’en occupât. (Vandermonde 1771: 566–567)

As can be seen from Fig. 4.8(b), Vandermonde developed a general notation to codify the location of the various intersection points of knitted threads, i.e., he employed a certain triple coordinate system, which he used in his article.87

Explicitly, in (LH 38, fol. 31r) one fnds a differentiation between “steke and strick,” that is, between two practices of knitting “which do not differ with respect to the position of the thread after the operation, but they are [two] crafts which differ in the operation and the direction.” (“steke und strick nate non differeunt in situ fli post operationem, sed in operatione et ductu artis differunt.”) In Texturæ Contemplatio, the activity of “sticken” is mentioned only once (in fol. 30r). 87 See below for a more elaborate explanation. 86

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Fig. 4.8 a Leibniz’s ‘copy’ of Jungius’ knitting pattern (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, LH 38, fol. 38r; compare Fig. 4.7). b Vandermonde’s notation for two textile practices: nålebinding, i.e., ‘knotless knitting’ (above) and knitting (below) (1771, plate 2; Bibliothèque nationale de France; public domain). c A part of fol. 31r (from LH 38) in Leibniz’s ‘copy’ of Texturæ Contemplatio, magnifed, which contains a drawing of a “knitted seam” (“Stricknate”). This drawing does not appear in Texturæ Contemplatio, but may have very well stemmed from Jungius’ original manuscript (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek  – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, LH 38, fol. 31r; public domain)

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Jungius’ notation, in contrast, is of a different character. Jungius, while being aware of the spatial-relational, three-dimensional structure of (the knitted or woven) fabric, does not even think of employing any type of coordinate system, for the obvious reason that such a term or usage did not yet exist. Moreover, it is not only that the notation and its usage are different and play a different role. One has to note that here, a triple conception of the notion of ‘situs’ emerges, where each of the mathematicians mentioned: Jungius, Leibniz and Vandermonde, employed this notion with a different meaning, as for each of them the notion was located within a different epistemic confguration, i.e., a different mathematical and scientifc framework. For Jungius, as already seen and as will be explicated further, ‘situs’ is a relational property, which is not dependent on a metrical relation (as with his entire geometrical investigation of weaves). Rather, the notion describes the structure of the weave (or of the material investigated) as a synhypostatic part (see also Sect. 4.2.4).88 Leibniz’s conception of ‘situs’, ‘analysis situs’ and ‘geometria situs’ was thoroughly investigated in Vincenzo de Risi’s work (2007), though one can certainly expect that Leibniz’s reception of Jungius’ ideas concerning ‘situs’ would shed new light on his works. It is important to recall the letter that Leibniz wrote to Huyghens on 8 September 1679: “[…] je crois qu’il nous faut encore une autre analyse proprement géométrique ou linéaire, qui nous exprime directement situm, comme l’algèbre exprime magnitudinem.”89 Indeed, one of Leibniz’s critiques concerning the rise of Cartesian algebraic formalism and its application to geometry was that it not only proved “too much, because symbols in ordinary algebra have no straightforward geometrical interpretation and may denote magnitudes that have no meaning in (classical, Euclidean) geometrical terms,” but it also had the “potential to yield unsound conclusions” (de Risi 2019: 249). Hence, Leibniz aimed to replace the Cartesian algebra of magnitudes with an algebra of situations. According to de Risi, Leibniz aimed to develop a “characteristica geometrica propria […] whose primary relations consist in congruence and similarity (instead of equality), and whose most important and in fact unique function […] is situs – that is, a function concerning reciprocal spatial position between geometrical fgures” (ibid.). Hence ‘situs’ “turns out to be nothing more than the notion of distance and is mainly defned with reference to the concept of congruence” (ibid.: 250). If one follows de Risi, here one can notice a shift in what Jungius means by ‘situs’, and, in relation to that, how Bacon and Jungius saw the notions of ‘situs’ and ‘textura’ as intertwined. It should be noted that Leibniz’s manuscripts on this topic remained unpublished during the 17th century, and only a handful of mathematicians knew about them in the 18th and 19th centuries. Only, or mainly, the programmatic ideas of Leibniz were transmitted, but not the exact content or formulation of what exactly constitutes ‘analysis situs’. It is for this reason that numerous interpretations of Leibniz’s

88 89

That is, as a part that dissolves when the investigated material itself disintegrates. Cited from: (Epple 1999: 45).

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program have been suggested over the centuries, seeing Leibniz as the precursor of either topology or vector calculus. This is also the background of Vandermonde’s citation, which ascribed to Leibniz a “calcul des Situations” in the form of developing a geometry of woven nets, and which, surprisingly, shows the same drawing as that of Leibniz and Jungius. One aspect should be stressed in Vandermonde’s citation: both Jungius and Vandermonde turned away from measurements of the knitted pattern (note that Vandermonde stresses that the “ouvrier […] ne les conçoit pas par les rapports de grandeur”); one may even claim that both aimed at a notation that would standardize this textile pattern. However, Vandermonde indicated that mathematics could be useful for the work of the artisan, an aspect which is not mentioned by Jungius, the latter not acknowledging the merits of examining the manual processes of knitting and weaving more closely. Also, the fact that Vandermonde uses his notation of the knitted net only to investigate a problem of Euler, being “la marche du cavalier des échecs” (1771: 566),90—i.e., of the knight’s movement in chess, suggests that his introduction was much more (or only) programmatic: indeed, as the article progresses, the interlaced threads no longer play any role, and Vandermonde does not mention any potential advantages for the artisans stemming from his notation; this is in contrast to Jungius, who saw the pattern of knitted threads as essential to understanding the structure of materials, but who also elaborated on how knitting is done manually (see Sect. 4.4). Moreover, as Moritz Epple notes (1999: 54), Vandermonde makes use of coordinates, taking advantage of the Cartesian conception of geometry, in contrast to Leibniz’s original intention. It is clear from this short detour that for the three scholars, the notion of ‘situs’ functioned differently. Jungius’ mathematical and scientifc framework while discussing this notion was also situated within the 17th century philosophical discourse on ‘situs’ and ‘textura’ (see also Sect. 2.2). For Leibniz, the notion of ‘situs’ was embedded in another mathematical feld, loading it with a new meaning, although his precise intentions were not widely known till the 19th century. Vandermonde then took what he understood from Leibniz’s program to solve a concrete problem, which was not even considered by either Jungius or Leibniz, and did not have any connection to artisanal work. All of this indicates that there was barely any continuity between the three scholars regarding this notion; indeed, it is only between Jungius and Leibniz that the concrete act of one copying the other’s notes can be pinpointed. And even though both Jungius and Vandermonde stress that the objects they inspect result from artisanal work, one cannot claim that is it the ‘same’ object. Here I follow Catherine Goldstein (2010: 138–139), who emphasizes the diffculty involved with such historiographic constructions in establishing the identity of a mathematical object, as they presuppose the category of the ‘same’ (as if in very different expressions one can recognize the same truths), not only at a given time,

90

See also: Epple (1999: 50–51).

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but also between periods. Both Leibniz and Vandermonde presupposed this category: Leibniz, when ‘merely’ copying Jungius’ notes, Vandermonde, when suggesting that he is following Leibniz’s project. The presupposition of identity should be considered, according to Goldstein (1995: 16), as a problem, and not a tautology; it is only in this way that the various epistemic confgurations can attest to the various practices involved. But here, one should add that the artisanal processes themselves must be examined: can one claim that the artisan in Vandermonde’s period was working in the same way as the artisan in Jungius’ time? Obviously, when considering the transfer of knowledge itself between artisans and mathematicians, the category of ‘same’ object must be considered with suspicion.

4.2.4

Jungius and the structure of materials

Having surveyed Jungius’ mathematical refections on textile practices, here I would like to survey how Jungius took weaving and properties of woven structures as an explanatory as well as exploratory model to account for the structure of materials. One of Jungius’ aims was scientifc reform based on a new empirical conception, the starting point being concrete bodies of the material world (Meinel 1987: 302–303). Jungius stated that the existence of a particular object must be grasped by the senses alone, without this existence having been specifed a priori by hypothetical considerations, and his point of departure was the daily experience of the “divisibility of natural bodies: a table, a plant, a stone can be split into parts (partes) and then reconstituted from them, just as a wall is made of bricks” (ibid.: 308). Jungius’ scientifc method, as already described above, consisted of describing the experience precisely and scientifcally with the aid of observation, regulated by the senses. These increasingly fne observations and differentiations should eventually consolidate into concepts and defnitions (Jungius 1957: 207ff). The question is how this scientifc approach can be seen in Jungius’ refections on textiles and weaving. While in Texturæ Contemplatio one fnds, for example, geometrical refections (when Jungius examines particular weaves) or optical investigations (see Sect. 4.2.5), when examining Jungius’ other writings, one notes that woven and knitted textiles also play a role in his investigation of materials. An example of this can be seen in Logica Hamburgensis: in the frst book, chapter VI, titled “De Praedicamento Qualitatis,” Jungius introduces in aphorism 115 an explanation on what a “Figura corporalis composita” is (ibid.: 35). According to Jungius, the composite or tangled shape of the body, also called external shape, consists of several simple surfaces of indeterminate number, which, although tangled, can be reduced to a simple shape. The example given is a household item: a ball (or a sphere) made from knotted threads, where the threads are still visible when holding the sphere. The tangled threads constitute the whole ball (“Globus ex flis agglomeratis constans”). Interestingly enough, another twined household item appears in Jungius’ Praelectiones Physicae, when

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he calls to inspect not only the living objects (such as the “tasting tongue”) but also homogeneous objects (such as the skin) and inanimate objects. Here Jungius gives a single example: the rope (Jungius 1982: 95). I claim that neither example— ball or rope—was chosen accidently; both come from the world of textiles, of entwined threads, and both can be readily found for an investigation in the domestic setting, similar to textiles (see also Sect. 1.2). If we return to textile practices and how Jungius refects on them, it is remarkable that while the extant literature barely examines Texturæ Contemplatio, it does concentrate on Jungius’ refections on textiles to explain the processes of composition and decomposition of natural and artifcial bodies, a subject which hardly appears in Texturæ Contemplatio.91 Hence, a short detour is needed to briefy review Jungius’ conception of materials.92 Jungius’ investigation of materials introduces two types of parts of a body: hypostatic parts, being parts which can exist outside a body after its decomposition; and synhypostatic parts, which are inseparable parts that by themselves have neither existence nor persistence (Jungius 1982: 100). An example of these synhypostatic parts, which appears several times in Jungius’ writings, is the “order and location of atoms” (“situs et ordinis atomorum”) (ibid.: 98).93 What was the reason for the introduction of these two types? Jungius “found the two atomist principles of matter and void to be insuffcient to explain all physical phenomena and notably attraction and cohesion” (Lüthy 1998: 86). Lüthy indicates that Jungius’ usage of the imagery of atoms is presented in a bundle called “Circuli Locum Replentes,” prepared in 1630–1650. This bundle is characterized by Meinel as “notes on the repletion of space by spheres with respect to a corpuscularian structure of matter, mostly in response to Giordano Bruno” (ibid.: 84). While the gathering and separation of indestructible and unchanging elements was the cause of changes in materials (ibid.: 86), the reorganization of the arrangements of the (hypostatic) parts into looser or denser ones (“situs laxior [vel] pressior”)94 underlay, for Jungius, “all physical and chemical processes” (ibid.).95 The investigation of possible arrangements of atoms

Jungius mentions only once in Texturæ Contemplatio the disintegration of a fabric: on fol. 8r (Group 1), Jungius briefy mentions what may happen when a fabric named ‘kersey’ is worn out (“detrito”). 92 A much more extensive overview can be found in (Kangro 1968). 93 On Jungius’ refections on textiles with respect to his theory of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts, see: (Danneberg 2003: 283; Kangro 1968: 18–19; Meinel 1982: 331–332). 94 Jungius’ Nachlass, from the bundle titled “Circuli Locum Replentes” (NJJ : Pe. 67), fol. 102r [203]. 95 See also Kangro (1969: 149), who notes that Jungius investigates the notion of ‘gravitas’ of atoms, also with respect to Bruno’s theory of matter: Jungius proves that “the different size of contacting spherical particles of commensurable diameter in the same arrangement does not change the gravitas (specifc gravity) of the body composed of the parts, but the external shape (fgura) and the mutual position (situs) of the particles infuence the gravitas.” 91

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was done in geometrical and arithmetical ways, with a “mathematical exploration” (ibid.: 89); it is precisely this investigation of the spatial properties of the arrangement—being in fact a synhypostatic part—that is taken by Jungius when he presents fabrics and their structure as an exploratory model.96 Indeed, one of the folios in the bundle “Circuli Locum Replentes” is from 1630 and is titled “Filum atomorum,”97 presenting diagrams of repletion of the plane with either squares or triangles. An immediate connection to the arrangement of threads or fabrics is not indicated there, but the title already points to Jungius’ interest in the ‘threading’ of atoms, or, otherwise formulated, their arrangement. How is Jungius’ theory of hypostatic and synhypostatic parts related to his refections on textiles and texture? One of the more obvious examples given by Jungius to illustrate the hypostatic and synhypostatic parts is a piece of fabric; this example is explicitly presented in his 1642 Disputationum de Principiis Corporum Naturalium.98 According to Jungius, the decomposition of a woven fabric gives rise to threads that can exist independently of the fabric; furthermore, the threads themselves can be decomposed into fbers: “the thread is a hypostatic part of the fabric; it can be separated from the linen in such a way that it is no longer part of a fabric. In the same way, the fber is a part of the thread, which is twisted from several fbers”99 (Jungius 1988: 377, §34). However, if one considers the contact, arrangement, and position of the threads of the fabric (“situs florum”), then while these are also parts of the fabric—since they give it its specifcity and structure—in this case one can only speak of synhypostatic parts. For, if the woven fabric is dissolved and ceases to be a fabric, then the order, position, and mutual contact of the threads no longer exist. Accordingly, a woven fabric consists of parts that are hypostatic and parts that are synhypostatic, the latter destroyed during the fabric’s decomposition (ibid., §37).100 Surprisingly, ‘texture’ as a synhypostatic property is not mentioned. But the fact

Jungius’ interest in these parts also lies in a broader framework—his “syndiacritical method,” which assumed that “syncrisis and diacrisis (gathering and separation) of indestructible and unchanging frst bodies was the real cause of material change” (Lüthy 1998: 86). 97 Jungius’ Nachlass, from the bundle titled “Circuli Locum Replentes” (NJJ : Pe. 67), fol. 203v [408]. 98 The full title is: “Disputationum de principus corporum naturalium prima in Gymnasis Hamburgensi plublice proposita praeside Joachimo Jungio Phil. ac. Med. Doctore, Physicae ac p. t. Logicae Professore, Gymnasiique Rectore, Respondente Johanne Hogio Hamburg. Habebitur XXX Martii horismatutinis Hamburgi 1642.” See: (Jungius 1988: 371–384, esp. 377). 99 “Ita flum est pars hypostatica panni; potest enima separari ex panno, ita ut non sit amplius pars alicujus texturae. Ita licium pars fli ex pluribus licijs torti.” 100 “Exempli gratia si quis contactum, mutuum ordinem et situm florum, secundum quem se invicem subeunt et scandunt seque vel arcte vel laxe stringunt, dicat esse partem et quidem formalem panni, quippe quae speciem panno largiatur, non nisi synhypostatica pars dici poterit. Si enim pannus dissolvatur ita, ut pannus esse desinat, interit quoque ordo, situs et contactus mutuus iste florum, qui panno speciem suam tribuebat. Pannus itaque ex hypostaticä et synhypostaticä parte constabat.” 96

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that the main collection of notes on textile practices is called Texturæ Contemplatio— which can indeed be translated as “contemplation on texture”—indicates that the notion of ‘texture’ played a similar (though not identical) role, as I will elaborate in Sect. 4.2.4.1. While the refections from Disputationum were published in 1642, almost identical folios in Jungius’ Nachlass indicate that he had already written down these refections in June 1619,101 when he was in either Padua or Lübeck.102 Being the earliest dated note on textiles, it shows that Jungius certainly posited weaves and fabrics as a possible exploratory model for the investigation of materials. To emphasize: Jungius indicates that the synhypostatic parts—such as position and order—cannot be counted as parts that can be perceived by the senses. Meinel notes that only the hypostatic parts can guarantee empirical certainty, as only these are accessible to the sensory experience. But even if this is not possible for the synhypostatic parts, one can certainly deduce them from sensory perception (Meinel 1984b: 34). As noted above, Jungius was interested in understanding the properties of materials and their changes by investigating not only their hypostatic but also their synhypostatic parts (Meinel 1982: 333). In his Doxoscopiae physicae minores, which was edited by Fogel and published after Jungius’ death in 1662, Jungius notes that the position and sequence of the threads—the synhypostatic parts of the woven fabric—are suffcient to distinguish different kinds of cloth (according to the shimmer of their color or their tautness). Hence, “sinuous woven” fabrics—i.e., most probably knitted fabrics—are stretchable (“Textura Sinuosa Tentitlis”) with respect to each direction, whereas a rectangular fabric (“Textura recta uniformis”) is only stretchable on the diagonal.103 In these sections from Doxoscopiae physicae minores, Jungius also specifes various types of weaves and fabrics: velvet (uncut and cut), taffeta, atlas and damask.104 When one compares Jungius’ own notes from which

Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Exercitatio II de principiis hypostaticis, ad cap. 3” (NJJ: Wo. 23), fol. 6r [55], § 26: “Synhypostatica pars est quae extra totum / suum subsistere nequit, sed toto / intereunte vel simul et ipsa interit # e.g. / si quis Γ ordinem et situm florum sec. quem / se invicem scandunt, et subeunt / seque vel arctè vel laxè stringunt fla, / dicat esse partem et quidem formalem / panni, quippe quae speciem panno largiatur / non nisi synhypostatica pars dici poterit. / Si enim pannus dissolvatur ita ut pannus / esse desinat, intererit quoque ordo, situs et / contactus mutuus iste florum qui / panno speciem suam tribuebat. / Γ contactum mutuum, /# vel alterius totiûs / pars talis / ft, qualis pars / prioris fuerat.” (The symbols Γ and # are in the original.) 102 Compare also fol. 8r (Group 1) from Texturæ Contemplatio, where Jungius describes textiles from Padua. 103 See: (Jungius 1662: Part 2, Sect. 1, Assert. 7, §95–99); see (ibid., §85) regarding the fexibility of fabrics. 104 e.g. (ibid.: § 95): “Denique solo Situ, Ordine, different Velutum Solidum (Ungeschoren), Velutum Sectum, Atlasch / Taft […] / Damast / &c.” These weaves, as well as textura sinuosa, are also discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio. 101

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Doxoscopiae physicae minores was prepared, one discovers that Fogel in fact omitted the title of the folio from which these statements were copied: “the position of atoms” (“atomorum situs”).105 The title reveals the central place of the structure of weaves in Jungius’ corpuscular theory. This was, moreover, not the only textile-related folio from Jungius’ notes which was only partially or not at all integrated into the printed version of Doxoscopiae physicae minores. Indeed, on an undated note to be found in the set of notes from which Doxoscopiae physicae minores was prepared (a sheet which was not included in the published book), Jungius draws interlaced threads as a depiction of the synhypostatic parts (see Fig. 4.9), threads which are considered in Texturæ Contemplatio as “textura sinuosa” and are, in fact, a depiction of ‘knitted stockings’, as discussed above (see Fig. 4.7). The frst part of this note is as follows: In relation to Sennert’s axiom not everything that is in a principiatum [composed of principles, parts] is also in one of its principles. Wood is fssile, and the principle of wood is not necessary fssile Also a cloth is fssile (- can be torn) -- But a reticulated [net-like] work (knitted) or paneled [textile] work of the same wool string, these are not fssile -----paneled [textile] can be called in German eine Masche.106

As is clear from the title of this folio, Jungius is refecting on Daniel Sennert’s “axioms.” While Jungius was certainly acquainted with Sennert’s work and was infuenced by it,107 there is no indication that Sennert took (knitted) textiles to exemplify principles of his corpuscular theory.108 The question that arises, of course, is what Jungius meant when writing: “In relation to Sennert’s axiom / not everything that is in a principiatum is also in one of its principles.” If indeed principiatum means an object composed of principles, or rather parts,109 then Jungius must have been referring to his own conception of synhypostatic parts, as (for example) order or position cannot be observed, whereas hypostatic parts can. In this sense, one may suggest

Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Doxoscopiae physicae minores” (NJJ : Pe. 51a), fol. 156r [319]. 106 “ad Ax. Sennerti / Non de quod in principiato est, etiam / in principiorum aliquo inest. / Lignum est fssile, at principia ligni non / necesse est esse fssilia / etiam pannus est fssilis (leßet sich reißen) / at reticulata opera / (gestricket) sive laqueata opera ex / eodem laneo flo, non sunt fssilia / [separating line] laqueotus potest vecari [vocari] germ. ein maske [masche].” 107 See (Kangro 1968: 130ff; Meinel 1982: 322–324). 108 On Sennert’s work in general, see (Newman 2006). 109 See: Meinel (1982: 321), Meinel (1984b: 32). 105

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Fig. 4.9 Drawing of interwoven threads (Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Doxoscopiae Minores Physicae” (NJJ : Pe. 51 a), fol. 213r [435])

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that there is a deviation from Sennert’s conception of “chymical analysis.”110 According to Sennert “every mixture could be resolved into those parts out of which it was originally constituted […] [and there is no] generation of new constituents during the process of resolution and decay.”111 However, in contrast to Sennert, the synhypostatic parts are constitutive but do vanish with the resolution (of the fabric). Similarly, as William Newman notes, for Sennert “the validity of chymical analysis is borne out by the scholastic ‘axiom’ in quae dissolve possunt composita, ex iisdem coaluerunt112 […] In the context of atomism, the analytical agents of the chymist are used by Sennert to defne the constitution of ‘indivisibility’” (Newman 2006: 97). But while Newman refers to Kangro’s work,113 also noting that Jungius aimed to adopt a similar approach, he does not note Jungius’ conception of synhypostatic parts. If one examines the above-cited folio and Jungius’ notes on knitted fabric, it might, however, very well be that Jungius’ reference to the synhypostatic parts is a variation on Sennert’s negative-empirical conception of ‘atomicity’. Several historians of chemistry have already underlined this negative-empirical conception of the atom in Sennert’s and Boyle’s works (among others),114 stressing that “the practice of defning either atomicity or elementality operationally as the limits of experimental analysis can be traced at least as far back as the 13th century” (Banchetti-Robino 2020: 27). To see how the theory of synhypostatic parts may be considered in terms of Sennert’s negative-empirical conception, one should stress that Sennert does not mean by ‘atom’ an “ontologically indivisible particle” but rather an “operationally indivisible” one (ibid.: 32).115 The theory of synhypostatic parts is, one may claim, a twist on this conception: not only are these parts indivisible, but they also cannot be at all or in principle observed by the senses, regardless of the instrument used; hence, they cannot ontologically function as real, observable parts—and nevertheless they do operationally infuence the overall structure.116 This understanding refects the understanding of the notion of ‘situs’ as a relational property which does operationally infuence the entire structure, similar to that which can be noted in Bacon’s refections on ‘situs’ (see Sect. 2.2.2). A similar conception appears when Jungius dipped an iron object into a solution, observing that the iron object was covered with a layer of copper once it was taken out.

On Sennert’s conception of “chymical analysis,” see: Newman (2006: 85ff and esp. 97). Cited from (Meinel 1988: 92). 112 “The things into which composites can be dissolved are the things out of which they are made”—based on Aristotle’s De caelo 3, 302a, 15–18. See: Newman (2006: 97). 113 Newman is referring to (Kangro 1968: 206–212). 114 Knight (1967); Thackray (1970); Bensaude-Vincent, Stengers (1993: 51–52); Newman (2006: 96). 115 See also: Newman (2011). 116 Meinel explicitly notes the following (1984b: 31–32): “Jungius was not an atomist in the sense of a purely physical corpuscular mechanics [...] But the particle conception served him primarily as a model-like, visual hypothesis for explaining processes below the perceptual limit. As basic elements of the material nature the atoms of the classical atomistics were not suffcient for him.” See also: (ibid.: 31–35). 110 111

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Jungius’ explanation for this was a ‘spatial’ one, or as Meinel calls it, a “topological” one, emphasizing the “spatial aspect, the one-to-one exchange of atomic positions that were surrounded by neighboring positions” (Meinel 1988: 98–99). To conclude: Jungius, with his depiction of the knitted cloth, among other fabrics, brings examples of different types of textiles, whose different methods of preparation result in different properties. The contact points of the knitted fabric, their position and order do not exist on their own, though they can be deduced (when the cloth is torn). In other words, they cannot be ontologically isolated— hence they are synhypostatic parts—and yet, they do infuence the overall structure. But here arises the question: was ‘textura’ also such a property, along with position, order and contact? 4.2.4.1

Jungius on the notion of ‘textura’

This question deserves a closer look, also because, as we saw in Sect. 2.2, the notion of ‘textura’ (or ‘texture’) played an important role in the 17th century in explaining (emerging) properties of materials, similar to the role played by the notion of ‘situs’ in Jungius’ theory of materials. Therefore to pose the question again: what did ‘textura’ designate for Jungius? First of all, for Jungius, ‘textura’ is employed to specifcally designate certain fabrics and textiles, such as atlas, velvet or damask. Those fabrics may have certain properties (being stretchable, taut, shimmering) that result from the position and order of the composing parts. Jungius explicitly writes that a synonym for “Panno” is “Textura” (Jungius 1662: 2.1, Assert. 7, Sect. 96). He mentions “Texturam Damascenam”—i.e., damask fabric—as well (ibid.: 2.1, Assert. 6). Other sections from the 1662 book Doxoscopiae physicae minores (ibid.: 2.1, Assert. 7, Sect. 85) underline the rigidity and texture of cloths made of entangled rings (“Rigida sit Textura”). The section written immediately afterwards (Sect. 87) is referred to in Texturæ Contemplatio, when Jungius writes on fol. 57r “Textura ex bulbo 1.7. c. 3”; indeed, Sect. 87 of Doxoscopiae physicae minores discusses flaments of bulbous plants, and notes the effects of the structure once, for example, the “threads touch each other” (“si Fili partes se contingant”). Last but not least, Texturæ Contemplatio itself contains several obvious references to “textura.” As noted above, while one can certainly translate Texturæ Contemplatio as “contemplation on texture,” in Texturæ Contemplatio, Jungius not only employs the notion ‘textura’ to designate weaving or various textiles; he also uses it as an overall concept to signify various different textile-related activities: weaving, knitting and basket plaiting.117 This already indicates that Jungius used ‘textura’ as an umbrella term, sometimes obtaining its more particular meaning when described by a corresponding adjective.

Folio 58r (Group 9) lists this classifcation of what Jungius counts as activities of ‘textura’. See also Sect. 4.3.1. 117

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However, we also saw in Sect. 2.2 that for various thinkers in the 17th century, the consideration of certain fabrics prompted them to think about the texture of materials in general as (some unobservable) property of the structure itself, or as an explanatory model. This therefore begs the question, was ‘textura’ for Jungius also a synhypostatic property? The answer tends to be negative, albeit not conclusive, although Jungius lists synhypostatic properties several times. These are presented in the 1642 Disputationes Hamburgenses: “contact, reciprocal order and position” (Jungius 1988: 377). A longer list appears in the posthumous Doxoscopiae physicae minores (Jungius 1662, 2.1. Cap. 3. Assert. 2.2): the synhypostatic properties are “Situs, Ordo, Contactus, Unio, Incluso, Implicato mutua Atomorum.” Those lists do not mention ‘textura’ as a synhypostatic part, though one can certainly argue that they are not necessarily complete and that other “Modi Entium” may be added (ibid.). Kubbinga (2002: 244–245) is correct in stressing that Jungius uses the notion ‘textura’ when describing fabrics and gems,118 and that Jungius emphasizes with ‘textura’ the spatial structure of the materials examined. However, it is not entirely clear if Kubbinga is correct when claiming that ‘textura’ is a synhypostatic part. As for other scholars in the 17th century, ‘textura’ is indeed not only a property reserved for textiles (or a synonym for textiles); the texture of materials changes when the spatial location of the composing corpuscles or atoms changes, and hence it is a spatial-relational property. But as it is not listed in the above-mentioned lists of Jungius, the status of the notion ‘textura’ in Jungius’ writings (in the framework of his scientifc investigations) is somewhat ambiguous, at least when thinking about it as a synhypostatic part.

4.2.5

Optical investigations: microscope, optics and diagrammatic observations

We already saw in Sect. 2.2.5 the suggested or conducted examination of fabric structures with a microscope or magnifying glass by Bacon, Hooke and Power. To recall, usage of the microscope in the early 17th century “implied a belief, not only in the existence, but in the explanatory meaningfulness of material sub-structures,” which was “the position defended by the early seventeenth-century atomists” (Lüthy 1996: 14). We also saw the earlier usage of magnifying lenses by textile merchants and quality controllers, to ensure the quality of fabrics. Since Jungius himself documented his contact with communities of weavers in Hamburg,119 he may have been aware of this practice as well. Be that as it may, Jungius also investigated textiles with a microscope or with lenses, though it should be emphasized that his optical investigations of fabrics with the microscope took place in around 1640, more than

Jungius discusses the texture of gems in: Jungius (1662, 2.1. Cap. 12. Assert. 20) See Sect. 4.4.1. It may also be that the “citizen of Liege,” whose report is documented on folios in Group 12, was a textile merchant. 118 119

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a decade before Hooke’s treatment, but after Bacon himself called to investigate textiles with the microscope (see Sect. 2.2.2). Jungius’ optical investigations have already been thoroughly researched by Karl Meyer (1974), who emphasizes that Jungius did not succeed in building a structured system of optical knowledge: “His exact study of individual facts as a starting point for the creation of hypotheses was not a fruitful approach” (ibid.: 426). The aim of this section is therefore to review the observations that Jungius collected and noted with respect to textiles and optics. These can be divided into two main topics: the research on colors and research with the microscope. The textile-related research on colors—though also appearing in Texturæ Contemplatio where Jungius describes fabrics as becoming brighter or darker in the framework of his investigations with the microscope in January 1640—in fact began 15 years earlier. In a set of two notes from Jungius’ “Praelectiones Opticae” titled “Texturae unicoloris optica phaenomeni  – colores,”120 written in March 1625, Jungius discusses the changing colors of textiles, which occurs when the direction of the light changes. To depict what he means, Jungius also adds a drawing (see Fig. 4.10) distinguishing what happens to the color of the threads (called “tela” or “drellwerck”) when the eye (“visus”) observes horizontal or perpendicular threads with respect to a light source.121 From the set of these two sheets, it emerges that Jungius also aimed to examine what happens when the threads are placed on a cylindrical surface.122 The research with a magnifying lenses—the second framework in which the optical investigation takes place—is more present in Texturæ Contemplatio, and is to be seen in the translation (Sect. 3.2) in two groups (Groups 5 and 7). Jungius researches various fabrics with either a magnifying lens or an instrument he terms “anchiscopium” (being perhaps a microscope), drawing conclusions about the direction and position of the threads. For example, on fol. 16r of Texturæ Contemplatio, Jungius notes that “I have observed through a lens or by the naked eye that the position of the weft threads is much sparser [looser] than the position of the warp threads”;123 he also indicates the relative position of the threads with respect to the microscope on fol. 25r: “Indeed, the threads ≡ of the row appear A B in this position [situ]: through the microscope, but there may be some C D space between these threads of the second row and the threads of the third row”.124 Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Praelectiones Opticae” (NJJ : Pe. 72a), fol. 113r, fol. 80r. 121 Ibid., fol. 113r. 122 See also (Meyer 1974: 261). 123 Fol. 16r: “observavi p[er] lentem vel et nudo visu, florum [above the line: tramor] situm multo rariorem ee [esse] situ florum staminis”. 124 Fol. 25r: “fla verò ≡ [di] versus ita in situ A B apparent p [per] anchiscopium, at spatium C D 120

aliquod sit inter fla haec secundi versus et fla tertii versus, dextram versus sequentia”.

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Fig. 4.10 Drawing of illuminated threads (Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Praelectiones Opticae” (NJJ : Pe. 72a), fol. 113r). On the left side: “lumen / trans versim / visus”; on the right side: “porrectium lumen / visus”

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Jungius explains afterwards that when rotating the fabric, one is able to see the space between the threads differently. This raises the question of not only what one actually sees with the microscope, but also what the relations are between the various drawings, the sense of sight and the microscope. These relations fnd three possible expressions in Texturæ Contemplatio, all of them pointing to a tension, or rather a discrepancy between the senses, the instruments aiding them, and the diagrams representing what these senses perceive. The frst expression of this tension is to be seen when the investigation with the microscope is found to be helpful in ‘correcting’ conclusions concerning the structure of textiles. On fol. 20r, Jungius notes that a “correction” of the imagination is needed— what was before presented as a visually correct representation, is now corrected by the microscope. This correction is noted in Jungius’ notes on velvet (Group 7), where he emphasizes use of the microscope to discover the order of the woven threads, which he imagined to be simpler.125 Moreover, on the following folio (fol. 25r), Jungius indicates that the diagrammatic representation of woven threads can be deceiving: there may be some space between several threads, “which has not been either observed or expressed in the previous diagrams.”126 This indicates a certain mistrust in the diagrammatic representation—not only in what seeing can convey, but also in the knowledge that a diagram may hold, which certainly creates a tension (even if a retroactive one) with the numerous diagrams and drawings that Jungius drew when composing the geometrical part in Texturæ Contemplatio.127 Moreover, this “correction” points to a tension between the instrument and the eye, a tension which resulted in a ‘vicious circle’ and which existed throughout the 17th century, as Meinel pointedly notes concerning Jungius. The problem was whether physical bodies are homogeneous or continuous: the microscope shows that the quest to reveal continuity is in vain, and hence is not even accessible to the senses. However, Jungius “had to admit that if there were no truly continuous parts in the end, infnite progression and divisibility would result” (Meinel 1988: 84). To stress: Jungius, in his investigations on continuity, states that as a consequence of the unbelievable smallness of atoms, one cannot recognize them or a fortiori their borders (Kangro 1969: 80).128 More precisely, the continuum cannot be empirically proven, as homogeneous bodies will always reveal themselves as non-homogeneous

Fol. 20r: “But then when I was looking through the microscope […]” (“Verum cum deinde per anchiscopium intuerer”). 126 Fol. 25r: “[…] quod in prioribus diagrammatibus non est observatum sive expressum.” 127 However, the diagrams accompanying the ‘geometrical’ theorems can be also considered as representing that “renewed insistence and demonstration that both the eye and the microscope functioned according to immutable mathematical laws was an element in this rehabilitation” (Wilson 1995: 250). 128 Kangro is referring to Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Exercitationes Physicae II” (NJJ: Wo. 24), fol. 24r and 25r (§58 and §59). Compare also: ibid., fol. 1br, §2–§4. 125

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when using an even stronger magnifying glass. This shows that continuity had to be presupposed as a negatively defned property.129 This is exactly what is implied by the investigation of textiles with the microscope. Jungius’ refections on this epistemic tension prompted by the microscope were, of course, not unique or singular; various thinkers of the 17th century were raising these concerns, as we saw in Sect. 2.2.5. Where else in Texturæ Contemplatio can the tension between the eye, the instrument and the diagram be detected? Two additional aspects express this tension: ‘impossible’ diagrams on the one hand and ‘explaining’ diagrams on the other. ‘Impossible’ diagrams appear in Texturæ Contemplatio on fol. 6r, where Jungius writes, above one of the diagrams (see Fig.  4.4) the following title: “Impractical intermittent weave” (“textura intermittens inutilis“). Jungius wishes to emphasize that this weave does not exist, as there are loose weft threads: no weaver would have woven this weave. That is, this drawing is what one may call a diagrammatical ‘experiment’ with non-existing objects (or, in Jungius’ words “inutilis”). It is the diagram which enables the presentation of this impossibility, whereas in reality such a weave would not have been woven (for any practical goal), and could certainly not be examined with a microscope. The third aspect of the above-mentioned tension is the ‘explaining’ diagrams. When examining the geometrical parts of Texturæ Contemplatio, one can note that Jungius’ drawings of the various twills are not just illustrations, but rather an integral part of the geometrical investigation. This is also to be seen in Fig. 4.4: there are various regions of the fabric denoted by A, B, C and D, to which the various theorems presented by Jungius refer. But those lettered regions are not explained by the theorems; rather, they are shown by the drawings. Hence the drawings function as diagrams, where the letters show the directions of the woven weft and warp threads, and the theorems are barely comprehensible without them. Since the theorems themselves refer to the manual operation of passing a thread from one side to the other, it is the diagram which shows these directions. However, the weavers did not really need diagrams of their fnished product, and hence this may indicate, as noted above, that the future readers of this part would most likely have been natural philosophers, i.e., non-weavers. Moreover, Jungius even notes, regarding a “decorated Atlas,” that its “diagram explains” why the thread of the weft is four times wider than the thread of the warp,130 conjecturing that this is because the weft is composed of four threads.131 But while this ‘explaining’ diagram is indeed possible (in contrast

See Sect. 4.2.4 concerning negatively defned properties. See: fol. 17r, which is titled “p. 2.” 131 Fol. 17r: “ab A versus D [B] ist die scherung / à C versus D der einschlag / EFGH ist ein fadem des / einschlages, der 4mahl / so breit ist als ein fadem / der scherung und viel- / leicht aus 4 fädemen / componiret ist. / Dieses Diagramma erkläret [...].” 129 130

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to the ‘impossible’ diagram), it raises the question: for whom is it intended? Is seeing or observing not enough for the natural philosopher, so that one would need an ‘explaining’ diagram to explicate what one cannot observe?

4.2.6

Conclusion: ‘textura’ as a rhizomatic notion

The scientifc investigation of textiles, weaving and knitting consisted of a variety of approaches: investigating the geometrical, material and optical aspects of these objects and practices, starting with the material, individual, concrete object. Another example of this manner of investigation is to be found in Jungius’ botanical investigations. Jungius is known in the history of botany for his research on plant morphology.132 While Jungius’ botanical research is outside the scope of this book, one should mention that in the course of this investigation, Jungius wrote, in 1648, a slip of paper titled “textura lentorum,”133 which can be considered to belong to Jungius’ quasi-structural investigation of plants and materials. On this slip he notes that there are stems which are covered with a pliant, stronger bark; and that these stems can be covered with threads (i.e., warps, “stamina”). Here Jungius employs a term coming most probably from weaving vocabulary—“stamen.”134 Moreover, in a part dealing with botany in Doxoscopiae physicae minores (Jungius 1662: 2.3.3.1, C.5. Assert. 4.15), Jungius, discussing seeds which may cling to “garments of wool,” gives examples of such fabrics as “Brüggisch oder Risselisch Bohmseide oder Sajen,”135 fabrics which were prepared and/or sold in Hamburg, as we will see in Sect. 4.4.

See: Hoppe (1976: 73–97); Hoppe (2000). Hoppe even notes that by “defning types of plant parts by using the notions and methods of geometry he created general botanic terms in his plant morphology and by interpreting plant parts by the mathematical method more geometrico he imparted to the botany the same rank as to other scientifc felds like chemistry and physics” (ibid.: 119). 133 Jungius’ Nachlass, from a bundle titled “Botanica III: Digerenda Varia” (NJJ : Wo. 3), fol. 197r. 134 In Isagoge Phytoscopica (Jungius 1679: chapter XVI), Jungius (or rather the editor, Vagetius; see: Hoppe (2000: 128)) writes “Defnitio Geometrica” for the shapes of the parts of plants; he also employs vocabulary similar to that used for describing textiles and weaves: “uniformis”, “plicas”, “strias” and “sinuate.” One should also note the numerous times the adjective “sinuātus” or “sinus” (and their declensions) appear in Isagoge Phytoscopica, which also indicates a certain proximity with respect to the geometrical investigations in Texturæ Contemplatio. 135 “Hinc sit, ut et capitulum totum ex seminibus constans et semina singular vesti laneae haereant (als Tuch, ja auch Brüggisch oder Risselisch Bohmseide oder Sajen).” 132

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This quick detour into Jungius’ botanical research encapsulates in brief how Jungius unfolded his approaches to weaving, texture and textiles. His research on textiles and textile-related practices was multifaceted and it consisted mostly of a view from ‘below’: beginning with a collection of facts,136 with various observations of particular activities, objects or phenomena. Examples were seen throughout this section: a rope, a knitted stocking, various weaves magnifed with a lens, or even parts of plants. These were sometimes followed by an attempt to derive a more theoretical structure, in the form of ‘defnitions’, ‘theorems’ and refections on synhypostatical parts. But also with the theoretical structure proposed by Jungius, one should stress that Jungius’ aim was not to reach an overall theory; rather, his explorations of textiles can be viewed as open-ended, composed of a never-ending collection of facts. This is best seen with Jungius’ notion of ‘textura’. I claim that ‘textura’ served as a rhizomatic concept for Jungius: a concept not defned from the start, having defnite boundaries, and already embedded in a welldefned research confguration, but rather one which develops and changes over the decades, and may be employed in various domains. The various usages of this notion refect Jungius’ investigations of textiles: not necessarily an attempt to research a hierarchically structured system but rather a rhizomatic system of knowledge. The meaning of ‘textura’ in the artisanal, geometrical, optical or material context, is open-ended and hence cannot be reduced to a fnite list of defnitions. While this may result from ambiguous terminology (see also Sect. 4.3.2), it also results directly from Jungius’ own method of collecting facts. Therefore, it is no wonder that one cannot pinpoint a central, single meaning of ‘textura’ in the framework of Jungius’ investigations. Does it designate a (woven) weave, which can be classifed in a geometrical manner? Does it stand for various textile activities (weaving, knitting, plaiting)? Is it a property of materials, as in the modern meaning of ‘texture’, which is not necessarily reserved only for fabrics? And as a property, is it a derivative of other, perhaps more essential (synhypostatic) properties, such as ‘situs’ or ‘ordo’? Or can it be linked to a concrete investigation of materials, for example, with the microscope? All of these suggestions are on the one hand correct, as was seen above, but they might also encompass the plurality of approaches employed by Jungius. It is for this reason that I suggest considering the notion of ‘textura’ as a rhizomatic one in Jungius’ thought. While I will return to discussing this rhizomatic structure—this time, however, concerning Texturæ Contemplatio (Sect. 4.6), in the following I want to more thoroughly discuss the artisanal work itself, because its consideration by Jungius was another determinant in how he understood the notion of ‘textura’. The following two sections will concentrate on these issues.

136

See also Sect. 4.6.3.

4.3

Jungius on Artisanal Practices I: Classifcation and Terminology of Weaves…

4.3

289

Jungius on Artisanal Practices I: Classifcation and Terminology of Weaves and Textiles

The last section dealt with the various scientifc points of view and investigations introduced by Jungius with respect to textiles. Hence, one may ask how well Jungius actually knew the textiles he was investigating, and the artisanal practices he described.137 The topic of artisanal practices will be dealt with in the next section; here, I will concentrate on the subject of terminology and terminological classifcation of textiles and textile practices introduced by Jungius in Texturæ Contemplatio. The frst part of this section (Sect. 4.3.1) concentrates on how Jungius classifed textile practices, noting that this classifcation in fact led to the partial effacement or ignorance of the various steps and practices employed to produce the weaves, presented at the beginning of Texturæ Contemplatio. The second part of this section (Sect. 4.3.2) presents the complementary aspect of this ignorance: the generation of terminological ambiguity, which sometimes accompanied this classifcation.

4.3.1

Classifcation of textile practices

In Texturæ Contemplatio, Jungius presents several classifcations of textiles and textile-related activities. While the main two are weaving and knitting, he also gives a more detailed classifcation, though sometimes not explicitly noting the differences between the different practices. For example, fol. 49r presents a classifcation of painted (or colored) weaves— one color vs. multicolored, where one-colored weaves are classifed as colored with rectangular shapes or curvilinear shapes. Folio 50r presents another type of classifcation: “textura” may be either “straight” (as in weaving) or “sinuous” (as in knitting). As noted in Sect. 4.2, for Jungius, ‘textura’—when designating an artisanal activity—may have functioned as an umbrella term for various textile practices which included the activities that can be done with threads (or twigs). For example, on fol. 50r, Jungius notes that “straight weaving” is made of warp and weft, whereas a “sinuous” one is actually a knitted thread. On fol. 57r, another classifcation is presented, now according to the materials used: weaves are classifed according to whether they are made of threads (“textura florum”) or of twigs (“viminum”), hence “textura viminum” is in fact plaiting, for example, of baskets. Folio 58r presents the most elaborate classifcation: frst, according to the geometrical form of the thread—straight, sinuous or with knots;

137 Or, more precisely, the chaîne opératoire of making a cloth or a fabric. See: Bohnsack (1981); Harlizius-Klück (2016, 751–760).

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second, according to the practices themselves—weaving (and also ornamenting), knotting and knitting, lace-making, and plaiting. Here Jungius notes that the weaver can also “bilder einweben,” referring in fact to tapestry (also called Bildwirkerei or Bildwirken). This is the most complete classifcation of types of textile practices. The classifcation is given as a correspondence between Latin terms and the more elaborated German notions and explanations. This is to be seen for example in how “textura sinuosa” is ‘translated’ by Jungius: either as “knotting” (“knütten”) or as “knitting” (“stricken”).138 But while the Latin term refers to the shape of the thread, the German terms that translate “textura sinuosa” refer to the activity itself, presenting a fner classifcation.139 Last but not least is the extensive list of fabrics presented on fol. 41r. As was noted in Sect. 4.1.2, it is not clear whether this list was written by Jungius or by Fogel. Moreover, the form of the list is different from the other presented classifcations, as there are no curly brackets which make clear which fabric may be associated with other fabrics (these curly brackets do appear in the above classifcatory folios). Notwithstanding, this list, arranged in two columns, is extensive and includes, among others, the following textiles: taffeta, Düffel, kaffa, satin, Grobgrün, Cosiant, kersey, barchent (i.e., parchent), damask, etc.140 However, here one must notice that Jungius, while attempting to be more sensitive to the description of the various activities, was also effacing differences, in particular with respect to the various ways of weaving. Jungius dealt mostly (in the ‘geometrical’ part of Texturæ Contemplatio, but not only there) with weaves woven with a treadle loom (see also Sect. 4.4) with several treadles. But other looms, such as drawlooms (used for damask weaving) or high-warp looms (used for tapestry) also existed during that period (see Sect. 2.1), and they are barely mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio—when they are, it is only implicit. The same is true for velvet weaving (see also Sect. 4.3.2), which also required a special loom (i.e., Der Sammet-Weber; see Fig. 2.4). Less surprising is the fact that Jungius does not mention the stocking frame (which was invented in 1589)—the machine was hardly known in the German-speaking lands at that time. As noted above, Jungius mentions “bilder einweben,” which means ‘tapestry’; damask is also explicitly mentioned (e.g., folios 63r, 37r, 36r, etc.), and velvet is extensively discussed. But the looms used for the production of these fabrics are not mentioned in words. Therefore one cannot but notice the effacement of differences between the various looms and the associated manual work required. While weaving with a treadle loom can be considered mechanical, the weaving of tapestry was always done manually.

In notes copied by Leibniz (which were probably written by Jungius) but are not found in Texturæ Contemplatio, one fnds a differentiation between different types of seams (see Sect. 5.2.2). 139 Interestingly, stocking knitting was also termed “Textura Tibialium” (Zedler 1731–1754: vol. 40, 556); Jungius also uses this expression on fol. 38r: “tibialium (Gestrickte Strümpffe).” 140 See Sect. 3.2 for short clarifcations regarding some of these fabrics. 138

4.3

Jungius on Artisanal Practices I: Classifcation and Terminology of Weaves…

291

This might be the reason why in the ‘geometrical’ part of Texturæ Contemplatio, only weaves obtained with a treadle loom are described. Any indication that other weaves or textiles, obtained from those other techniques, may prompt (other) ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’, is not even suggested. However, again, this is not surprising: the frst ‘defnition’ appearing on fol. 62r (“The threads of one row [series] these are defned as those which are parallel to one another in turn [alternately] / The weave consists of threads in two rows; one is the warp, the other is the weft”) does not suit the other weaving techniques mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio at all, i.e., for damask, tapestry or velvet.

4.3.2

Invented and unclear terminology

As noted above, for Jungius the notion of ‘textura’ refers to several textile activities: weaving or knitting, for example. When inspecting the classifcatory folios mentioned above, one cannot claim that this classifcation is fnal or conclusive, i.e., one cannot say that every fabric is either woven or knitted. This indeed becomes clear when realizing that the various fabrics described by Jungius were woven by different looms. Moreover, this may very well prompt terminological ambiguity regarding which activities can or should be counted under ‘textura’. Here it should be mentioned that Jungius was very much aware of this terminological ambiguity, or at least refected on the diffculties it raises. In notes Jungius wrote and which were copied by Leibniz (titled Logica de notionibus), under a passage called “the faws of concepts” (“Notionum vitia,” being “inutilis, titularis, male ordinata”), Jungius underlines the different terms used to describe textile practices and the vicinity of the notions employed: “Ob vicinitatem, implectere fechten texere; intricare verwirren, implicare bäugen, plica valte, fere implicare […].” (A VI4: 1227) Jungius notes in this passage, which I will discuss more extensively in Sect. 5.2.2, that the notions involved in the weaving, plaiting, and folding of threads and textiles are not easy to differentiate. These are the faws of confused concepts, since before being differentiated, they are useless and have only a nominal function; that is, they exist only in name but do not designate a concrete action. Returning to Texturæ Contemplatio, one may note other examples: when discussing “textura sinuosa”—that is, knitting, Jungius does usually employ one verb in German consistently: “stricken” (knitting).141 Also, when describing on fol. 42r how the fnal product “textura sinuosa” is knitted, Jungius describes the movement of the hand holding a stylus. This means that the knitting described in Texturæ Contemplatio is manual, and not done by the stocking frame. Whether or not Jungius was aware of the existence of this machine is unknown. However, knitting with this

141

See folios 38r, 50r, 56r, 58r.

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machine, called today in German Wirkstuhl, was sometimes described by employing the verb “wirken” or “wircken.”142 Jungius uses the verb “wircken” only once in Texturæ Contemplatio (on fol. 30r), noting that the “carpet makers wircken” while lying on their back; as noted earlier, Bildwirken is the practice associated with tapestry. If we concentrate on more specifc weaving practices, then one of Jungius’ most intricate discussions appears in Groups 6 and 7, dealing with weaving velvet or samite, which involves weaving with another, third system of threads that are woven as additional warp or weft threads, between and through the empty spaces of the basic weave. These additional threads may resemble the shape of (called a W-pile), where the bigger ‘bends’ are what one calls the ‘free’ loops, and the smaller ones are interwoven between the warp (or the weft) threads. It is this shape which is drawn by Jungius in a number of folios dealing with velvet. In the course of describing this kind of weave, Jungius employs his own terminology to describe two kinds of threads—“sulcus” (also sometimes called “sulcale” or “stria”), where ‘sulcus’ in Latin means furrow; and “porca” threads (also sometimes called “porcalia” or “striges”), where ‘porca’ means windrow.143 This terminology does not appear to have been used by weavers at that time. Since the terms ‘sulcus’ and ‘porca’ borrow their meaning from the discourse of agriculture, one may assume that Jungius, in fact, invented his own terms. An indication of this is to be seen in Jungius’ citation from Cardano’s de rerum Varietate (see Sect. 4.5.1); the citation begins with the following: “Velvet consists of three straight series of threads”144 (fol. 19r). Jungius cites sentences faithfully from Cardano’s book, but the cited passage does not contain either the term ‘sulcus’ or the term ‘porca’. This might mean that these terms were not widely accepted and may even have been Jungius’ own invention. Taking into account this invented terminology, how does Jungius introduce this classifcation of threads? On fol. 11r, the frst folio of Group 6, Jungius introduces several types of threads: “licium,” and “porcale flum” or “sulcale flum.” On fol. 44r, he writes explicitly that the “threads of sulcalia and porcalia are the weft [threads].” If this is indeed the case, then one may assume that the drawing on fol. 11r:

I thank Michaela Breil for pointing out that there was, till the 18th century, terminological ambiguity with respect to these two terms and when to use them when describing knitting. 143 The terms ‘stria’ and ‘striges’ are used on fol. 23r. 144 “Velutum tribus rectis ordinibus florum constat”. 142

4.3

Jungius on Artisanal Practices I: Classifcation and Terminology of Weaves…

293

depicts the relations between the “licium medium” (written next to this drawing) and the “porcale” and “sulcale flum,” because Jungius writes explicitly that he notates by • the “porcale flum” and by | the “sulcale flum.” One may therefore assume that the above drawing is a warp section, and the drawing (at the top of the folio) is the third, supplementary woven thread; i.e., the warp section depicted above is a section of pile fabric, that is, a fabric created by loops of yarn which are interwoven in the base weave; the pile—in this case, the W-shaped pile—is produced by the additional set of warp yarns (the “licium”), inserted during the weaving. As R. H. Gong notes, “one method [of velvet weaving] is wire weaving by inserting wires in the shed formed by the warp yarns for the pile. The pile warp forms yarn loops on the fabric surface after the wires are withdrawn. The pile may be left as loop pile or cut to make cut pile” (Gong 2015: 339). Since Jungius does note (on fol. 19r) that the “greater curve [sinus], which, having been cut, brings about hairs or threads of shorn velvet,” one may very well assume that Jungius is depicting the W-piles before being cut (since his drawing shows the additional set of loops above). Nevertheless, it is not clear, from either Jungius’ description or his depictions, whether the weft threads “sulcus” and “porca” are two separate systems of weft threads or the very same thread being drawn (or pulled) from different directions: indeed, Jungius’ (or the scribe’s) drawings themselves, as can be seen on the lower part of fol. 10r (in Group 6 (additional folios)), do not clarify this terminological vagueness. One may conjecture that ‘sulcus’ and ‘porca’ refer to the (perhaps relative) position of the threads with respect to other threads (i.e., likely the third thread), being ‘below’ and ‘above’—as Jungius notes when presenting a table describing the relations between the “licium” and the “sulcale flium” on fol. 11r (in Group 6). Moreover, contributing further to the ambiguity is the fact that on the folios dealing with “sulcus” and “porca” (see Groups 6 and 7), and also describing the velvet weaves, what is lacking is not only how this weave is actually woven (e.g., how to construct a loom for it, whether or not the third system is woven manually afterwards—though this is not surprising, as this description is also lacking for simpler weaves and looms), but also a discussion on the resulting unique geometrical structure of it—something that does exist, in the form of the ‘theorems’, for simpler weaves. This is somewhat surprising, as this weaving of velvet and samite is a ‘three-dimensional’ one, and therefore may call for a more complex geometrical investigation. *** If one examines the terminological ambiguity reviewed above, the question arises: was this vocabulary used by the artisans or the textile merchants themselves? Along ‘sulcus’ and ‘porca’, Jungius’ terms in his geometrical defnitions: ‘textura simpla’ or ‘textura dupla’ are certainly his own inventions. But there is certainly evidence that the names of textiles and fabrics employed by Jungius were common

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in the north of Germany and not of his own invention.145 Moreover, we saw in Sect. 4.1.2 that Fogel was aware, due to his family’s business, of how clothes were prepared and made, indicating a possible familiarity between textile artisans and scholars, at least in Hamburg. Nevertheless, here is must be stressed that the terminology used between weavers and textile traders was a local and not a global one, and hence any (terminological) knowledge transfer between weavers, traders and natural philosophers (or, in our case, Jungius) cannot be generalized to the entire domain of weaving in general. This is attested for example by Hilts (1990a, 1990b) who examines the weaving books of Marx Ziegler and Nathniel Lumscher from the end of the 17th century (see Sect. 2.1.3.2); she notes that “textile terminology changed greatly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”; the textile terms Ziegler used “were characteristic of his region [south of Germany]”, whereas the terms of the weavers were different than the one of the merchants, reaching the conclusion that their vocabulary was “highly specialized” (1990a, 10). It must be nevertheless noted that the practitioners did not have communication problems: the practice and knowledge was embodied and local, transmitted in a community through bodily gestures and not necessarily in written form. Thus, one can notice only a partial, local transfer of terms and vocabulary from merchants and artisans to Jungius’ cultural milieu, though one can assume that some of those terms were common. For example, Jungius notes on fol. 31r (in Group 12) that “The Saje weavers [Sajenmacher] have handed over to the velvet weavers the [task of] making [a fabric with] the fve heddles. They [however] then wanted to oppose the Saje weavers from making [fabrics with] the fve-heddled [loom] but in vain. There are about 60 Saje weavers in Hamburg.” This remark can be considered as Jungius’ way of noting down the power relations in the community of weavers in Hamburg; but it also shows his acquaintance with this community, acknowledging, on the one hand, that the artisanal knowledge is not personal (or dependent on one person) but rather communal, and on the other, that the weavers’ community is not a homogeneous one (see also Sect. 4.4). Nevertheless, the notions that Jungius most likely invented: ‘sulcus’ and ‘porca’, did not stem from the artisans, but rather from an attempt by Jungius himself to term the unique structure of velvet, examining it as a fnal product. Jungius’ ignorance of more sophisticated looms while classifying types of ‘textura’ also indicates that while he was aware of various types of weaving and weaves, the classifcation and the terms that he employed were somewhat misleading.

145

See Sect. 4.4.

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4.4

295

Jungius on Artisanal Practices II: Artisans in Practice

In this section, I would like to look more closely at the type of contact Jungius had with the artisans and with artisanal practices. This was already noted in the previous section, showing Jungius’ partial ignorance of, or lack of differentiation between the various looms used. Moreover, while names of fabrics were known to Jungius, the terms to designate knitting (‘textura sinuosa’), types of weaves (e.g. ‘textura quadrupla’) or velvet weaving (e.g., the ‘sulcus’ thread) were likely to have been coined by Jungius himself. This invention of terms may have contributed to niches of terminological ambiguity, which would have indeed been created had this book been published. That is, examining Jungius’ terminology, the answer to the question of whether Jungius knew of artisanal practices frst hand is more complex than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. It is clear that Jungius investigated the fnal products of the textile practices, as I already noted that he concieved simple weaves ‘geometrically’, while also examining their optical or material properties. That said, I turn in this section to looking into whether and how Jungius described the physical work, i.e., the embodied knowledge of textile-related practices.146 Taking this into consideration, as well as the discussion presented in Chapter 1 on artisanal epistemology, the question arises: was Jungius in direct contact with weavers or knitters, and did he know of their working stages for preparing the loom and/or fnishing the woven fabric? Differently formulated, one has to examine whether Jungius’ refections were a sort of fascination with an artisanal practice that he had not experienced or seen, when at the very same time he posited this practice as an explanatory model which can give an account of the structure of materials. One may compare Texturæ Contemplatio with another manuscript, which, in contrast to Jungius, delineates a history of a city from the perspective of its artisans and their specifc crafts: Johann Neudörffer’s Verzeichniss from 1547, an unpublished account on Nuremberg’s artisans, providing a dense, “thick description” of them (Murphy 2020: 61). Neudörffer’s Verzeichniss was eventually published as Nachrichten von Künstlern und Werkleuten in 1875. Jungius’ manuscript proposes another way to write such a history: it is certainly not an account which “praised artisans for their technical skills” (ibid.: 69), as Neudörffer’s; in contrast, Texturæ Contemplatio may be considered as what aims to articulate an imagined ancient nature of Hamburg’s weaving expertise, without mentioning neither Hamburg nor its artisans. This ancient nature is to be explicitly seen when noticing the various

I follow here de Munck (2019), who emphasized that “acquiring embodied knowledge” was much more essential to the artisans than reading, writing or counting: “A focus on literacy and numeracy in all likelihood amounts to projecting a modern framework on the pre-modern past in an anachronistic way […] But on the whole, the key issue was acquiring embodied knowledge, that is, either hands-on automatisms or an intuitive understanding of how raw materials would react to mechanical, physical and chemical processes” (ibid.: 229). Nevertheless, the weavers were required to perform a few arithmetical calculations (see Sect. 4.2.3.2).

146

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citations of classical sources which Jungius integrated in Texturæ Contemplatio (see Sect. 4.5). As Hannah Murphy stresses, Neudörffer took account “of his intimate knowledge of the city, the works of his artisanal contemporaries and their movement within it” (ibid.: 59), while describing their works and practices – but such a detailed description of Hamburg’s artisans is not to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio, which, in contrast to Neudörffer’s account, not only does not describe thoroughly the artisans’ practices, but also does not even name them. To unfold how Jungius knew the community of weavers and their work practices, I will deal in this section with three subjects that testify to this acquaintance. First, I will look into a few cities where, so Jungius, textile practices might have taken place (Sect. 4.4.1); second, I will examine Jungius’ familiarity with the manual practices themselves of weaving and knitting (Sect. 4.4.2); and third, in Sect. 4.4.3, I will look at how Jungius accounted for the preparation and fnishing of weaving. But frst and foremost, I review below the thriving textile industry and community of weavers in Hamburg in the frst half of the 17th century, for the obvious reason that this is where Jungius lived while composing most of Texturæ Contemplatio. *** The weavers’ guilds and the textile workers were indeed fourishing when Jungius was in Hamburg. This prosperity was refected in the arrival of artisans, the prospering trade of textiles, and the abundance of fabrics found in the regions, as will be elaborated below. This shows that Jungius, while writing what would become Texturæ Contemplatio, was practically surrounded by a prospering textile industry. However, it should be noted right from the start: this prosperity did not only lead to an improvement in the social and economic status of the textile industry, although indeed, at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, the craft production of luxury articles experienced a strong upswing in Hamburg; velvet, silk, gold and silver Manufakturen were numerous, as well as embroidery and linen Manufakturen. As Rita Bake (1984) highlights,147 it was mainly women and men from the poor, lower class who worked in these areas; phenomena such as lowering of the wage level, the double to triple burden imposed on women, and the 16-hour workdays with presumably poor nutrition, were characteristics of the so-called pre-industrial age. Though these developments occurred after the last folio of Texturæ Contemplatio was written, one can assume that they were already present—in one form or another—in Hamburg toward the end of the frst half of the 17th century. These social and economic aspects were not considered or mentioned by Jungius, as we will see. To jump back a century, it has been well documented that in the late 16th century, Hamburg was one of the main destinations of Dutch religious refugees, i.e., Calvinist artisans from Antwerp seeking refuge from the Spaniards. These refugees were experts in, among other things, various weaving techniques, especially silk

147

See also (Brietzke 2000).

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weaving; an edict from 1586 describes some of these refugees as “makers of Saye” (“Sayenmacher”) (Rüdiger 1874: 210). This edict, between the expelled Antwerp Sayenmacher and the Hamburg City Council, allowed the settlement of the Sayenund Bohmside weavers from Antwerp, and permitted them to both produce and sell their products. A similar edict issued in Hamburg in 1613 describes in more detail not only the refugees’ rights and prohibitions, but also the composition and the dimensions of the fabrics produced (ibid.: 211–232). Moreover, several decrees and regulations were issued in Hamburg toward the end of the 16th century concerning the status of textile workers and master craftworkers: an offcial decree from 1595 addressed to the Hamburg “Wandtmaker” (“manufactures of fne linen”), for example, regulated several aspects of religious, social, and fnancial conduct,148 stating, for example, that each manufacturer must profess the Augsburg Confession; that each apprentice must study for three years with his master; and that there should be fairness in the wages between the masters. The regulations issued in 1593 and addressed to passement manufacturers focus, the other hand, more on legal aspects,149 following the 1586 agreements between the passement manufacturers and other master craftworkers residing in Hamburg.150 In addition, the establishment and mergers of guilds (Brüderschaften) underline the importance of the different branches of textile production in Hamburg. Various guilds—of knitters as well as of silk, velvet, and caffa weavers—were established in 1609, 1622, and 1628. In their records, one fnds that in ca. 1630, there were 183 “masters,” 18 former masters, and 30 widows registered as working in these trades in Hamburg (Stieda 1894: 422–424). Accordingly, at the beginning of the 17th century one can fnd numerous types of fabrics in Hamburg. In the offcial roll of the Sayenmacher of Hamburg, the following types of fabrics are mentioned: “Grobgrün” (several fabrics having 1100 warp threads on 1 to 1½ cubits width), “Sayen” (with 1400 to 2300 warp threads on 1 to 1½ cubits width), “Kardensayen” as well as “Brüggisch Bohmsieden,” a mixed fabric of linen and wool. The fnest type of cloth was “Herrensayen,” made of wool and silk with 2800 warp threads per 1¾ cubits (Tidow 2010: 64). Caffa, in particular, which was brought by the Dutch refugees, found such high demand in Hamburg— being considered a luxury item at the beginning of the 17th century—that its wearing was regulated by the council of Hamburg in 1611 (Meier, Ruge 2000: 911), and the restrictions on wearing caffa were also made more specifc in the Hamburg dress code of 1618 (Geffken 1841: 560). In addition, the history of trade in Hamburg shows that it also functioned as a center of textile export during the frst half of

See: Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 612-1/61, 2, Amtsordnung vom Jahre 1595. Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 612-1/40, I 3, Ordnung des Posamenthandwerks. 150 Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 612-1/40, I 1, Ordnung des Amts der Posamentierer. 148 149

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the 17th century. The prospering cloth trade of Hamburg, especially of English cloth,151 with the Merchant Adventurers at the end of the 16th century also positioned Hamburg as a textile center (Jenks 2015: 238–241); Hamburg was indeed the center for the dyeing and fnishing of English woollens (Baumann 1990: 106). Examining the goods exported from Hamburg to Portugal and Spain between 1632 and 1634, one notes that textiles were the most valuable export. These exported textiles, produced in various German cities,152 consisted mainly of linen and some barchent and Baumseide (Kikuchi 2018: 93). The variety of fabrics found in Hamburg’s offcial rolls corresponds with the archeological fndings of textiles in the north of Germany: the textile fnds of the archeological sites in Lüneburg, consisting of knitted, woven and braided fabrics, date from the 15th–16th or 16th–17th centuries, as analyzed by Klaus Tidow (2006). It is noticeable that among the older fabric from the 15th–16th century, simple woolen fabrics predominated, and in the later fnds, from the 16th–17th century, many silk fabrics can be detected. The pattern card of Lüneburg from 1678 (Tidow 2007; Kahle and Ring 2012) is, in this respect, of high importance (see Fig. 4.11). It contains three sheets, with a total of 236 fabric samples, which probably feature all known woolen fabrics (made from carded or worsted yarns), as well as mixed fabrics made from wool and silk or wool and linen, which were available—either produced in the north of Germany or imported—in the second half of the 17th century. For Texturæ Contemplatio, the importance of the pattern card of Lüneburg should not be underestimated: almost every fabric mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio is mentioned in this pattern card.

4.4.1

Places of weaving and weavers

To begin the discussion of how well-acquainted Jungius was with the communities of weavers in various European cities, one has to examine Texturæ Contemplatio carefully, to determine in which contexts Jungius mentions cities and the fabrics associated with them. There are three cities which are explicitly mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio: Hamburg, Padua and Liege, which may indicate a relation of the mentioned city to the alleged existence of a community or guild of weavers or textile merchants.

Recalling that Jungius was born in Lübeck and practiced medicine there from 1619 to 1623, it is also important to recall that Lübeck’s trade on the mainland of English cloth was of outstanding importance in the frst half of the 17th century; there was considerable export to Lübeck during the Thirty Years’ War: a large quantity of English cloth, corresponding to the total westward cloth export, was transported overland and exported from Lübeck to the Baltic Sea regions (Kikuchi 2018: 347–8). 152 For example, Schlesien, Nürnberg, Dresden, Memmingen, Augsburg, Ulm, Westfalen and Schwaben (Kikuchi 2018: 57). 151

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Fig. 4.11 79 samples of fabrics from the Lüneburger Musterkarte (frst folio) from 1678. (Stadtarchiv Lüneburg AA G 4t Nr. 19. © Foto: Hansestadt Lüneburg, Stadtarchäologie)

To begin with Hamburg, where Jungius lived during most of the writing of the notes that would form Texturæ Contemplatio, Jungius makes the following explicit comment on fol. 31r (already raised in Sect. 4.3): “The Saje weavers [Sajenmacher] have handed over to the velvet weavers the [task of] making [a fabric with] the fve heddles. They [however] then wanted to oppose the Saje weavers from making [fabrics with] the fve-heddled [loom] but in vain. There are about 60 Saje weavers in Hamburg.” How can one interpret these statements? First of all, the prospering community of weavers in Hamburg was discussed above, and Jungius must have been aware of the transformations taking place in this community, also due to the arrival of the Dutch religious refugees. The source of Jungius’ estimation of “about 60 Saje weavers in Hamburg” is unclear. Did Jungius himself visit several workshops and accordingly, estimate the number of those weavers? Or was this estimation taken from some offcial document? Also, the nature of the statement regarding the division of labor (i.e., handing over certain weaving tasks from one guild of weavers to another) is not clear. Is it due to a certain decree which was imposed on a certain group of weavers in Hamburg, or to technological developments, e.g., the use of a fve-heddle loom? However, although the source of this statement and the

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circumstances of its writing are not clear, what arises from it is Jungius’ awareness of the tensions between the various groups of artisans, probably due to differences in the way in which those groups weaved. Moreover, Jungius mentions the fabric “Kaffa” (fol. 23r in Group 7; see also fol. 41r, which was perhaps written by Fogel himself). As noted in the dictionary in Sect. 3.3, Kaffa (caffa) was a name given mostly to fowered velvet in the north of Germany. Moreover, by the time Jungius was living in Hamburg, the Caffamacherreihe—a road in Hamburg—was already named as such (known also as the Kaffamacher-Reege), after the large number of artisans, among them, caffa weavers, who lived there (Hanke 2006: 235). Indeed, with the Dutch religious refugees, silk weaving in Hamburg gained considerable momentum. The introduced manufacturing techniques produced new types of fabrics in addition to caffa. Moreover, the various guilds of weavers, including the caffa weavers, slowly merged during the frst decades of the 17th century. While it is not clear if Jungius was aware of these social changes, the fact that he mentions the local name of the fabric does point to a certain acquaintance with the communities of weavers existing in Hamburg.153 The reference to Hamburg may be considered part of a list of Jungius’ references to various cities (Liege, Rostock, Lübeck), some of which had a prospering textile industry at that time.154 Rostock and Lübeck are mentioned only briefy, when Jungius, on fol. 34r, notes, regarding a report on a colleague of his that: “This citizen of Liege was a companion of mine on the route from Lübeck to Rostock.” Both Lübeck and Rostock (like Hamburg) were Hanseatic cities,155 and Jungius knew both cities well, as he had worked there. Who this citizen of Liege was is unclear, but Jungius notes that he was “a guest of Crispinus Flugius.” The report itself consists of descriptions of various fabrics (Brückisch Bohemian-silk,156 Boratt, Polymint and grobgrün, among others), but it is not clear whether these fabrics were specifcally found in Liege. Last but not least in the list of places, Jungius mentions in 1625, on fol. 8r, the city of Padua in connection to fabrics he saw there: “I found the texture of the woolen cloth defned [as] raxie [rassa] to be of such a sort, recognized by me in its Paduan charts [diagrams].”157 To recall, Jungius obtained his medical doctorate from the University of Padua in 1618, and the comment concerning “rassa” or “raxie”

Moreover, Leibniz also mentions Hamburg as a place where “theoria cum praxis” takes place with respect to textile practices (A II2, part B: 147). See Sect. 5.3.2. 154 On the textiles from the early modern period discovered as archeological fnds in Lübeck, see (Tidow 2006). 155 See above on the trade of these cities with various fabrics. 156 This fabric, which was also common in Hamburg, as noted above, is also mentioned in Doxoscopiae physicae minores, when Jungius discusses “Brüggisch oder Risselisch Bohmseide oder Sajen.” See Sect. 3.4.6. 157 “tela esse texturam panni lanei dicti raxis [rassa] invenio notatum à me in chartis Patavinis.” 153

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refects his knowledge of the local fabric names.158 Moreover, the fabric that Jungius was referring to might have been similar to the Florentine Rascie (Chorley 2003). This is not the only reference to Italy: on fol. 21r, Jungius notes that the “silk consultants often earn more than the merchants who trade with silk, that is, who have the silk brought from Italy.”

4.4.2

The practical aspects of artisanal practices: weaving and knitting

Having seen the places that Jungius identifed as central for the various weaving practices (whether for production or commerce), another question arises: what was Jungius’ familiarity with the actual practices of weaving and knitting, two practices (or their end products) to which he devotes substantial parts of his notes? The question was already discussed above for the various practices gathered under ‘textura’. I would like here to examine a few of those practices more closely. To begin with knitting (which was termed by Jungius ‘textura sinuosa’), the refections presented in Texturæ Contemplatio are both theoretical and manual. The theoretical refections on knitted structures were already discussed in Sect. 4.2.3.4. It is Jungius’ description of the manual practices which I would like to examine here: a description of the manual work of knitting is presented on folios 42r and 43r (Group 8), written in 1644. On these two folios, Jungius describes the movement of the hand(s) holding the stylus while knitting. On fol. 43r, Jungius also emphasizes the order (“ordo”) of the movements and their relation to each other—rather than just the movement itself. One may suggest that he wrote down this procedure explicitly, as it exemplifes how from an exact analysis of simple operations and observations of simple objects one can induce distinct experience and knowledge. But his use of the term “ductus” to describe the movement also underlines its geometrical aspects, and not just the manual work. Concerning weaving practices, i.e., how one actually weaves, the situation is somewhat different, also due to the vague (or lack of) differentiation introduced by Jungius between the various weaving practices that he describes. While Jungius does present ‘theorems’ arising from observations of various weaves woven by the treadle loom, there is no detailed description of how the weaving is done. On fol. 31r (from Group 12), Jungius notes that weaving with a treadle loom should be done by men, because leg strength is needed to step on the treadles. This is the only explicit reference to the physical work involved in weaving.159 While it does show 158 Concerning the textile industry in Padua and in the north of Italy at that time, see: (Demo 2006: esp. p. 222); see also: (Caracausi 2014). 159 To that one should add Jungius’ short note on fol. 30r concerning the physical position of carpet makers: “The carpet makers lie on their backs when they work, and have the cloth or fabric up above them, when they are weaving [knitting] inside.” (Crossed out in the original)

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Fig. 4.12 Upper part of fol. 55r of Texturæ Contemplatio, showing a schematic drawing of a twotreadle loom

that Jungius was aware of the treadling activity, the importance of the order of stepping on the treadles is not even mentioned.160 This obviously stands in contrast to how Jungius mentions the order of the hand movements while knitting. Jungius does note in several places physical descriptions of a treadle loom: on fol. 55r (Group 14), he draws such a loom, though with only two treadles (see Fig. 4.12); on fol. 26r, Jungius writes that “Rasch is made woven with 4 heddles and 4 treadles,” hence showing that he was aware of treadle looms with more than two treadles. Indeed, to weave several of the weaves presented under Jungius’ ‘theorem IV’, one needs a fve-treadle loom. Folio 34r (Group 12) also describes the various looms (with various numbers of treadles) that are employed—but here one can note that Jungius calls for further investigation of what can actually be done with those looms:

In the introduction of Sect. 2.1, I note why the order of pressing the treadles is essential; see there the example of a four-treadle loom. 160

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So many heddles, so many faps [Klappen], or foot-treadles [fußtritte], or treadles [Pedahlen], what is done with two heddles et per consequens with two treadles […] What is made with 4, 6, 8 heddles, that has twill or stairs on both sides, What is made with 3 or 5 heddles et per consequens faps, that has Kepper only on one side [how so?] Note this well: to be investigated.

Apart from this discussion, Jungius also mentions damask weaving several times (on folios 63r, 8r, 37r, 36r, 32r, etc.). On fol. 32r (Group 11), he draws a lily (i.e., a feur-de-lis) when he discusses damask weaving, which probably means he was examining a damask fabric with fower patterns. To stress: damask weaving was done not with a treadle loom but rather with a drawloom. This loom is not mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio, i.e., it may very well be that Jungius was not aware of this different, more complicated loom, but only of its end result. Moreover, returning to the treadle loom, what is also missing from Texturæ Contemplatio is the construction of the (treadle) loom itself. Jungius indeed depicts a two-treadle loom on fol. 55r (see Fig. 4.12), but how one prepares this loom, i.e., frst threading the frames, and then the tie up itself, is not mentioned. To explicate: threading consists of threading every warp end through its associated heddle, with several threads being threaded through a single frame. The tie up consists of attaching the frames to the treadles so that one can lift them, in a specifc order, by stepping on the treadles in the combinations required by the pattern one wishes to weave.161 In addition, other preparatory procedures involving the loom are not mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio, such as sleying the reed. None of these steps is even mentioned by Jungius, although he must have been (though perhaps only partially) aware of these procedures.

4.4.3

Before (preparing the loom) and after (the fabric is ready)

While the construction itself of the treadle loom is not written down in Texturæ Contemplatio, the manuscript does contain a description of several procedures and processes that were done before the loom was worked on or prepared, as well as after the fabric had been woven. For example, on fol. 55r, Jungius notes: “A branch is a wooden twig; with this, one separates parallel-wise the warp on the top [branch]; then one separates according to the same shape below on the wooden nails of the frame. These two separations are done so that they [the threads] can then use the comb [reed] properly or can [be] put in it.” Although the description is somewhat unclear, following Jungius’ drawing (see Fig. 4.13), it seems that he is describing the process of laying out the

161

This is also the reason why the order of stepping on the treadles is essential, as noted above.

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Fig. 4.13 a Lower part of fol. 55r of Texturæ Contemplatio: laying out the warp threads on a warping frame. b What a warping board looks like in practice, and how one winds the thread up on it (Bomann 1927: 253, fg. 200)

4.4 Jungius on Artisanal Practices II: Artisans in Practice

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warp threads on a warping frame (board) in an ordered manner. One can assume that the “wooden nails” to which Jungius refers are actually the wooden pegs around which the threads are wound. As noted in Sect. 4.2.3.2, when laying out the warp threads on a warping frame, the weaver was required to perform simple arithmetical calculations, which Jungius also wrote down (on fol. 51r, Group 14). This single reference to a preparatory procedure that is done before starting to weave stands in contrast to the mention of a few practical procedures that are performed after the fabric weaving is fnished: fol. 28r and fol. 13r (in Group 13) describe the process of pressing the cloth. Other folios describe several fnishing techniques: either fulling the cloth (fol. 52r explicitly mentions trodding fabrics in a solution of water and urine), waxing the cloth (with nettle; fol. 3r) or gluing it (or the threads before weaving) with grease (fol. 26r). These more elaborate accounts of the fnishing practices (compared to the accounts of the preparation of the treadle loom) do indicate that Jungius had a certain familiarity with how fabrics were made and with the artisanal work, and not only with the fnished product. Taking into account the contact that Jungius had with merchants, as seen in Sect. 4.4.1, one may assume that he was also in touch with weavers and knitters (and their respective communities)—indeed, as knitting was a common domestic activity, it is not surprising that a more precise description of this practice is given in Texturæ Contemplatio. *** As is clear from this and the previous section, the account given in Texturæ Contemplatio concerning the artisanal knowledge embodied by the weavers is partial. I already touched on this in Sect. 4.2.3.1, with respect to the ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ presented by Jungius, but here one can certainly see other aspects of it: lack of differentiation between the various looms, an only partial familiarity with the work processes (e.g., failure to mention the tie up or the order of treadling as that which produces the various patterns), terminological ambiguity—all of these aspects and more produce a partial and distorted image of the knowledge possessed by the various communities of weavers. One, however, might assume that this partiality is also due to the partial character of the manuscript itself,162 or that Jungius was aware of these aspects, but either did not know how to formalize or write them down, or did not think that they were important enough for him to do so. However, the last option may be ruled out, as Texturæ Contemplatio contains several ‘strange’ or ‘small’ facts, ‘smaller’ even than the order of the treadling. If Jungius did not know how to formalize these practices (for example, the order of treadling), then this would suggest that he conceived, on the one hand, some artisanal practices as impossible to formalize, and others as practices which do carry formalizable knowledge, but which was nevertheless still beyond being written down.

162

As it may be that sheets were taken out by Leibniz, destroyed by fre, or simply lost.

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On Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Citations, Implicit Excerpts and Dictionaries

The last section explicated the hypothesis that Jungius might have had only a partial acquaintance with the various aspects of artisanal practices, or might have chosen to give a partial account of them. It therefore raises the question: to what is Jungius referring when he formulates his claims and comments about those practices? The former sections made clear that Jungius observed artisans and experimented himself with textiles and fabrics; I will discuss this frst-hand knowledge in Sect. 4.6. The question is, however, what were the written sources of knowledge to which Jungius turned (explicitly or implicitly)? Which books, dictionaries and other manuscripts are mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio? Considering the size and volume of Jungius’ library (Meinel 1992), it is not surprising to fnd in Texturæ Contemplatio numerous citations, excerpts—both explicit and implicit, and references to dictionaries.163 Indeed, the integration of excerpts in the writings of scholars of the early modern period was not uncommon,164 and this practice has recently gained attention in the works on the history of this period.165 As Helmut Zedelmaier (2016: 82) notes, acquisition of knowledge in the early modern period also consisted of “[m]arking passages in exemplary classical texts, excerpting, memorizing, and processing them for different purposes […] The humanist practices became more differentiated in the course of the early modern period and were adapted and modifed by different knowledge cultures.” Zedelmaier also emphasizes that “the emerging, ‘new’ (natural) sciences also used excerpts” and that one should not oppose excerption “based on ‘old’ bookish knowledge” to the newly founded empirical knowledge in the 17th century, which allegedly superseded and outdated the excerpts and citations; but rather that excerption should be considered as “one of the prototypes of the empirical method” (ibid.).166 Excerpting and copying, as also done by Jungius, and the act itself of copying Texturæ Contemplatio by Fogel, Leibniz and their colleagues should hence be

By implicit citation I mean a copy of parts of a text where the reference to the book and the page is not given. 164 Grafton (2020: 5): “[…] many humanists saw the notebook as their central tool. They educated themselves by copying passages from classical authors, which they fled for reuse under topical headings.” 165 See Blair (2010); Krajewski (2011); Zedelmaier (2015); Zedelmaier (2002); Zedelmaier and Mulsow (2001). 166 See also: (Fransen and Reinhart 2019: 212–213): “[…] copying also took place in the context of studying nature. While a long tradition of copying previous authorities existed, the Early Modern period saw an increase in the use of observation and experimentation in combination with more traditional commentaries as ways to respond to classical authors.” Note also that this practice of excerpting and copying was not only limited to natural philosophers: as Smith (2022, 168) notes, numerous “artisans who wrote manuals drew upon ancient models.” 163

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considered as complementary to the project of the empirical investigation of nature. Indeed, Rocco Di Dio (2016: 597) stresses the importance for early modern scholars of reintroducing citations and excerpts into a newer context: “Through a process of reduction and reworking, formulae, images, ideas, patterns of argument and models employed by the earlier tradition acquired a new meaning as they were selected and displayed in the textual repertoire and then integrated into a new work.” I will discuss in Sect. 4.6 Jungius’ conception of knowledge, and how this knowledge was acquired, as seen through Texturæ Contemplatio, which can be considered a hybrid, almost rhizomatic collection of ‘strange facts’ in the form of precarious knowledge, with almost no prestructured or given order. I already mention Jungius’ collection of those facts here to stress that Jungius’ Nachlass did not contain any instruments for indexing, systemizing or structuring his notes. The merely cumulative collection of individual notes without any systematic order indicates that Jungius understood excerpting as a possible basis for an empirically founded order of knowledge. Hence, one of the main conclusions which may be deduced from the examination conducted till now of the main topics of Texturæ Contemplatio, and as we will see when examining the excerpts and references, is that one may understand Texturæ Contemplatio, and in particular its collection of excerpts, as an “analytically differentiating, unstructured, and non-hierarchical” manuscript, as noted by Meinel (1995: 176). Moreover, as already hinted at above, this technique of ‘fact collection’ and of excerpting corresponds not only to Jungius’ view of collecting empirical facts without further theoretical assumptions, but also to his conception of decomposing these facts and excerpts into their simplest components (Meinel 1992: 34). These conceptions are also refected in the subject of this section, and one fnds in Texturæ Contemplatio slips and small pieces of paper containing citations and excerpts. This fragmentation of knowledge, embodied in the non-prestructured collection of notes, is why one obtains the impression that so much information has been accumulated, which can be rearranged again and again—and in the case of Texturæ Contemplatio, it was indeed restructured and reordered—without reaching a publishable, complete, fnished version and without giving its later owner (Fogel or Leibniz) a defnite orientation as to how this manuscript should have been edited after Jungius’ death. Given the magnitude of references, implicit excerpts and explicit citations, one may criticize Texturæ Contemplatio for preferring book erudition to lack of expertise, of not treating the classical sources that he cited critically (considering, e.g., Pliny the elder as a reliable source of knowledge), or of collecting ‘singularities’ instead of attempting to fnd regularities and generalizations. This critique might be justifed in some cases, but I claim that it adopts a narrow image of how knowledge was supposed to be collected in practice, presented and thought of during the 17th century. As we will see below, Jungius’ approach of combining classical and recent sources establishes a narrative of continuity, as if weaving in Pliny’s time remained the same till the 17th century.

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What are, therefore, the excerpts and citations appearing in Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio? While the following pages may look like an inventory of citations, I fnd it important to make all of them explicit, not only because most of them are not explicated in Texturæ Contemplatio itself, but also because a few of them are implicit, copied partially or even wrongly. One can divide these excerpts into three groups: the frst, when the source (usually the name of a book and the corresponding chapter) is given, and the text that is being referred to is cited, either fully or partially; the second group consists of implicit references—being excerpts where the source is not given (or very partially given), and hence ‘offcially’ the text may appear as if it was Jungius’ own refection; and third, references to dictionaries. I will start in Sect. 4.5.1 with the frst group, examining the explicit citations and references, while Sects. 4.5.2 and 4.5.3 deal, respectively, with implicit references and dictionaries.

4.5.1

Explicit citations

The largest subgroup within the group of explicit citations is the one containing references, sometimes accompanied with citations (which are either partial or complete) from Pliny’s Natural History. However, some of these references do not deal with textile practices in general, or with weaving in particular. More precisely, folios 50r, 56r and 57r have textile-related citations from Pliny. Both fol. 50r and fol. 56r refer to Book 8, Chapter 48 of Natural History, though the focus of the reference is different for the two folios. On fol. 50r (Group 14), Jungius writes the following: “Scutulata textura Plinii 1.8, c. 48 vel est nostra sinuosa, in hac n. [nostrae] virgae apparent et scutula. Scutulatam vero suam etiam virgatam vocant Veleres.” The adjective Scutulata describes diamond-shaped, lozenge-shaped or checkered objects; scutulum can be translated as a little shield. Later on this folio, Jungius discusses chain mail garments, such as a chain mail breastplate.167 Interestingly, Jungius claims that “Scutulata textura” is “our sinuous weaving.” Carolyn Priest-Donnan (1998: 51) indicates that “Pliny credited the Gauls with the development of a specifc type of weaving: ‘Plurimis vero liciis texere quae polymita appelant, Alexandria instituit, scutulis dividere Gallia’,” which is translated as “Truly Alexandria introduced weaving using a lot of threads that they call ‘polymita,’ Gaul dividing with little shields.” Two possible interpretations are offered in the literature for ‘scutulus’: “the word means ‘little shields,’ but whether the little

On “Scutulata textura” see, for example: Wild (1964: 263): “Evidently, in the strict geometrical sense, scutula is a diamond or lozenge shape, but can also be a square; in later antiquity even wider connotations are possible. It is likely that the meaning of scutulatus is just as wide, and that the translation ‘diamond-shaped’ or ‘checkered’ gives a reasonable starting-point.”

167

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shields refer to weaving tablets or to checks on the face of a textile is considerably less clear.”168 While sinuous weaving, mentioned in the above citation from fol. 50r, usually means knitting for Jungius, one may assume that here he is referring to the shape of the resulting textile, and not to the weaving tablet, which is barely discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio. However, if one examines fol. 56r, where Jungius again cites Pliny, Book 8, Chapter 48, and instructs: “Vide an pluribus liciis texere (Plin. 1.8. c. 48) (πολυμυθον) sit vieldrätig Zeug,” then it is clear that here, by πολυμυθον, he is not referring to knitting, as knitting is done with only one thread, whereas he is talking about “weaving [fabric] with multiple threads” (“pluribus liciis texere”); therefore, he may very well be referring to tablet weaving. But if this is the case, one has to wonder why this is the only mention of this type of weaving in Texturæ Contemplatio. On fol. 57r (Group 9), one fnds two references to Book 18 from Pliny’s Natural History. The frst one is as follows: “Vasorum Nomina Qualos crates, fscinas texere. Plin 1.18. c. 16 ibid. ridicam a palo distinguit, ut et Colum. Dolia quassa sarcire, ipsorumque laminas scabendo purgare aut novas facere. Ibid.”169 Jungius cites from Pliny’s Natural History, Book 18 (Chapters LXIII, LXIV), where Pliny writes the following: materiae caedendae tempus hoc dedimus; reliqua opera nocturna maxime vigilia constent, cum sint noctes tanto ampliores, qualos, crates, fscinas texere, faces incidere, ridicas praeparare interdiu xxx, palos lx et in lucubratione vespertina ridicas v, palos x, totidem antelucana […] huius temporis novissimis diebus, ubicumque patietur caeli ratio, terram ad rosarum et vineae satum vertere bipalio oportet—iugero operae lxx suffciunt  – fossas purgare aut novas facere, antelucanis ferramenta acuere, manubria aptare, dolia quassa sarcire, ovium tegimenta concinnare ipsarumque lanas scabendo purgare. (Pliny 1938: 336, 338)

Here one can see that on fol. 57r, Jungius is only partially citing Pliny. Moreover, instead of “lanas,” in Texturæ Contemplatio it is written “laminas,” which means that Jungius (or the scribe) copied the word “lanas” incorrectly. Other folios contain other citations from Pliny’s Natural History: fol. 46r refers to Book 13 (concerning a bark with knobs), and fol. 32r refers thrice to Book 35 (concerning the plastic arts and painting).

168 Priest-Donnan adds that “John-Peter Wild once suggested that it might mean both tablet weaving and a checkered fabric or tartan, but later stressed the tartan interpretation. Peter Collingwood seems to support the tablet weaving interpretation. Some have since tried to credit the Egyptians with the invention of tablet weaving, on the basis of a single unusual band. However, Collingwood’s careful structural analysis of the so-called Rameses Girdle disproved the notion that it was tablet woven” (1998: 51). 169 “Names of vessels / Weaving wicker baskets, hampers and rush baskets. [See] Pliny 1. 18. Chapter 16 in the same place he [Pliny] distinguishes a vine-props from a pole, so too Colum. To fx broken vats, to clean their shells [layers] by scraping them or to make new ones. In the same place [ibidem]” (underlined in the original).

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What are the other citations found in Texturæ Contemplatio? While below I will review these references thematically, the fnding of numerous references on fol. 50r (Group 14) is notable. The folio mentions two verses from the Old Testament twice: Exodus 28, verse 24, and 1st Kings 17, verse 5. Both of these verses suggest chain mail weaving.170 Greek and Roman thinkers are also mentioned on fol. 50r: Jungius refers to the play of Titus Maccius Plautus (ca. 254–184 BC)—Rudens, or The Fisherman’s Rope (Jungius notes: “Hooked fshing [is] in Plautus”); he also mentions Hesychius on this folio, probably referring to Hesychius of Alexandria, a Greek grammarian from Alexandria, 5th or 6th century AD, who wrote a Greek lexicon of obscure words. The other citations on the other folios are varied and stem from various sources, which range from Plato to Jungius’ own writings. On fol. 27r (Group 11), Jungius writes: “The weft is spun more loosely, the warp more tightly, which is more twisted, or sturdier, idem Plato in Politico p.  544. 545.” This is apparently a reference to Plato’s Statesman, 309a–b; the visitor in the dialogue compares weaving to the art of politics, and says to young Socrates: As for the rest of the people, those whose natures are capable, if they get education, of being made into something fne and noble and of uniting with each other as art requires, the kingly art takes those natures which tend more towards courage, considering that their character is sturdier, like the warp in weaving, and those which incline towards decorum, for these, to continue the simile, are spun thick and soft like the threads of the woof, and tries to combine these natures of opposite tendencies and weave them together in the following manner. (Plato 1914: 187)

In this citation, Plato describes the king as the one who “weaves the two human types whose natural temperaments correspond to the ‘frm’ warp and ‘soft’ weft threads” (Blondell 2005: 58). Nevertheless here, Jungius ignores the presentation of weaving as a political metaphor concerning how society is ‘woven’, and takes Plato’s statement on weaving literally, as a statement on the properties of the weft and warp.171 On fol. 38r, a reference to the New Testament appears: “The inner surface (side) of stockings (knitted stocking), either unsewn or not sewn together (Beza c. 19 Joh. 23)”. Jungius is referring to Theodore Beza (1519–1605), a French reformed Protestant theologian. Jungius may be referring to the edition of the New Testament

The full references are as follows: Exodus 28.24 “And the golden chains though shalt join to the rings [...]” and 1st Kings 17.5: “And he had a helmet of brass upon his head and he was clothed with a coat of mail with scales.” The New Testament is also cited in Texturæ Contemplatio (see below). On the various reasons to integrate references from the Old and New Testaments in early modern age manuscripts, see: (Stöcklein 1969). 171 Ellen Harlizius-Klück claims that “the statesman is found as the one who weaves together the brave and the circumspect just as the weaver does with the strong warp and the softer weft” (2014: 49). Harlizius-Klück connects this dialogue (and others) to Greek arithmetic, and explicitly to dihairesis, the division by two. 170

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Citations, Implicit Excerpts and Dictionaries

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edited by Beza, though it is not clear which edition, as several were published in the 16th century. The reference itself is to the Book of John, Chapter 19, verse 23. The Douay-Rheims translation of this verse reads as follows: “The soldiers therefore, when they had crucifed him, took his garments, (and they made four parts, to every soldier a part) and also his coat. Now the coat was without a seam, woven from the top throughout.”172 On a few folios there are some references to Roman thinkers besides Pliny. On fol. 46r, Jungius refers to “Pliny the younger. Letter 101: a gradated boxwood tree covers a maceria [maceriam gradata buxus aperit],” referring to the pattern of a brick or stone wall, hence to what gradated weaves look like.173 Moreover, on fol. 38r, Jungius, when citing “Quintilian 1. 8 Chapter 3” is referring to Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (more specifcally to Book 8, Chapter 3, Sect. 9), to a section describing, among others, trees arranged in the shape of a Quincunx. Jungius, however, refers to the resulting weave, whereas Quintilian does not. The second reference, being to “Cicero’s Cat,” is in fact a reference to Cicero’s De Senectute, where Lysander, one of the fgures in Cicero’s essay, marvels at trees which are arranged in that quincunx arrangement (Cicero 1923: 70–71). Another group of scholars cited is a group of thinkers from the 15th and 16th centuries. On fol. 3r, it is noted that the “[duck] cloth is done with the thorns of Urtica dioica [nettle] with wax. [See] Johannes Cuno’s Hoffarts [Casten] p. 89.” Jungius is probably referring to Johannes Cuno, and probably to the book Hoffarts Wolstand from 1594. In Cuno’s book, the word “Schiertuch” is mentioned, but not in the context of how it is processed.174 On fol. 19r, under the title “other notes” (“alia scheda”), Jungius cites two scholars. The frst excerpt to be found in this part is an exact copy of the end of Chapter 63 of Book 13 of Hieronymi Cardani mediolanensis medici De rerum varietate libri XVII by Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), an Italian polymath, citing from Cardano (1557: 877). The subtitle given to this subchapter, which Jungius copied, is: “Velutum quo modo dignoscatur quote habear pilos.” The second excerpt is as follows: “Munsterus quoque telam pro stamine ponunt; l. [liber] 3 Cosmogr. de Suevis. Panni, inquit, genus faciunt, cuius tela linea e, intextum bombycinum [bommasin Emmel. Sax. Boomsidan] seu gossapinum, barchat illud

The verse itself is as follows: “milites ergo cum crucifxissent eum acceperunt vestimenta eius et fecerunt quattuor partes unicuique militi partem et tunicam erat autem tunica inconsutilis desuper contexta per totum.” 173 The full citation from Pliny the younger (1915: 382) is as follows: “Ambit hunc ambulatio pressis varieque tonsis viridibus inclusa; ab his gestatio in modum circi, quae buxum multiformem humilesque et retentas manu arbusculas circumit. Omnia maceria muniuntur: hanc gradata buxus operit et subtrahit.” (Cursive by M.F.) 174 (Cuno 1594: 38): “Wie ich denn berichtet / das neulich ein Krage genehet [genäht] worden / zu welchem fünff Ellen Kammertuch oder Schiertuch.” 172

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Fig. 4.14 Drawing of a family of Suebi who spin, from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (Münster 1550: 581; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/2 Geo.u. 51; CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

vocantes [gossypinum voluit dicere] p.  581.”175 Jungius is referring here to Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) and his book Cosmographia. Beschreibung aller Lender durch Sebastianum Munsterum (1544), indicating that he (Jungius) uses “tela” instead of “stamen” to term the warp. What follows after “Book 3 in the Cosmographia on the Suebi” is indeed a citation from Book 3 of Cosmographia, being one of the earliest German-language descriptions of the world. The title of the section from which Jungius cites is “De moribus & ritibus Antiquorum. modernorum Sueuorum,” and Jungius indeed copies page 581 (Münster 1550: 581). However, Jungius’ excerpt, cited above, is only a partial copy; the entire sentence from Cosmographia is as follows: “Panni genus faciunt, cuius tela linea est intexcũ bombycinum seu gossapinum, barchat illud uocantes, faciunt & totum li neum quod golsch [Kölsch] appellant.” Next to it one fnds, on p.  581 of Cosmographia, a depiction of Suebi who spin (Fig. 4.14). Last but certainly not least, one fnds in Texturæ Contemplatio references to Jungius’ own works. At the bottom of fol. 58r it is written: “see Doxoscopiae

175 “Munster [Sebastian Münster] too – they put [use] tela in place of stamen; [See] book 3 in the Cosmographia on the Suebi. It says, that they make a type of cloth, the tela [warp] of which is the linea [linen], an interwoven silk [bombycinum] [[which is called] bommasin [[by?]] Emmel. [[and by the]] Sax. [Saxons] boomsidan] or Gossapinum [cotton], (and some) calling it Barchat [[fustian]] [he wants to call it gossypinum] p.  581.” Here single square brackets were added by the scribe; double square brackets are added by M.F.

4.5

Citations, Implicit Excerpts and Dictionaries

313

physicae minores part. 2.s.1 Prooem[ium] Ass. 6. et note 7 [F].”176 The reference to Doxoscopiae physicae minores (Jungius 1662) is to part 2.1, Assert. 6, sentence 7, where Jungius discusses various textiles and weaves, and their properties. To stress: the book itself was edited by Fogel and published in 1662—after Jungius’ death. This reference to Jungius’ writings may therefore be an addition of Fogel’s, though Fogel maintained Jungius’ numeration when editing Doxoscopiae physicae minores. Also, on fol. 57r, one fnds the following reference: “Textura ex bulbo 1.7. c. 13”; here it is probably a reference to Doxoscopiae physicae minores (Jungius 1662: part 2.1 Assert. 7, sentence 87), where Jungius also mentions the flaments of the onion plant (Bulbus).

4.5.2

Implicit references

In contrast to the numerous explicit citations and references, there are two implicit references to be found. Such implicitness is to be noted either when the name of the cited book is not at all mentioned (only its authors are mentioned), or when neither the author nor the name of the book are written down. On fol. 30r, one fnds an exact copy of the last sentences of the comment of Daniele Barbaro (1514–1570) to Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book 6, Chapter VII. The title of the chapter, which clearly does not deal with textiles, is: “Ad quas cœli regiones quæque ædifciorum gener a spectare debeant, ut usui, & salubritati sint idonea. Cap. VII” (“The part of the sky that buildings must face in order to be useful and healthful”) (Vitruvius 1567: 222). However, Barbaro’s comment does deal with textiles, and in particular, in which direction one should be with respect to the light when one weaves. In contrast to the other citations found in this manuscript, Jungius (or the scribe) does not mention either its source or its author. On fol. 14r one fnds a few sentences on a slip of paper, the last sentence being: “Gabriel Sionita and Joannes Hesronita say [regarding] some or. [oratio; speech] urb. [urbis; of the city] from the end of chapter 9.” Gabriel Sionita (1577–1648) was a learned Maronite, famous for his role in the publication of the 1645 Paris Polyglot of the Bible; Joannes (John) Hesronita (ca. 1559–1632), born in Lebanon, lived most of his adult life in Italy and Spain, was a priest and a Maronite scholar, and was known for his translations of religious writings from Arabic to Latin and vice versa. Jungius’ remark is in fact a reference to Chapter 9 of the book: Arabia, seu Arabum vicinarumque gentium orientalium leges, ritus, sacri et profani mores, instituta et historia. Accedunt praeterea varia per Arabiam itinera, in quibus multa notatu digna enarrantur (Sionita 1635). However, neither the book’s name nor the title of Chapter 9—“De Metsr seu Alcairo, ejusque animalibus, segetibus, incrementi

176

The last symbol can be read as 7 but also as the letter F.

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Nilaci signis miris […]” (ibid.: 46) are mentioned; only the names of the authors. The frst two sentences on fol. 14r are a partial copy of one of the sentences from the end of Chap. 9 of this book. The entire passage from Arabia is as follows: Plebeii, præter subuculam quæ ad suras usque pendet, ac zonam coriaceam, qua sunt cincti, nihil, quo se tegant, habent: omnes tamen tam viri quam foeminæ, tam nobiles quam ignobiles, barracano seu fragmento quodam laneæ materiæ inconsutili, quod illis pro pallio inservit, utuntur; foeminarum tamen barracana laxiora fuxioraque sunt, quæ à capite usque ad talos pendent, quibus faciem ac reliquum corpus tegere possint.177 (Ibid.: 53)

How does Jungius copy this passage? The frst sentences on fol. 14r are as follows: “Cairi oes [omnes] t a viri qui Fciars [foeminæ], t a nobiles q ign. Barracano seu Fragto [fragmento] q. lanea ma a [materiae] inconsuitili , quod illis p pallio inservit, utuntur. Fciars tn. Barracana laxiora, fuxioraque st [sunt].”178 Being a partial copy of a sentence in Arabia it is remarkable that the original context is mentioned only in one expression: “Cairi omnes”—i.e., “men of Cairo.” Indeed, Chap. 9 deals with this city of Cairo, but the name of the book itself is omitted from fol. 14r.

4.5.3

Dictionaries

Last but not least are the references to Jungius’ dictionaries. On four folios (9r, 35r, 48r and 57r), several dictionaries are referred to, cited when Jungius copies the defnitions of some fabrics. These dictionaries are as follows:179 1) Filippo Venuti, Dittionario generale volgare et latino (1568). 2) Lodovico Guicciardini, Belgicae sive inferioris Germaniae descriptio, Amsterdam (1635).180

“Plebians have nothing with which they may cover themselves, except the undergarment [subuculum] which hangs all the way to the calves, and the leather zona [girdle] with which they are girded. However, as many men as women – and as many noble as ignoble [men and women] – use all [of these garments] with the barracan or a certain seamless [inconsutili] fragment of wool material, which for them serves in place of the cloak [mantle; pallium]. However, the barracan for women is looser and more fowing, and hangs all the way from the head to the ankles, with which they can cover the face and the rest of the body.” Note that “subuculum” is a man’s undergarment, a shirt worn under other things; and “zona” is a belt or a girdle worn about the loins by women. However, it can also refer to a girdle worn by men to carry money, i.e., a money belt. 178 “All men as women of Cairo, and nobles as well as non-nobles, use barracan or a certain seamless [inconsutili] fragment of wool material, because it serves them for their cloaks. However, the barracan for women is looser and more fowing.” 179 On fol. 57r Jungius only mentions a “Belgian dictionary,” but does not specify its name. 180 Dictionaries (1) and (2) are both mentioned on fol. 9r.

177

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Citations, Implicit Excerpts and Dictionaries

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3) Cornelis Kiel, Etymologicum Teutonicae linguae sive dictionarium Teutonico-Latinum (1599).181 4) Juan Luis Vives, Colloquia, sive exercitatio latinae linguae Johannis Lodovici Vivis Valentini (1586).182

*** The abundance of citations, while not surprising, should not stand in contrast to Jungius’ citations of testimonies from merchants or from textile workers, his own frst-hand observations, or his theorization of weaves. This conglomerate of testimonies, in the form of an assemblage of ‘facts’ from various sources, was one of the common forms of presentation during the early modern period. But these testimonies and ‘facts’ should not be taken as singular, as if they attest to knowledge which is dependent only on a unique experience, or that is embodied in only a certain individual (e.g., a single weaver), but rather based on communal knowledge. As was noted above, excerpts and citations were thought, together with experiments, to participate in the founding of a new ‘empirical’ method, as both excerpts and testimonies of artisans were considered as reporting ‘facts’. In that sense, the integration of citations, excerpts and references shows a continuity of earlier traditions well into the early modern period. This image of continuity, based sometimes on (much) older manuscripts, came on the background of a possible diffculty for Jungius to cite and refer exactly to writings of weavers, had they existed during this period. Rather, he turned to other written sources of knowledge to base his refections on weaving. What resulted is on the one hand a non-hierarchical structure of testimonies, references and more contemporary refections on textiles, but on the other hand, a somewhat distorted historical image concerning weaving practices, as if weaving in Pliny’s time or in Egypt remained the same – both from the point of view of practice and terminology – as weaving in the 17th century Hamburg. If Jungius indeed assembled such a non-hierarchical web of excerpts, descriptions and refections which support and relate to each other, can the entire manuscript Texturæ Contemplatio be conceived in this way? Or should the attempts to view artisanal practices scientifcally be regarded as having another form? Can one view Texturæ Contemplatio and Jungius’ other additional notes and manuscripts that discuss textile practices as having a hybrid form, consisting of arguments which complement each other though without reaching a fnal conclusion? Or as a collection of texts that has a rhizomatic structure, composed of parts which each have their own center, but that, from time to time, thematically intersect?

181 182

This dictionary is mentioned on fol. 48r. This dictionary is mentioned on fol. 35r.

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On Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

Conclusion. A Precarious Rhizome: Weaving as a Site of Knowledge

The previous sections showed that Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio is a unique text: on the one hand, Jungius continually added, over the years, new observations, sources, excerpts and singular, particular ‘facts’, as if the text was open-ended, never reaching a coherent (or even publishable) form; on the other, one can also note—in some periods—a more theoretical, concentrated work,183 which may be considered a more scientifc investigation that goes beyond a mere collection of facts. This theoretical investigation probably resulted from the exploration of concrete practices and products (e.g., knitting or various weaves), but at the same time, like the manuscript itself, it cannot be considered a complete theory, where all of the parts are connected to each other, having a central theme or a well-defned structure. Rather, as already noted (see Sect. 4.2.6), it can be considered as having a rhizomatic structure, with no specifc or single central focus. It is for these reasons that I would like to offer, in this conclusion, to consider Texturæ Contemplatio as a precarious, hybrid collection of frittered facts; this precarious assemblage may be considered an epistemological collection—where ‘strange’ and ‘foreign’ facts and refections are brought together, sometimes resulting in the emergence of new knowledge, even if this was not the intended aim of Jungius’ refections (though it may certainly have been for several of the groups of notes in Texturæ Contemplatio). Here it is important to note that unlike the notion of ‘textura’, whose history was unfolded in Sect. 2.2, most of Jungius’ investigations, when turning weaving, as well as weaves and textiles into epistemic procedures and objects, also allowed these to stand on their own, in the sense that they were not completely detached from their original context but did not serve merely as representatives or examples of a scientifc or mathematical hypothesis or theorem. This, as well as the hybrid nature of Texturæ Contemplatio, can also be seen in the fact that Jungius did not necessarily aim to subject the artisanal practices and processes to a mathematical or scientifc theory with, for example, the physico-mathematical sciences, though he was very much aware of the nature of this investigation in these sciences. This awareness is to be noted, for example, in Jungius’ research on hypostatic and synhypostatic parts or his optical investigations—all taking textiles as an object of investigation. Taking the above refections into account, one may say that with this interlacement of scientifc refections, the presentation of ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’, descriptions of artisanal processes or practices and the integration of excerpts and citations, Jungius aims to present an encounter with textile-related practices that opens up possibilities of research which would not otherwise be available. This is seen with the notes that did not necessarily look at the fnal products (though such notes certainly also existed), but rather, merely described the various stages of processing wool or the fnished fabric. The emphasis on the processes also shows what For example, the folios from Group 7, Group 4 and Group 5 are all dated to December 1639 or January 1640. 183

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one may term the dialogic nature of Texturæ Contemplatio: while the processes as such are precarious—being temporally restricted and not present in the end result— the fact that Jungius chooses to document them indicates that he paid attention to these practices, hence giving them presence, similar to a dialogue with the practices themselves. One may hence suggest that Texturæ Contemplatio oscillates between arguing for the estrangement of the embodied, particular, local artisanal practices by the rise of the ‘objectfying’ mathematical and mechanical modes of thinking, independent of time and place, and between recognizing the unique knowledge the artisanal practices carry. Jungius’ attention to artisanal knowledge does not necessarily consist of a fascination with knowledge that cannot be formalized, but it points to a possible encounter between the artisan and the natural philosopher or humanist. Whether this encounter also establishes a ‘trading zone’ or just a real or imagined ‘meeting’ zone is one of the main questions of this conclusion, which I will discuss as the fnal section of this chapter. But before that, I would like to explain why Texturæ Contemplatio can be considered precarious. I will therefore frst discuss, in Sect. 4.6.1, what it means to consider Texturæ Contemplatio as a precarious, and even unstable text. This will be based, among others reasons, on the fact that Texturæ Contemplatio can be considered a collection of ‘facts’, though not all of them may have the same status. Some may record ephemeral traces—such as the frst-hand observations, which will be presented in Sect. 4.6.1.1; others indicate ‘theorems’, independent of time and place—and these two types will be discussed in Sect. 4.6.2. Section 4.6.3 will deal more thoroughly with the collection of facts itself which constitutes Texturæ Contemplatio, leading me to the fnal section: Sect. 4.6.4, which discusses the nature of the interactions that may be present in the above-mentioned trading or meeting zone. The question that stands at the center of this discussion was already hinted at in Sect. 1.2: what kind of ‘trading zone’ emerges with Texturæ Contemplatio, if one can even talk about ‘trading’ here? Does Texturæ Contemplatio constitute such a zone? Or does it open another space, where knowledge emerges, but is not necessarily traded?

4.6.1

Texturæ Contemplatio as precarious

‘Precarious’ means uncertain, delicate, problematic, revocable. This qualifcation does not primarily concern the content of knowledge, but its status. That this status is often a consequence of the content – especially if the content is explosive and undesirable to a powerbearing elite – is beyond question, but will be put aside for the moment […] Rather, three forms can be described in which the status of knowledge can be precarious: precarious status of the bearer of knowledge, precarious social status, and precarious status of the speaker’s role and assertions.184 (Mulsow 2012: 14–15) “‘Prekär’ bedeutet unsicher, heikel, misslich, problematisch, widerrufbar. Diese Qualifzierung betrifft nicht in erster Linie den Inhalt des Wissens, sondern seinen Status. Dass dieser Status oftmals eine Folge des Inhalts darstellt – insbesondere wenn der Inhalt brisant und einer machttragenden Elite unerwünscht ist –, steht außer Frage, soll hier aber zunächst ausgeblendet werden. Vielmehr lassen sich drei Formen beschreiben, in denen der Status von Wissen prekär sein kann: prekärer Status des Wissensträgers, prekärer gesellschaftlicher Status sowie prekärer Status der Sprecherrolle und der Behauptungen.” 184

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Martin Mulsow, in his book Prekäres Wissen,185 defnes and delineates the main characteristics of precarious knowledge. Mulsow highlights that precariousness does not necessarily mean that the content of the work discussed is controversial or ‘dangerous’—obviously, one cannot claim that Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio was of that character. But precarious knowledge can be considered as knowledge that cannot be classifed into one, predefned domain, but rather as that oscillating between domains, being indeed the case for Texturæ Contemplatio. Precarious knowledge can also be considered as refutable, uncertain or even materially unstable and ephemeral. The question is, in which ways can Texturæ Contemplatio be considered precarious? While Texturæ Contemplatio itself, as a carrier of knowledge—being a collection of notes composed over decades (which was later reorganized and restructured)—may certainly be considered materially unstable, making a similar claim concerning the social status of the players (Jungius or the communities of weavers in Hamburg) or about the status of Jungius’ statements is not straightforward. Let us therefore look more closely at this question, while—as stressed above—for the moment I put in brackets the question of the precariousness of the content presented in Texturæ Contemplatio. First and foremost, it should be emphasized that most of the material practices used by Jungius to present his refections—collecting notes, cutting and pasting pieces of paper—were quite common during the early modern period in general, and in Hamburg in particular (Mulsow 2015). Moreover, while Jungius scarcely published during his lifetime, his published works were well known and usually highly praised in the 17th century, even though he was gradually forgotten in the centuries that followed. That is, the social status of Jungius himself, as well as the way in which Jungius worked were not socially precarious. On the other hand, if one examines Texturæ Contemplatio itself, then one can certainly assert its precarious character. Why is that? As already seen in Sect. 1.1.1, the history of the transmission of Texturæ Contemplatio is somewhat complicated and unclear: one may assume that Texturæ Contemplatio is only a partial, edited copy of notes—probably copied from another manuscript: “Texturarum theoria modo sciendi physico inserviens.” The fact that Texturæ Contemplatio is only a partial copy is clear if one examines Leibniz’s copy of Texturæ Contemplatio, which contains additional material (see, e.g., Sect. 5.2); at the same time, Leibniz’s ‘copy’ does not contain all of the material to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio. While the original collection of notes was lost in a fre in Vagetius’ house, the existing copy in Fogel’s Nachlass was organized and reorganized by the scribe(s): the main evidence for this is the fact that the scribe wrote several topics on a single sheet, which was not the way Jungius worked. Moreover, several sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio were probably cut—most likely by Leibniz or by Johann Georg von Eckhard—a practice which was not uncommon at that time. One can therefore suggest two explanations: frst, that Leibniz had direct access to “Texturarum theoria” and copied from there—thus explaining the This book was recently translated into English, titled Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History. 185

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existence of additional material, but also the fact that the manuscript was organized differently, as Leibniz’s order is not identical to the order of the folios in Texturæ Contemplatio—although it may very well be that Leibniz himself reorganized the material found in “Texturarum theoria” while creating his copy. The other explanation would be that Leibniz only had access to Texturæ Contemplatio, but perhaps to a more complete version of it. Here one may assume that the sheets of Texturæ Contemplatio were ordered differently, and that Texturæ Contemplatio itself contained more sheets in the 17th century than what we have now. However, regardless of the way in which Leibniz obtained and copied Texturæ Contemplatio, all of these operations—sheets of paper being cut, reused or burnt, relocated from one library to another or reorganized—point to the precarious nature of the manuscript itself. Moreover, it is not only the transmission of Texturæ Contemplatio which attests to its precarious status, but also the fact that Texturæ Contemplatio was written over a period of more than 25 years. Considering the way in which Jungius worked, this time span is not surprising. But along with this, one should also consider the fact that Texturæ Contemplatio was never published. Was it because Jungius’ students did not manage to bring the edition of the manuscript to completion? Or rather, was it not important enough to be considered publishable material, despite Leibniz’s exhortation to the contrary? I will elaborate on Leibniz’s insistence that Texturæ Contemplatio should be published in Chap. 5, but it is clear that the efforts to publish or edit the manuscript ended in failure. Nevertheless, Texturæ Contemplatio was read not only by Leibniz, but also by Jungius’ students (see Sect. 5.2.3); that is, the manuscript was circulating among a group of scholars who were thus aware of its existence and content.186 Notwithstanding its circulation, Texturæ Contemplatio may therefore also be considered a carrier of not just precarious, but also incomplete and unstable knowledge; this is to be seen most clearly with Jungius’ terms,187 which change, appear and disappear when new terms are invented, and sometimes have no apparent connection to the terms used by the practitioners themselves. For example, the defnitions of the various twills, such as ‘textura simpla’, were probably not employed by weavers; the terms signifying velvet weaving were Latin terms borrowed from agriculture: ‘porca’, ‘sulcus’ or ‘stria’. The fact that Jungius employs ‘textura’ for both weaving and knitting is probably due to his writing in Latin; in the German written parts, there are no such terminological problems. Nevertheless, due to the completely different topological (and thus geometrical) relations of the threads, usage of the same notion may lead to misunderstandings, at least for scholars who do not know the differences between the practices. Indeed, if one considers the geometrical part as standing by itself, i.e., as disconnected from the other groups of Texturæ Contemplatio, one might obtain an impression of a more coherent image of knowledge, consisting of how various weaves may be presented in a geometrical fashion;

186 187

See also Sect. 5.2.2 on Leibniz’s own refections on Texturæ Contemplatio. See Sect. 4.3 and the discussion on the notion of ‘textura’ in Sect. 4.2.4.1.

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but one should recall that this was not what Jungius necessarily meant to present and that these more ‘coherent’ parts (for example, the geometrical part) were only one aspect of Jungius’ refections, which were nevertheless collected and added next to the others. To stress, even the ‘geometrical’ refections are open-ended and unstable, the latter because Jungius attempts to present two ‘geometries’: one of weaves, the other of knitted fabrics. Each of these ‘geometries’ is different, but both are brought together under an investigation of ‘textura’. In this sense, this bringing together of the different themes—whether by Jungius, Fogel, or later rearrangements—led to inconsistencies and tensions between the various parts. 4.6.1.1 The question of credibility More evidence for the instability of the fragmented knowledge collected over the years is the way in which the sources of this knowledge are presented in Texturæ Contemplatio. Explicitly, the question arises as to who was observing and collecting these facts. One can classify these sources of knowledge into two groups: frst- and second-hand observations and knowledge. By frst-hand observations and knowledge, I refer to the actions and facts which Jungius declared having done or observed by himself. For example, on fol. 8r, Jungius writes “I found the texture of the woolen cloth” concerning fabrics from Padua. On fol. 45r, Jungius notes “it seems to me” (“mich dünckt”) and “I call” (“nenne ich”), whereas on fol. 44r, he recalls: “In the unshorn samite, which I saw in September 1649 […].” Folios 28r and 54r also contain actions announced in the frst person singular: “I spit on it” or “I consider the green threads to be the weft.” These frst person singular statements appear throughout the years during which Texturæ Contemplatio was written—to recall, fol. 54r was written in 1621, whereas fol. 44r was written in 1649. They indicate not only a rhetoric of frst contact with the objects themselves, as if it is essential to emphasize that it was Jungius himself who examined the fabrics and experimented with them, but also a differentiation between Jungius and the artisans, as if to claim that it is Jungius who is refecting on these practices. This can also be seen with Jungius’ own corrections of his earlier statements concerning textiles, for example, on fol. 20r (where Jungius writes on the side of the sheet “correction”) or fol. 34r (where Jungius writes that these notes were later revised). Those frst-hand observations also show that Jungius aimed to emphasize that he was collecting facts whose validity cannot be doubted, since these were descriptions of particular, singular events, and not necessarily generalizations or general accounts. Nevertheless, Jungius also relied on testimonies and notes from other sources. Aside from the citations and excerpts which appear throughout Texturæ Contemplatio, Jungius refers to accounts of scholars who, at the time of writing the notes for Texturæ Contemplatio, were still alive, and hence these references can be termed ‘second-hand’ knowledge. Group 11 contains notes that Jungius copied in 1647 from Heinrich Sivers (1626–1691), when Sivers was 21 years old. Group 12 contains notes taken according to accounts of an unnamed citizen of Liege, who was

4.6

Conclusion. A Precarious Rhizome: Weaving as a Site of Knowledge

321

a guest of Crispinus Flugius. Here Jungius attempts to describe what can be done with treadle looms according to their number of treadles and heddles (from two to eight heddles). This might mean that Jungius himself did not see such treadle looms, or was only partially aware of what these looms were capable of weaving. However, this does not mean that Jungius did not have any contact at all with the artisans; describing properties of Parchet on fol. 51r, he notes that “I have observed [this] sometimes in person, sometime tailors [sartores] [were] reporting.” The fact that Jungius cites other sources of knowledge may be considered not just as giving credit or an open space to those persons or to their artisanal knowledge, but also as a method of distancing himself from it, or at least differentiating between frst-hand knowledge and knowledge acquired only by ‘hearing’ or copying from 21-year-old students. Thus one can fnd on fol. 34r Jungius’ comment (to himself) concerning the report of the companion from Liege, that this information should “be investigated,” asking “how is this [possible?]”188 There is therefore an oscillation between citing evidence and reports from other people and reporting frst-hand experiences, prompting instability concerning the credibility of the sources. Nevertheless, that Jungius also indicates that he obtained knowledge of the work of “sartores” and the treadle looms through accounts of weavers and merchants shows that he was aware that artisanal knowledge was also communal: it was a shared knowledge, which might be dynamic, but represented the activities and practices of an entire community of weavers, and not of a single weaver, whom Jungius might have accidently encountered. Viewing the ‘external’ or second-hand reports in this way, one may very well also view these sources as credible. The numerous statements stressing these frst-hand observations are not accidental, as described in Barbara Shapiro’s A Culture of Fact (2000), concentrating on the Royal Society during the 17th century. Shapiro points out, in England, a specifc “culture of facts,” in which the scientifc revolution was embedded, echoed and followed how judicial and historical works and practices were transformed, emphasizing the “frst hand and credible witnessing.”189 She also stresses that while historical and legal facts might be accepted as truth, they do require evidence, and historical evidence is divided—so Shapiro—into three kinds: “frsthand observation, documentary evidence and the evidence of ‘things’” (ibid.: 47). The various statements in Texturæ Contemplatio—frst-hand observations, second-hand reports, and the excerpts and descriptions of ‘things’ (i.e., weaves, warp frames, knitted fabrics)— can certainly be divided into these three kinds of historical evidence, and Jungius’ frst-hand observations refect his approach to the investigation of nature,

“[wie das?] NB inquirendum” (the square brackets are in the original folio). See Shapiro (2000: 5): “The mode of establishing scientifc matters of fact practiced by the virtuosi is not a peculiar feature of the ‘gentlemen’ of the Royal Society but instead is part of a culture of fact developed earlier and simultaneously in other disciplines as well, especially law. Lawyers and virtuosi shared an emphasis on truth, an insistence on fact over fction and imagination, a preference for frst hand and credible witnessing.”

188 189

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concentrating on deriving ‘facts’ from observation, experimentation and frst-hand experience. In that sense, it is not only the (incomplete) geometrical theorems that Jungius attempted to develop which should supply credibility and certainly to his refections on textile practices, but also the historical evidence, and the evidence of ‘things’.

4.6.2

From ephemeral traces to durable theorems?

While it is clear from the above that Jungius was acquiring knowledge from “sartores,” it is certainly not clear to what degree this artisanal knowledge was experienced by Jungius himself, i.e., whether Jungius physically experienced the practices that he wrote about (weaving, damask weaving, tapestry, velvet weaving and knitting), only watched them (seen with his drawings and diagrams) or just read about them (as can be seen with his excerpts). Some of the frst person singular citations do not concern physical actions, but the experimentation with, or observation of already fnished textiles. Hence, it is not clear how this artisanal epistemology is taken into account, and indeed, if one considers that several procedures are not even mentioned—such as the tie up of the treadle loom—then the question arises as to how aware Jungius was of the knowledge embedded in such processes and procedures. This question also arises because it may have been a kind of knowledge that Jungius was not sure of—at least in certain cases—i.e., how, or which terms one should use, to describe it. Was this principally knowledge that was embodied or concentrated in gestures? On the one hand, Jungius attempted to reorganize this artisanal knowledge, presenting it as ‘theorems’ of various weaves, i.e., ‘theorems’ of the fnished product, but on the other hand, he barely described how the artisan uses his body while weaving.190 This comes on the backdrop of Jungius’ attempt to describe the movement of the knitting hand,191 while moreover notating several specifc points of the knitted fabric, which points to a transformation in the knitter’s gestures. There is here, therefore, a partial transfer of embodied, artisanal knowledge, one which restructures the initial artisanal knowledge and at the same time— while embedding it in a system of notations, ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’—making the artisanal knowledge and the materiality of it a precarious one, though still giving it its own place.192 However, this reorganization also results in refections that are not even relevant for the artisans: for example, the ‘theorems’, which were—for

… except for a single reference about the treadling legs of the weaver (see fol. 55r). With the ‘body of the artisan’ I am referring to Pamela H. Smith’s book of the same name (2004). 191 These are not the only descriptions of physical work found in Texturæ Contemplatio—the knitting hand, the spitting, lying on one’s back, stepping on the treadle: these descriptions show that for several practices, Jungius did not attempt to formalize those physical gestures, but rather only describe them. 192 See Mulsow (2012: 24f). 190

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weavers—nearly useless or merely descriptive, or the drawings of ‘non-existent’ weaves (where threads are loose; see Sect. 4.2.5), which did not exist for the weavers. Hence one can claim that the reorganization of knowledge also created niches of non-artisanal knowledge. Moreover, while the artisanal knowledge was at times marginalized due to its theorization and in a sense became ephemeral, Jungius also acknowledged the ephemerality itself of the fabrics that he investigated: Jungius knew very well that fabrics can be torn, hence he was aware of their ephemeral character. Already in the early notes from 1621, Jungius writes down the materials used to weave: “hemp,” “tow,” “linen” and “wool” (fol. 53r). The ephemerality of those materials, and hence the precariousness of textiles is to be found throughout Texturæ Contemplatio: threads can be cut (folios 54r, 59r) or shorn (fol. 19r, discussing velvet) or, on the contrary, entangled together to form a ball made of threads (see Sect. 4.2.4). The various observations of those ephemeral objects (e.g., weaves, fabrics, stockings) with a microscope, lens or diagrams charges them (for Jungius) with the quality of being “epistemic things,” to employ Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s term (1997). This is because those observations may reveal a possible structure of the objects, but at the same time create a tension between the observed object, the instruments and the depictions used; hence it is not clear what the examined structure is, which conclusions can be drawn and which theorems may be formulated.193 However, once Jungius theorizes about these weaves, formulating ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’, this ephemeral character is somewhat marginalized, and a transformation of “volatile traces into durable data” occurs (Rheinberger 2021: 29).194 The point is that at both ends of this transition, from mere notes or documentation of artisanal knowledge to ‘theoretization’ (if there is such a thing as a mere documentation of artisanal procedures), the described objects are not the same: the ‘theorems’ are only about the fnished product (where it is hardly clear whether such theorems were relevant to the practical work by the weavers), and certainly do not refect the working processes— that is, the proposed ‘theorems’ are certainly not to be considered as applied mathematics for a certain problem arising during the artisanal working process. This is not to imply that Jungius ignored, or was not aware of these “volatile traces” in the context of artisanal practices, as was surveyed in Sect. 4.4. Moreover, several of his notes do indicate the senses and organs involved in these artisanal practices: the hand that knits, the leg that steps on the treadle, the eye that sees and examines the fabric (with or without an instrument), the nose that smells the urine. However, one cannot say that all of those body parts which are mentioned (explicitly or implicitly) belong to the same person—the eye which looks through the magnifying lens is not necessarily the eye of the weaver or of the textile merchant, but rather that of Jungius. Moreover, this immediate, direct access given by the senses can be deceiving, as can be seen with Jungius’ comment that using the

193 194

See also Sect. 2.2.5 on the tensions revealed during the investigation with the microscope. On the notion of ‘trace’, see also (Rheinberger 2021: 17–35).

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microscope corrected his assumptions that were frst obtained by ‘plain’ seeing (see Sect. 4.2.5).195 Furthermore, one fnds on the other end of this ‘transformation’ the “durable data”; the ‘theoretization’ of artisanal knowledge may be considered a presentation of a not-yet complete knowledge. The ‘geometrical’ theorems are only partial196 or incomplete,197 and their proofs may be considered to stem from mere observations, as noted in Sect. 4.2.3. Jungius’ ‘theoretization’ may therefore be considered “a movement of search on a paper” (Rheinberger 2021: 132), and not a tactile search, as in the form of weaving or knitting with one’s own hands. But this search is rather partial and points to its own gaps, some of which are clear to Jungius himself.198 The gaps in the ‘theoretization’ lead us to another ambiguity in Jungius’ writings concerning the notion of ‘textura’. As was seen in Sect. 2.2, in the 17th century (and in the 18th century as well), this notion was an epistemic concept, also because weaving functioned as a metaphorical catalyst: when taking into account the numerous natural philosophers, mathematicians and philosophers presented in Sect. 2.2, one sees that the notion did not have clear boundaries regarding what it actually designates, and each scholar redefned it or refned its defnition. Jungius is no exception: while in Texturæ Contemplatio, ‘textura’ designates certain weaves or weaving, in other writings, it designates the texture of materials, pointing to the importance of considering synhypostatic parts, being the spatial, three-dimensional structure of the composing corpuscles. That is, Jungius’ conception of ‘textura’ does not only employ terms from artisanal practices to explain the material world scientifcally, it also works the other way around: the research on materials is transferred back to explain the weaving practices and products. This bidirectional oscillating transfer is best seen in Jungius’ use of the term ‘situs’: it is listed explicitly as both a synhypostatic property and a characteristic of material weaves. It can also be seen in other terms: ‘ordo’, for example, is employed by Jungius in Texturæ Contemplatio as the order of the movement of the knitting hand, but in other writings, again as one of the synhypostatic parts. There is, however, another gap, besides the gap (or incompleteness) lying in the transformation between the ephemeral traces and the ‘theoretization’ of artisanal knowledge or in the unclear terminological boundaries. This gap is with the community of weavers and knitters present in Hamburg in particular, and in the north of Germany in general. Jungius does not indicate the social or fnancial status of those artisans, does not mention their gender or their age.199 Except for one comment, he does not mention that different communities of weavers existed for various ways of

See also the contributions in: (Wolfe, Gal 2010). For example: why are there only two kinds of ‘four-fold weaves’? 197 …why even stop with ‘four-fold weaves’? 198 See, for example, Jungius’ non-existent ‘theorem’ on “textura biplexa” on fol. 39r (see Sect. 4.2.3.1). 199 Except only once, when mentioning that the weaver should be a man with considerable strength in his legs (fol. 31r). 195 196

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weaving or weaves (damask, tapestry, velvet).200 To give another example, Jungius certainly does not mention that tapestry weaving required much more expertise than knitting, hence effacing the differences in expertise and artisanal knowledge.

4.6.3

Texturæ Contemplatio as a collection of facts?

This chapter began with an examination of Texturæ Contemplatio’s structure. To look again at Texturæ Contemplatio’s form, I began this section by noting that the manuscript may be considered a collection of fragments of knowledge: notes, sources, excerpts, reports, a collection that Meinel (1995) calls “frittered” (“verzettelt”) knowledge, which does not aim to become, or to be summarized under a coherent theory. As we will see in Chap. 5, it barely even reaches the level of a well-edited book. Lorraine Daston, discussing Baconian facts or the collection of ‘strange facts’ during the 17th century, notes that “Seventeenth-century objectivity, insofar as one can use the word for this period without anachronism, was about facts and nothing but the facts” (Daston 1991: 338). As we have seen, with Jungius, the collection of facts was tightly intertwined with his frst-hand observations and with his conception of “regulated experience” (Clucas 2010: 57). Daston adds that Peter Dear showed “how the scholastic notion of ‘experience’ was gradually modifed in the course of the seventeenth century from ‘generalized statements about how things usually occur’ to ‘statements describing specifc events,’ particularly experiments” (Daston 1991: 341).201 With respect to Texturæ Contemplatio, the reports of those ‘strange’ facts were largely descriptions, reports or statements concerning particular events and practices; however, Texturæ Contemplatio was obviously not just a collection of facts: the geometrical and optical refections are an attempt to fnd a more theoretical framework. Hence, one fnds in Texturæ Contemplatio a mixture of “mathematical certainty” (ibid.: 346) and excerpts and accounts of facts, which were descriptions of collective practices, with perhaps lower standards of credibility, whose source was generally unknown or not given and whose epistemic value was unclear. Indeed, Daston notes that such facts “were not free of ambiguity – not just ambiguity concerning their import, but also concerning their precise description or even concerning their bare existence.” Examining Texturæ Contemplatio, one may very well add some ambiguity concerning their source.202 However, Daston continues, “they were allegedly free of theory, and here lay their attraction for those anxious to impart a more

However, it is again essential to emphasize that Jungius was aware of the fact that the artisanal knowledge he was transmitting and reorganizing was embedded and embodied in one (or several) communities and not in a single weaver. 201 Daston is referring to (Dear 1987: 134). 202 Not taking into consideration Jungius’ frst-hand observations. 200

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civil tone to natural philosophy” (ibid.: 355)—and here lies the essential difference with respect to Jungius, since he did attempt to develop a theory, although not all of the facts would have found their place within such a theoretical framework or model of mathematical demonstration. That is, Texturæ Contemplatio is also not only a collection of facts, because Jungius also presents in several of the folios a restructuring of those facts: via the ‘geometrical’ theorems of various weaves and via the consideration of the geometric properties of knitted fabric—the account given of artisanal practices is not merely descriptive, but rather couched in a more ‘geometrical’ framework. Therefore, one may claim that Texturæ Contemplatio offers a multiperspective view from below, seen as a collection of ‘facts’, but not only, since Jungius also presents attempts at theorization. Taking a broader look at Jungius’ refections on ‘textura’ and ‘situs’, and an even broader look at how scholars in the 17th century considered those terms, it becomes clear that those theorizations and refections are not just a theory of fnished products but have a more complicated relationship with the artisanal terms and practices. It is therefore not a mere fascination with an unformalizable practice, which is not at all accessible. While one may suggest that this collection presents the way in which various forms of scientifc refection, reports on artisanal, embodied knowledge of communities of weavers and other modes of recognition depend on each other—being textually interwoven—this presentation and its effects on its readers (Leibniz, for example) appears only retroactively—when the continuous open-ended addition of notes by Jungius is artifcially completed,203 and subsequently, with the copying and editing by Fogel and the other scribes.

4.6.4 Who trades and what is traded in the ‘trading zone’? To return to my initial question: how should Texturæ Contemplatio be considered? Beyond viewing it as a precarious collection of notes and ‘facts’ taken down by Jungius, can one, as I already hinted at in Chap. 1 and following Peter Galison and Pamela O. Long, consider it as constituting a ‘trading zone’ between weavers, mathematicians and natural philosophers? Was there a real exchange of knowledge which is documented in, or refected by Texturæ Contemplatio? Explicitly, because the notion of ‘trade’ implies such a bidirectional transfer, did any of these groups proft—in a conceptual, mathematical, artisanal, economic or scientifc way—from such an encounter? Or was the transfer of knowledge only unidirectional? The question arises as to whether there was a “reciprocal exchange of substantive knowledge or expertise” (Long 2011: 95) in the form, for example, of a local common vocabulary between mathematicians and artisans which was established in

Obviously this is a paradoxical claim—an open-ended process cannot be completed; but here one can mark a point of termination with Jungius’ death, although Fogel himself, it can be conjectured, added his own sheets to Texturæ Contemplatio, and Leibniz also added folios to his own copy. 203

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their respective practices, or whether such encounters were simply imaginary, that is, conceived in the mathematician’s (in our case, Jungius’) mind. Or was it, to offer another possibility, that “the two subcultures may altogether disagree about the implications of the information exchanged or its epistemic status” (Galison 1999: 146)? If such encounters did indeed occur, and if, as Galison (1997: 46) states, a trading zone is “an intermediate domain in which procedures could be coordinated locally even where broader meanings clashed,” may one conjecture the emergence of pidgin languages between these two groups, that is, of “contact languages” which introduce “local coordination” and thus enable exchange (ibid.: 783)? Moreover, another question arises if we consider Jungius’ geometrical refections: what role did mathematics play for both groups? Would his refections on weaving have been useful either to the weavers or for the development of new domains in mathematics? The answer, which was already hinted at above, is more complicated than simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but the question is certainly justifed, since as Long (2011) and especially Morel (2023) make clear, there were domains in which such an encounter led—even if only in the long run—to an exchange or even trading of knowledge, the prime example in the above works being mining.204 Even if such a ‘trade’ did not emerge,205 the question arises as to whether Texturæ Contemplatio can be considered to represent a meeting zone between scholars (e.g., mathematicians, natural philosophers) and practitioners (e.g., weavers, textile merchants), or whether it creates one. To explicate the notion of meeting zone (which may include, but is certainly not identical to the notion of trading zone), one should note that it encompasses not only a dialogue (either real or imaginary) between craftworkers, artisans, and scholars, but also points to the extent of the hybridization of knowledge, and the dynamics of abstraction and codifcation, and this in extremely varied contexts. But one should also note that while this dialogue may take place between several groups, it can also exclude other subgroups, while at the same time considering the group of artisans of a certain community to be homogeneous (e.g., the ‘weavers’). For example, the “artisanal expert” in the 18th century (see Klein 2017) allowed subgroups of experts to be recognized as authors, but, similar to Zilsel’s focus on “superior craftsmen”206 (1942), by concentrating on and isolating this unique group, it may also imply that other groups of artisans did not, or could not contribute.

Long focuses on what (she terms) trading zones—arsenals, mines and metal-processing sites throughout Europe, and also engineering projects in late sixteenth-century Rome (Long 2011: 94–126). 205 Young (2017: 525) criticizes Long’s reaffrmation (of what he terms the legitimation thesis) “by arguing that one of the important foundations upon which the new sciences developed was the widespread cultural acceptance of the empirical values of artisanal practices”. Young claims that numerous philosophers, while acknowledging the value of artisanal knowledge, considered “the discursive knowledge of the natural philosopher [to be] privileged over the experience and expertise of the artisan” (ibid.: 545). 206 See Zilsel (1942: 553): “The superior craftsmen […] cannot be called scientists themselves, but they were the immediate predecessors of science.” 204

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If we consider Texturæ Contemplatio as such as a meeting zone, then it creates weaving (and textile) practices as a niche—i.e., as a local, precarious space, consisting of hybrids of knowledge: both artisanal and theoretical. Klein (2017: 303) describes the person dealing with the hybrid knowledge as a “fgure of the hybrid expert [who] epitomizes the breakdown of ancient ideological boundaries between hand and mind.”207 In the same spirit, one can claim that Texturæ Contemplatio itself creates such a hybrid expertise. While Jungius did not ignore either the practitioners or their working processes, weavers would have found his descriptions almost banal, and his philosophical and geometrical refections on textiles irrelevant. This calls for a nuancing and relativizing of Pamela O. Long’s statement concerning trading zones in the early modern period, according to which these not only “consisted of arenas in which the learned taught the skilled, and the skilled taught the learned,” but also “in which the knowledge involved in each arena was valued by both kinds of ‘traders’” (Long 2011: 95). Which is to say that, while Jungius did meet and observe these artisans, the effects of these encounters on mathematicians (or natural philosophers) on the one hand, and on weavers on the other, did not necessarily take place on both sides of this trading zone and were not necessarily reciprocal. But here we should relativize this claim: due to the lack of written material or descriptions from the weavers themselves (in Hamburg, in particular regarding their working methods), it is diffcult to assess whether Jungius’ refections exercised any infuence on them.208 Here it is also worth revisiting Sect. 2.1.3.2, dealing with the written and published manuscripts and books by the weavers, which presented notations for weaving procedures. The notations presented by the artisans themselves show that if such a notation of textile practices existed in the north of Germany during the frst half of the 17th century, then either Jungius was certainly not aware of it or he did not know how to read it; in that sense, one may assume that the artisans’ written manuscripts did not fall into Jungius’ hands. Nevertheless, if Texturæ Contemplatio had been edited and published, it could have been considered an attempt to combine theoretical and practical observations in a single work, sometimes presenting a more theoretical description of existing techniques alongside diagrams of the ideal, annotated shapes of threads, as well as various defnitions and theorems. The discussion above shows several problematic issues arising from applying the notion of ‘trading zone’ to Texturæ Contemplatio in particular, or to the relations between mathematicians and artisans or craftworkers in general. First, it presupposes two separate domains of knowledge which only afterwards came together and were assembled in some way (Blond et  al. 2021: 12). It also indicates that each domain and community gained something as a result of this trade. But to re-emphasize: the weavers did not seek legitimization by turning their practice

Compare also (Long 2011: 128ff.) See: (Long 2011: 125–126), who notes that it is books and the printed medium which facilitated the entrance of technical vocabulary. 207 208

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into something more ‘scientifc’ or ‘theoretical’, in a certain opposition to what Long claims (2015: 844). Their practices, books and manuscripts were not ‘waiting’ to be formalized, to be notated or to be examined scientifcally. But while these practices were not ‘legitimized’ by the more theoretical empirical studies, they were couched in Texturæ Contemplatio and consequently, reposited in another confguration—not only by Jungius, but also by Leibniz, and to a lesser extent, by the natural philosophers and scholars surveyed in Sect. 2.2. One can employ the notion of ‘trading zones’ as a heuristic tool (which is indeed the case when one claims that such encounters were imaginary); but as this conclusion shows, to designate a concrete place of exchange where the new ‘empirical’ sciences arose practically and locally may be problematic (Morel 2021: 177). The above discussion also indicates that reciprocity may be missing; this aspect is fundamental for the relevance of the notion of ‘trading zones’ (ibid.) since, in the absence of such reciprocity there is, properly speaking, no real ‘trade’, even on the level of epistemological positions. Explicitly, even if one suggests the encounter of two such ‘separate’ practices (artisanal and ‘scientifc’), with different logics of handling and thinking, raising the possibility of the creation of a local ‘pidgin’ language (as may be seen with Jungius’ unique terms ‘sulcus’ and ‘porca’ threads), this is not to imply that the transfer of knowledge was necessarily a two-directional one. Indeed, Jungius’ geometrical ‘theorems’ were not applied to weaving practices to improve them or to solve problems which arose during preparations of the fabrics; they were largely irrelevant for the weavers, possibly functioning as mere descriptions. But with this discrepancy one can perhaps characterize Texturæ Contemplatio as simultaneously representing and creating a precarious, unstable and somewhat imaginary meeting zone: being an assemblage of numerous notes on a mutual topic (i.e., weaving, knitting, textiles and also, eventually, textile practices), it does not aim to reach a defnite conclusion or arrive at a state of completion, though still attempting (partially) to reorganize and codify this knowledge. Moreover, it encapsulates the tension that such a meeting zone creates: a tension between the various practices of the new empirical sciences, the search for (new) mathematical structures, and the artisanal knowledge and textile practices in the 17th century. Hence, there is not necessarily the trading of knowledge or concepts, where both sides obtain information or beneft from each other. Thinking of Texturæ Contemplatio as opening such a meeting zone, which enables both transmission and creation of knowledge, enables us to see this manuscript as conferring stability to a precarious form of knowledge—the embodied artisanal knowledge and practices. This transmission can also (but not only) be seen by the future reader of Texturæ Contemplatio, whose reading will shape and reshape the epistemic status of the knowledge that Texturæ Contemplatio aimed to transmit. This will be the topic of the next and last chapters of this book: how Leibniz read Texturæ Contemplatio, and how he couched it in very different social, technological and philosophical surroundings.

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Abbreviations The following are abbreviations of several manuscripts, editions and book used throughout this chapter. (i) Works by Joachim Jungius: Texturæ Contemplatio: A bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), in: Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover. (ii) Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A Leibniz’s edited works, to be found in: Leibniz, G. W. (1923–). Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Abbreviated by the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s works. LH 38 Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

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Marten, Maria, and Carola Piepenbring-Thomas. 2015. Fogels Ordnungen: Aus der Werkstatt des Hamburger Mediziners Martin Fogel (1634–1675). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann. Meier, Jürgen, and Jürgen Ruge. 2000. Hamburgisches Wörterbuch: Auf Grund der Vorarbeiten von Christoph Walther und Agathe Lasch, vol. 2, F – K. Neumünster: Wachholtz. Meinel, Christoph. 1982. Der Begriff des chemischen Elementes bei Joachim Jungius. Sudhoffs Archiv 66 (4): 313–338. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13316. ———., ed. 1984a. Der handschriftliche Nachlaß von Joachim Jungius in der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. Stuttgart: Hauswedell. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13310. ———. 1984b. In physicis futurum saeculum respicio: Joachim Jungius und die Naturwissenschaftliche Revolution des 17. Jahrhunderts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13311. ———. 1987. Joachim Jungius (1587-1657): Empirisme et réforme scientifque au seuil de l’époque modern. Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 37: 297–315. https://doi. org/10.5283/epub.13334. ———. 1988. Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism: Theory, Epistemology, and the Insuffciency of Experiment. Isis 79 (1): 68–103. https://doi.org/10.1086/354634. ———. 1992. Die Bibliothek des Joachim Jungius: ein Beitrag zur Historia litteraria der frühen Neuzeit. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.5283/epub.13313. ———. 1995. Enzyklopädie der Welt und Verzettelung des Wissens: Aporien der Empirie bei Joachim Jungius. In Enzyklopädien der Frühen Neuzeit: Beiträge zu ihrer Erforschung, ed. Franz M. Eybl, Wolfgang Harms, Hans-Henrik Krummacher, and Werner Welzig, 162–187. Tübingen: Niemeyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110930603.162. Meyer, Rudolf W. 1957. Vorwort des Herausgebers. In Jungius, Joachim. Joachimi Jungii Logica Hamburgensis, ed. Rudolf W. Meyer and J. J. Augustin, v-xxiii. Hamburg. Meyer, Karl. 1974. Optische Lehre und Forschung im frühen 17. Jahrhundert, dargestellt vornehmlich an den Arbeiten des Joachim Jungius, Dissertation, University of Hamburg. Morel, Thomas. 2021. Incorporer, consolider et transmettre : la géométrie pratique dans les centres miniers de l’époque moderne. In Les Ingénieurs, des intermédiaires? Transmission et coopération à l’épreuve du terrain (Europe, XVe -XVIIIe siècle), ed. Stéphane Blond et al., 171–184. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Midi. ———. 2023. Underground Mathematics: Craft Culture and Knowledge Production in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mulsow, Martin. 2012. Prekäres Wissen: Eine andere Ideengeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin: Suhrkamp. ———. 2015. Entwicklung einer Tatsachenkultur: Die Hamburger Gelehrten und ihre Praktiken 1650–1750. In Hamburg: Eine Metropolregion zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Aufklärung, ed. Johann A.  Steiger and Sandra Richter, 45–64. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. https://doi. org/10.1524/9783050057859.45. Münster, Sebastian. 1550. Cosmographiae uniuersalis lib. VI. Basel: Heinrich Petri. Murphy, Hannah. 2020. Artisanal ‘Histories’ in Early Modern Nuremberg. In Knowledge and the Early Modern City: A History of Entanglements, ed. Bert De Munck and Antonella Romano, 58–78. New York: Routledge. Newman, William R. 2006. Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientifc Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago. https://doi.org/10.1353/ ren.2007.0252. ———. 2011. What Have We Learned from the Recent Historiography of Alchemy? Isis 102 (2): 313–321. https://doi.org/10.1086/660140. Plato. 1914. The statesman, Philebus. Trans. Harold N.  Fowler. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, Heinemann. Pliny, the Elder. 1938. Natural History. Trans. Harris Rackham. London: Heinemann. Pliny, the Younger. 1915. Letters, vol. 1, trans. William Melmoth, rev. W.  M. L.  Hutchinson, London: Heinemann.

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Chapter 5

After Jungius: Leibniz on Textiles, Weaving and Texturæ Contemplatio

Abstract As is well known, Leibniz was very much infuenced from Jungius and highly appreciated his writings. This chapter jumps over several decades into the end of the 17th century, concentrating on the multifaceted refections of Leibniz on weaving, textile instruments and machines, and especially on Texturæ Contemplatio. The chapter considers Leibniz’s refections on the latter, as they not only come on a different philosophical background than that of Jungius, but they are also couched within a different conception of the technological advances. Leibniz’s views on the technological inventions in the feld of textile practices – the stocking frame and the ribbon looms – aimed to present Texturæ Contemplatio, had it been published, in a far more advanced technological environment.

Having concluded the analysis of Texturæ Contemplatio, considering it a precarious, rhizomatic, meeting zone, what is left to analyze? The title of this chapter already hints at the answer: the ‘afterlife’ of this manuscript; that is, how it was read, received and treated in the years following Jungius’ death. I tried to show in the last chapter how Texturæ Contemplatio, though not published, refected not only the various research directions employed in the new empirical sciences, but also how scholars understood texts, and what they considered to be manuscripts, as well as what constituted a ‘fact’, ‘evidence’ and a collection of such ‘facts’. Section 2.2 claims that in the background stands a multifaceted refection on the notion of ‘textura’, which designates not only the texture of materials, atoms or corpuscles, but also the various textile-related activities that were thriving both economically and technologically (as seen in Sect. 2.1)—weaving and knitting being the two main examples. This plurality is refected in the manuscript itself, and as the foci of Texturæ Contemplatio transformed over the decades, the notion of ‘textura’ may be considered open-ended—similar to Texturæ Contemplatio itself.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_5

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As emphasized at the end of the last chapter, Texturæ Contemplatio refects the nature of the relations existing in the meeting zones between scholars—natural philosophers or mathematicians—and artisans, i.e., weavers of velvet, tapestry or just plain weaves, knitters, or even merchants. Indeed, just as Texturæ Contemplatio was an unstable text, so were those meeting zones. Some of them faded, leaving no trace or signifcant infuence, at least at frst sight. The question remains whether indeed Texturæ Contemplatio, as an unpublished manuscript, can be said to have had no infuence at all. This chapter will investigate this question by concentrating on Leibniz’s own reception of Texturæ Contemplatio. It should not be considered a conclusive chapter, precisely because one of its conclusions is that as a manuscript, Texturæ Contemplatio continued to have an infuence after its author died and its copies were disseminated (albeit eventually forgotten); hence, one cannot really conclude by positing an artifcial point in time which may indicate when such a manuscript ‘stopped’ having any infuence, and which may also indicate that one can conclude and summarize its history as a closed unit. This is why I decided to examine, in this chapter, how Leibniz viewed Texturæ Contemplatio, decades after it was written. As noted in Chap. 1, Leibniz borrowed Texturæ Contemplatio in 1678, and never returned it. As we will see in this chapter, while Leibniz might have prepared an edited, revised copy of Texturæ Contemplatio, in 1685 he continued copying other notes of Jungius, among them refections of textiles, found within a set of notes titled Logica de notionibus. Jungianarum schedarum excerpta annotate. There one can see that Jungius resituates several of the themes discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio in another, more philosophical framework. After 1685, Leibniz’s interest in Texturæ Contemplatio declined somewhat, though till 1695, he was still insisting (or hoping) that this manuscript should be edited and published. This hope, needless to say, was in vain, and the end of this chapter will analyze this failure of publication. Section 5.1 will briefy review Leibniz’s reception of Jungius’ philosophy, logic and mathematics, showing Jungius’ role in developing Leibniz’s thinking. This will prepare the background for Sect. 5.2, which deals with how Leibniz copied, edited and reconceptualized Texturæ Contemplatio. However, since an in-depth examination of the differences between Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio and Leibniz’s edited copy of it is outside the scope of this book, this section only reviews the main differences. Here it must be emphasized that the following sections do not aim to unfold Leibniz’s multifaceted refections on weaving, textiles and weaving machines (whether organic or man-made), or his textile- and silk-related projects—this would require a study of its own. However, I will briefy review these themes in Sect. 5.3: on the one hand, Leibniz’s refections on folded tunics, which also play a metaphorical role with respect to the folding and unfolding of an organism (see Sect. 5.3.1); on the other, his conception of the technological inventions in the feld of textile practices: i.e., the stocking frame and the ribbon loom (see Sect. 5.3.2), briefy examining how other scholars during the second half of the 17th century, such as Johann Joachim Becher, considered the stocking frame, discussed in Sect. 5.3.2.1.

5.1

Leibniz on Jungius

339

The section on the stocking frame is completemented by the Appendix (Sect. 5.5), which contains Leibniz’s till now unpublished description of the stocking frame, being one of the earliest descriptions of this machine from the end of the 17th century. The concluding section, Sect. 5.4, returns to Texturæ Contemplatio and examines its non-publication from a broader perspective.

5.1

Leibniz on Jungius

Although Leibniz was 11 years old when Jungius died in 1657, Jungius’ thinking infuenced Leibniz throughout his life. Kangro (1969) describes this infuence thoroughly, although several other scholars have looked into the Leibniz–Jungius relationship since then.1 To briefy review, in 1669, when Leibniz was 22 years old, he mentioned Jungius as one of the logicians who went against the logic of scholastics; Jungius’ Logica Hamburgensis was then well-known. A year later, in 1670, Leibniz had already contacted Fogel, asking him to take care of the publication of Jungius’ manuscript on insects. He also insisted during those years on the publication of Jungius’ Phoranomica (ibid.: 175–178). These wishes, as Kangro describes, are to be found in Leibniz’s letters over the decades—indeed, in 1716, Leibniz writes to Conrad Widou, who worked at that time as an advocate in Hamburg, that he would like to see Jungius’ manuscripts again, having frst seen them in 1678 (ibid.: 178). To recall, after purchasing Fogel’s library in 1678, Leibniz also borrowed 86 convolutes (or bundles) of notes written (or copied) by Fogel, which he never returned. Moreover, Leibniz read Jungius’ Geometria empirica as a student, and he also referred to this book in the following decades; for example, in the 1680s, one fnds “refections on parallelism in Leibniz’s commentary on Jungius’ system of defnitions” (de Risi 2016: 79); he also mentions Jungius’ Geometria empirica in the Theodicée.2 An indication of how Leibniz esteemed Jungius is to be found in around 1678–1679, when Leibniz praises Jungius for his genius thinking and understanding of logic. In 1678, Leibniz notes that: “Ce Jungius estoit sans contredit un des plus grands Mathematiciens & Philosophes de son temps & un des plus habiles hommes que l’Allemagne ait jamais eu. II y a pourtant este peu connu pendant sa vie, & beaucoup moins ailleurs, parce qu’il n’a jamais voulu rien publier de son vivant, ne pouvant pas se contenter soy même sur ses propres Ouvrages. Quand nous aurons reçu ce livre de Hambourg, où il doit ester publié, nous ferons part dece qu’il contient” (Leibniz 1977 [1678]: 364). Probably a year later, in his Kangro (1968); Burkhardt (1990); see also: Cassirer (1929); Ashworth (1967); Pelletier (2013). Leibniz (1990: 261): “There is a kind of geometry which Herr Jung of Hamburg, one of the most admirable men of his time, called ‘empiric’. It makes use of conclusive experiments and proves various propositions of Euclid, but especially those which concern the equality of two fgures, by cutting the one in pieces, and putting the pieces together again to make the other.” On the infuence of Jungius’ geometry on Leibniz, see: (de Risi 2007: 34-35, 157, 168, 231). 1 2

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After Jungius: Leibniz on Textiles, Weaving and Texturæ Contemplatio

“Characteristic Numbers for a Universal Language” (“De numeris characteristicis ad linguam universalem constituendam”)3 Leibniz writes that “Joachim Jungius from Lübeck is a man known by few, even within Germany; but so great was his judgment and so obvious his mental ability that I know not whether the renewal of the sciences could have been more rightfully expected from any mortal, Descartes not excluded, had this man been known or supported.”4 Jungius’ infuence on Leibniz’s views on logic and epistemology is uncontestable. Both scholars wished to extend logic to a general theory of science; Jungius, as we saw in Sect. 4.2.1, searched in Logica Hamburgensis not only for the simplest notions, but also for the transition from “confused” to “distinct” notions—and this at least 10 years before the publication of Descartes’ Discours. This is not to claim that Leibniz (or Jungius) agreed that this universal method could be defnitively successfully employed for all sciences; rather, it functions as a regulative idea: as the sciences grew and were constantly being developed, the project of fnding the simplest, distinct notions had not yet been (and eventually could not be) realized, even in the mathematical disciplines.5 Kangro (1969: 181) also stresses that Leibniz emphasizes the infnite ‘divisibility’ of notions, whereas Jungius, the fnite number of notions. But Jungius also notes that new ‘theorems’ may be detected and discovered when one develops or considers new instruments and new methods (ibid.: 190); and indeed, one may consider the ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ in Texturæ Contemplatio as such novelty. As mentioned, Leibniz’s esteem for Jungius, and especially for Logica Hamburgensis, is seen in the various marginalia and “Annotationes” written by Leibniz from 1678 through the frst half of the 1680s,6 which include either copies of Jungius’ original manuscripts, the originals having been lost, or remarks made by Leibniz himself. One of these sets of remarks and refections also deals with certain passages from Texturæ Contemplatio, as this chapter will reveal. While Leibniz’s refections on logic and a possible universal scientifc method were interwoven with those of Jungius, this is not to say that Leibniz agreed or followed Jungius’ ideas in every aspect of his philosophy. Thus, while Jungius advocated corpuscular theory, Leibniz favored the continuity of matter, preferring the monads as “metaphysical points” (Kangro 1969: 201). How this ‘continuity of matter’ was materialized in Leibniz’s thoughts on textiles will be examined in Sect. 5.3.1.

(A VI4, part A: 263–270). (A VI4, part A: 266); translation taken from: Dascal et al. (2006: 122–123). 5 See also: Pelletier (2013). 6 See: “Marginalien zu Jungius’ Logica Hamburgensis,” “Annotationes ad Logicam Hamburgensem,” “Aus und zu Jungius’ Logica Hamburgensis,” “Cap. XV.  De notionibus. Jungianarum schedarum excerpta annotate,” all written between autumn 1678 and 1680 (A IV 4: 1059–1084 and 1085–1091), “Aus und zu Vagetius’ Edition von Jungius’ Logik” written at ca. the end of 1681, “Logica de notionibus. Jungianarum schedarum excerpta annotate” and “Annotata circa schedas Jungianas”—both written ca. middle of 1685 (ibid.: 1117–1122 and 1211–1307). A part of Logica de notionibus will be discussed in Sect. 5.2.2 below. 3 4

5.2 Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

5.2

341

Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

When examining Leibniz’s high esteem of Jungius’ philosophy, and his consideration of Jungius’ views on logic and mathematics, one may ask how Texturæ Contemplatio was considered in this framework. Given the fact that Leibniz copied, revised and edited Texturæ Contemplatio, the question arises: what was the background for Leibniz’s interest in textiles and weaving, and how did Leibniz read Texturæ Contemplatio? And how did Leibniz envision integrating Texturæ Contemplatio (or parts of it) into his own thinking?

5.2.1

1675–1678: Combinatorics, “Geometria Amoenior” and the abstraction of “materia”

Before looking at the most immediate background on which Leibniz copied Texturæ Contemplatio, which is to be found in a note from 1675, I would like to start with a very early refection of Leibniz from 1666, when he was 20 years old. This episode shows that, already back then, Leibniz saw a possible connection between weaving and mathematics, or more precisely, between weaving and combinatorics. Indeed, one of Leibniz’s frst references to fabric and tapestry appears in his Dissertation on Combinatorial Art, published in 1666. Being one of his earliest writings, investigating various topics in mathematics and combinatorics, among others, Leibniz discusses how various colors can be obtained from combinations of basic colors. He writes: And I recall reading (though I cannot bring the author to mind) of how a certain famous tapestry-maker used to interweave as many as 80 colours, which he always made by joining threads closely together, though only pure black and pure white; and he made various alternations of black and white threads, and fabrics [immediationes] that were sometimes mostly of white threads, sometimes of black threads; produced a variety of colours; each thread being in itself almost invisible to the unaided eye. If so, this experiment alone would be suffcient to trace the nature of colours to its true source.7 (Leibniz 2020: 197)

This passage—while on the surface aiming to explain how colors are obtained and by that elucidating issues in combinatorics: explicitly, how theoretically every color may be obtained only from two elements (i.e., black and white)—seems to be 7 “Ac recordor legere me, etsi non succurrit autor, nobilem acupictorem nescio quem 80 colores contexuisse, vicinosque semper vicinis junxisse, ex flis tamen non nisi nigerrimis ac non nisi albissimis; porro varias alternationes alborum nigrorumque florum; et immediationes modo plurium alborum, modo plurium nigrorum, varietatem colorum progenuisse; fla vero singula per se inermi oculo invisibilia pene fuisse. Si ita est, fuisset hoc solum experimentum satis ad colorum naturam ab ipsis incunabulis repetendam” (Leibniz 2020: 196). The translation was slightly modifed. In the original translation to English, the translators chose to translate “immediationes” as “textures.” In the translation here, it was modifed to “fabrics.” Moreover, Leibniz employs in the Dissertation the notion of ‘textura’ to denote concave fgures. Leibniz’s choice of terminology is unique, and he barely repeats it in his later writings.

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somewhat puzzling: if the threads are almost “invisible,” can one determine how colors actually arise? That is, given a certain color, can one indeed determine its constitutive combinations of black and white? Though these thoughts are somewhat terse, they point not only to Leibniz’s acquaintance with specifc literature on weaves or weaving, but also to a certain impossibility of the decomposability of notions. This impossibility will be seen again over the decades, when Leibniz discusses folded and unfolded fabrics. Seeing these somewhat condensed combinatorial refections from 1666, in 1675 one may note that Leibniz thought of textiles differently, i.e., geometrically and not combinatorically. But this turn to geometry might have also been prompted by Leibniz’s stay in Paris, which began in March 1672. Writing to Christian Habbeus in May 1673 his impressions from the remarkable artisans of Paris,8 he describes a unique textile machine which he observed there: “La Machine qvi fait en ouurier des bas et des étoffes de soye, est icy en vogue”; Leibniz is referring here to the stocking frame,9 and his refections on this machine will be thoroughly explored in Sect. 5.3.2. As we will see later, Leibniz was so impressed by this machine that he meticulously described how it works in practice. The very same machine is mentioned again in 1675, but in a more general context. Leibniz’s refections from 1675 are seen in a note written in April of that year, which aimed to develop a “more pleasant geometry.” While a detailed discussion on this note is outside the scope of this section, I would like to briefy consider it. This note, which was a single sheet of paper written on both sides, may either set out a plan for future topics to be investigated by geometry (or by Leibniz), or act as a series of references to topics already researched but not necessarily included within the domain of geometry. In this note, titled “Geometria Amoenior / Subjicienda Geometriae arcanae,”10 Leibniz describes, among other subjects dealing with geometrical and mathematical objects, the following: “The task of geometry is to explain fgures which nature and the arts produce through unique reason: […] Geometry of tailors […] On the craft of boys, through which they extract [raise up, draw out] the strings which are entangled with their fngers […] On the art of textiles. On the entire kind [genus] of fabrics [looms, warps]. Velours etc. On the silk stocking instrument.”11 Textile-related topics are not the focus of this list, however, as the list of themes has no real focus. Indeed, it mentions various subjects and domains which could also be classifed as “hidden geometry” (“Geometriae arcanae”), and refers to various books and mathematical objects; Leibniz’s list briefy See: (A I1: 415–418). (A I1: 417). In this letter, Leibniz refers to numerous artisanal machines, instruments and practices, such as clock making, stone carving and crushing (“II y a des autres icy qvi ecrasent le marbre ou les pierres par machines, et en font par apres une paste a la qvelle ils donnent la forme qvi leur plaira”), iron casting, etc. See (Jones 2016: 66). 10 The title is written in the center of the right margin on the recto side of the folio. See (A VIII2: 126). 11 (A VIII2: 126–127): “Geometriae est explicare fguras quas natura et ars singulari quadam ratione producit: […] Geometria Sartorum […] De artifcio puerorum, quo fla digitis implicata educunt […] De Textoria arte. De omnis generis telis. Velours etc. De l’instrument des bas de soye.” 8 9

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343

mentions, among other things, the shape of liquid drops, pentagons and hexagons, fgures of crystals and gems, pavements, shapes of parabola and of the ellipse, his “Descriptio lineae Logarithmicae,” geometrical instruments, and the geometry of bees and spiders (“De Geometria apum, et aranearum”).12 Leibniz also refers to books written by René Descartes,13 Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Johannes Kepler, Christophorus Clavius, Gerardus Mercator and many other scholars, and also to Jungius’ Geometria empirica. Nevertheless, the short references to the “Geometry of tailors” and related topics are among Leibniz’s frst (somewhat implicit) references to the view that one of the tasks of geometry is to explain products and processes of textile practices. However, these references are quite vague, as they do not contain any explicit references to books (or other works), or to an explanation of how this task is to be carried out. Moreover, a certain ambiguity arises from this list, when Leibniz writes down the various textile- and weaving-related topics. Similar to Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, there is here a mixture of the different types of textile-related practices.14 The “craft of boys” probably refers to the drawloom, where another person—sometimes a young boy (called the ‘drawboy’)—was needed to raise, at each stage, different groups of warp threads, to create the intricate patterns (see Fig. 5.1 for such a drawloom). This method of weaving was, of course, more complex than weaving with a treadle loom. The fact that there are several types of looms is mentioned in the somewhat terse sentence: “De omnis generis telis.” In addition, when Leibniz writes “Velours,” this probably refers to what Jungius called “Sammit,” “sammet” or “Sammitt” (see folios 18r, 44r and 23r in Texturæ Contemplatio, in Groups 6 and 7), whose weaving also involved another loom (see Fig.  2.4(a) for a fgure of ‘Der Sammet-Weber’). And while these two more complicated looms (the drawloom and the velvet loom) were implicitly mentioned in Texturæ Contemplatio, the next machine which is mentioned in Leibniz’s note—the “stocking instrument,” being the stocking frame—is not mentioned at all in

This note is hardly mentioned in the secondary literature on Leibniz. An exception is Carl Immanuel Gerhardt’s introduction to: (Leibniz 1849). See: (ibid.: 8–9). Moreover, Giovanni Vacca (1872–1953), an Italian mathematician and historian of science, published in 1930 an article called “Della piegatura della carta applicate alla geometria” (“On Paper Folding Applied to Geometry”). The paper deals with the mathematics of folding, also containing a historical account of this domain. However, Sect. 7 of this article, titled “Desiderata di Leibniz,” cites from Leibniz’s “Geometria Amoenior,” though without specifying that the citation came from this note. Vacca writes the following (Vacca 1930: 49): “In one of Leibniz’s handwritten manuscripts one fnds the following list [In un appunto manoscritto di LEIBNIZ si trova il seguente elenco]: Geometria est explicare fguras, quas natura et ars singulari quadam ratione producit, ita fgurae cristallisationum, ecc.; Geometria sartorum; De artifcio, puerorum, quo fla digitis implicata educunt; De textoria arte; De geometria apum et aranearum.” This citation is included with no explanation or reference, and it is not clear from where Vacca copied it. For an analysis of Vacca’s article, see (Friedman 2018: 319-323). On Vacca’s research on Leibniz, see: Luciano (2012). 13 Here, it is interesting to note that Leibniz only referred to Descartes’ Les météores. 14 But in contrast to Texturæ Contemplatio, which was written over a time period of more than 25 years, this note was probably written within a few hours or days. 12

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Fig. 5.1 A weaver working at a drawloom, from an engraving from the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert 1751-1772 (Passementerie. In Recueil de Planches, sure les sciences, les arts libéraux, et les arts mechanique, avec leur explication, vol. 11. Paris: Briasson, 1772, pl. viii, fg. 1.)

Texturæ Contemplatio,15 though, as we saw above and as we will see later, Leibniz did refer to it several more times in his writings; this machine, to recall, mechanized knitting and not weaving, and is again discussed briefy by Leibniz in 1676 and on another undated folio, where Leibniz writes how this machine works (see Sect. 5.3.2 and Sect. 5.5). As we will see in Sect. 5.3.2, Leibniz notes in 1676 that both the stocking frame and his own calculating machines were invented by a “geometric genius”. However, in the note from 1675, Leibniz does not explicitly introduce a difference between the various textile-related practices and machines, since all of them, in a certain sense, can be classifed under “Geometry of tailors.” What is actually meant with this ‘geometry’ in the 1675 note remains unclear and undeveloped, but it may very well explain Leibniz’s later interest in Texturæ Contemplatio. The question hence arises: when was the frst time that Leibniz heard

This is, as already noted in Sect. 2.1.1 and Sect. 4.2, not surprising—the machine was not common in the German-speaking lands in the period during which Texturæ Contemplatio was written. 15

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Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

345

about Texturæ Contemplatio? While it is clear that Leibniz was already familiar with several of Jungius’ works before 1675 (that is, before composing the “Geometria Amoenior” list), it is not clear whether Jungius’ students and colleagues (e.g., Fogel, Placcius, Sivers, Vagetius, etc.) informed Leibniz of the existence or content of Texturæ Contemplatio or of “Texturarum theoria modo sciendi physico inserviens.” Nevertheless, it is clear that in 1678, Leibniz did see this manuscript with his own eyes. In 1678, Leibniz spent over six weeks in Hamburg, from July to August, where he met several of Jungius’ students: Placcius, Vagetius and Sivers. While in Hamburg, Leibniz also attempted to purchase some of Jungius’ and Fogel’s writings. Although his request was rejected, Leibniz was given permission to borrow 86 manuscript bundles from Fogel’s Nachlass, upon agreeing that these manuscripts would be returned. Despite repeated requests from Fogel’s family regarding the return of the loan, these manuscripts remained in Leibniz’s possession; the last request came from Georg Heldt, the second husband of Fogel’s widow who wrote in May 1680 that Leibniz took “on 23 August 1678 […] 86 pieces [stuck] or Convolut,” with the commitment of returning them intact, but in fact never returned them.16 Heldt notes that he awaits “at frst opportunity” for the return of the bundles—which never happened. And indeed, one of these manuscripts that Leibniz took may have been Texturæ Contemplatio. Due to the fact that Texturæ Contemplatio was already a copy—made by Fogel— of Jungius’ notes (most probably of “Texturarum theoria”), it is not clear which text Leibniz borrowed and later copied, due to the differences between Leibniz’s ‘copy’ and Texturæ Contemplatio. I will discuss some of these differences below, but till 1685, it seems that Leibniz did not mention Texturæ Contemplatio in his writings. This, however, does not mean that he did not refect, between 1678 and 1685, on weaving as that which may be included within an expanded geometry. Almost a year after purchasing Fogel’s library and borrowing the bundles, Leibniz discusses, in a set of notes from June 1679, his vision for an encyclopedia which would encompass all rational knowledge. This encyclopedia would be titled “Consilium de encyclopaedia nova conscribenda methodo inventoria.” Leibniz notes that “this Encyclopedia should comprise all the sciences that are based on reason alone or on reason and experience […].” And presenting a list of these sciences, he notes, “the eighth is Geometry, the science of place [situ] or fgures […] This art includes also Tornatoria and Textoria, all of which insofar as they make abstraction of matter [omnes in quantum a materia abstrahuntur].”17 How weaving practices or textiles, being obviously dependent on bodily gestures, the senses and the materials used, are to be “abstracted from matter” in order to be included within geometry is, however, not explicated.

16 17

(A I3: 391, letter N. 312). (A VI4, part B: 343, 346); translation from: Dascal et al. (2006: 134, 137).

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5.2.2

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After Jungius: Leibniz on Textiles, Weaving and Texturæ Contemplatio

1678–1685: Copying Texturæ Contemplatio and Other Notes on Textiles

While it is not known when exactly Leibniz copied Texturæ Contemplatio, one may assume that it was between 1678 and 1685, since in 1685 one fnds copies, made by Leibniz, of texts of Jungius dealing with various types of notions, when several of the passages deal with themes presented also in Texturæ Contemplatio. Moreover, since Leibniz had initially promised to return Jungius’ bundles to Fogel’s family, it may very well be that Leibniz’s copy of Texturæ Contemplatio was made around late 1678 or 1679, that is, before receiving the requests from Fogel’s family to return the 86 borrowed bundles. Before I deal with how the notes from 1685 resituated the refections from Texturæ Contemplatio within Jungius’ views on logic and the various types of notions, another question should be answered: what was the nature of Leibniz’s ‘copy’ of Texturæ Contemplatio? Although a detailed comparison between the two manuscripts—Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio and Leibniz’s ‘copy’—is beyond the scope of this book, it is essential to stress again that Leibniz’s copy is not a faithful one: it is not only a partial copy, in the sense that Leibniz (or the scribes copying some parts of Texturæ Contemplatio for him) did not copy all of the folios found in Texturæ Contemplatio, it is also a rearrangement of the copied folios, where paragraphs from one folio are sometimes rearranged in Leibniz’s text. Moreover, one can hardly say that Leibniz’s text is only a copy—it also contains numerous passages which are not at all to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio, as can be seen in Fig. 5.2, showing such images (as well as text).18 This obviously raises the question of which text Leibniz had while copying. Was it a more complete version of Texturæ Contemplatio? Was it “Texturarum theoria”? Did Leibniz remove sheets from Texturæ Contemplatio, never returning them, or placing them in other bundles? Or were parts of Texturæ Contemplatio burnt or lost after the rearrangement of Fogel’s Nachlass, that is, after the 1946 foods in Hanover? Or did Leibniz also add his own refections and ideas to this ‘copy’? While these questions remain unanswered pending a more detailed comparison between Leibniz’s ‘copy’ and Texturæ Contemplatio, one can already note several differences between the two manuscripts. To see this, one must describe Leibniz’s ‘copy’ more thoroughly: the ‘copy’ contains 15 folios, to be found in Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica (LH 38), fol. 26r–fol. 40r. There are two types of folios in this copy. The frst type are folios 26r to 31v. Those folios are written by Leibniz himself on three (double) sheets of paper, every sheet folded in the middle. Hence, the frst sheet contains fol. 26r–26v (the ‘cover’ of the sheet, which is numerated with 26, and the left side of the interior) and fol. 27r–27v (the right side of the interior, which is numerated with 27, and the ‘back cover’); the second sheet contains fol. 28r–29v, and the third sheet contains fol. 30r–31v. All of these folios deal with various subjects, where fol. 26r is titled “Texturæ Contemplatio,” and begins with a copy of the ‘defnitions’ and the ‘theorems’ of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio. Moreover, some of these folios Nevertheless, Leibniz copied most of the drawings and diagrams appearing in Texturæ Contemplatio.

18

Fig. 5.2 Fol. 31r (from LH 38) in Leibniz’s ‘copy’ of Texturæ Contemplatio; the text in this folio does not appear at all in Texturæ Contemplatio. Looking at the images, one can already see that the folio deals with topics which were not, or were barely discussed in Texturæ Contemplatio: for example, the text discusses two practices of knitting termed “steke and strick”; as well the warping frame and calculations related to it, which Jungius discussed very briefy on fol. 55r in Texturæ Contemplatio (see Fig. 4.12)

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contain refections on weaving and textiles which do not appear at all in Texturæ Contemplatio. For example, the text found on folios 27r and 27v, as well on folios 31r and 31v do not appear in Texturæ Contemplatio (see Fig. 5.2 for a depiction of fol. 31r); this, however, does not necessarily mean that the texts found on these folios were not originally taken from Texturæ Contemplatio—it may very well be that the corresponding folios were placed in another bundle.19 Following these three sheets, the rest of the copy consists of single sheets, which are mostly not folded; each one of these sheets is devoted to only one theme (in contrast to the frst three sheets), where only two sheets are folded (being the sheet numerated 36, and its verso side 37; and the sheet numerated 39, and its verso side 40). While for the frst three sheets, one can certainly assert—according to the handwriting—that these were copied by Leibniz himself, this is not the case for the other sheets. To inspect these sheets more carefully, only fol. 32r was copied by Leibniz. The other folios were copied by another person, though there are sometimes notes and corrections by Leibniz himself on these copies. This means that there were two stages in the process of copying Texturæ Contemplatio: frst Leibniz copying himself, when these copies are found in fol. 26r-32r, and then another person copying, when Leibniz afterwards checks the copies and corrects them if necessary. In addition, fol. 34 was probably mistakenly inserted into the bundle, since it carries the title “Oryza,” and does not deal with textiles or textile-related activities; the text on this folio is certainly not written by Leibniz. In fact, the folio discusses the cultivation of rice on the south side of the felds of Verona, and cites partially from the book Antiquitates Veronenses by the theologian and church historian Onofrio Panvinio.20 This is in double contrast to the ‘new’ material found on folios 27r, 27v, 31r and 31v: not only were these folios written (or copied) by Leibniz (though not a copy of the text from Texturæ Contemplatio), but they also indeed deal with weaving and textiles. Also noteworthy is fol. 35v,21 titled “Leinweber Rechnung.”22 Also this folio is not to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio.

See (Marten, Piepenbring-Thomas 2015: 184) for a comparison of the original and the copy of another bundle taken by Leibniz, titled “Ad isagogen Phytoscop. jungii not. Anm.” See also (ibid.: 185, footnote 270), describing the fact that there are bundles in Fogel’s Nachlass which contain folios that belong to other bundles. Recall that Texturæ Contemplatio is the bundle: Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28; a survey of all of the existing bundles of (Ms XLII, 1923, delta) in Fogel’s Nachlass did not reveal any sheets which may have belonged to Texturæ Contemplatio and been misplaced. However, this does not mean that these folios do not exist in other bundles or are not lost. 20 The text in this folio is a partial copy of chapter XVI from this book, titled “De Agro Veronensi Meridiem Versvs”; the original text is in (Onofrio 1648: 23). 21 Folio 35r is empty. 22 The folio contains a table of measurements related to warping reel and reeling (“haspeln”). Below the title, the following statement is given: “Welche in dieser richtigen Taffell begriffen darin man leicht auß rechnen kan wieviel auß einen gleichgesponnen und wollgehaspelten garn Leinwandt gemacht werden kan? Belangende die zahlung die ist alhier in gewisser Proportion wollmeinende gesetzt biß verständige solche beßer verfaßen werden Nam dies diem docet [.] Authore Val. D. Borusso, ex doctrina quadrangulorum.” 19

5.2

Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

349

Moreover, on folios 38r and 39r, which are copies of various folios of Texturæ Contemplatio, though not copied by Leibniz, it seems that Leibniz himself corrected them. On fol. 38r, he adds the title “T Gestrickte Strumpfe,”23 and at the end of fol. 39r, he deletes the last sentence and adds the phrase “Dieses Diagramma,” which is the frst sentence on fol. 39v. Two minor additions by Leibniz are also to be found at the top of fol. 39v. In addition, similar to Jungius, Leibniz used ideograms to refer to sheets or various sections in the text that should belong together—but used his own characters or letters, instead of Jungius’ symbols. A detailed examination of the texts found on folios 27r, 27v, 31r and 31v which do not appear in Texturæ Contemplatio,24 is beyond the scope of this chapter. Since these texts might have been misplaced or lost but were originally written by Jungius, a more interesting question, which can certainly be answered, is: what did Leibniz not copy from Texturæ Contemplatio? Most of the folios from Texturæ Contemplatio which are not to be found in Leibniz’s copy are from Group 14 of Texturæ Contemplatio, being the group containing separate folios that are not associated thematically to any other group.25 The two folios from Group 13, which deal with pressing the cloth and refections of brass, are also not copied. In addition, the report of the citizen of Liege, found in Group 12 of Texturæ Contemplatio, is not copied. One may conjecture that Leibniz was not interested in personal accounts or practices conducted after the cloth was ready, but as we will see in Sect. 5.3.2, he was certainly interested how a cloth was made, based on his thorough description of the stocking frame. However, more surprising is the fact that fol. 6r of Texturæ Contemplatio is not copied. Being part of Group 1, the group containing the ‘geometrical’ refections, this folio depicts the various weaves discussed by the theorems (see Fig. 4.4). Taking into account the central role of these diagrams in explaining the theorems (see Sect. 4.2.3), it is unclear why Leibniz did not copy them. The question becomes somewhat more acute when one notes on folios 32r and 33r of Leibniz’s ‘copy’ a depiction of the weave of “Textura biplexa,” being a 2/2 twill, as well as its ‘defnition’.26 While the relations between Texturæ Contemplatio and Leibniz’s ‘copy’ are convoluted, the question of not only when Leibniz copied Texturæ Contemplatio, but also, on which occasions did Leibniz return to reading his own edition (i.e., his ‘copy’) of Texturæ Contemplatio or other notes of Jungius on textile, remains. The latter can be answered for at least one specifc occasion: in 1685, because during this year, Leibniz copied a set of notes written by Jungius titled by Leibniz “Logica de notionibus: Jungianarum schedarum excerpta annotata,”27 which contain

The letter ‘T’ is added to denote a possible future order of the manuscript; the frst sentence of numerous passages in Leibniz’s ‘copy’ is symbolized with various letters. 24 As well as other passages in Leibniz’s ‘copy’ which do not appear there. 25 Folios 14r, 21r, 30r, 41r and 49r from Texturæ Contemplatio are not to be found in Leibniz’s ‘copy’. 26 In (LH 38, fol. 33r), one fnds the following: “Defnition[:] Textura biplexa est, quando subtegminis flum binos supercubat, et binos subterlabitur et proxim[um].” 27 A VI4: 1211–1299. 23

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references to numerous scholars, and in particular to Jungius and his works, including Isagoge phytoscopica, Logica Hamburgensis, and more importantly for our discussion, Texturæ Contemplatio. As we will see, several sections in Logica de notionibus shed a new light on Jungius’ own thinking on textiles and texture. 5.2.2.1

Jungius’ Logica de notionibus

Jungius’ Logica de notionibus is a somewhat condensed text, which deals with types of notions and their classifcations, expanding as well some of the themes appearing in Logica Hamburgensis. The manuscript discusses various subjects, explaining several types of notions and gives examples to these notions from various domains; moreover, several examples are taken from the textile domain. While the original manuscript is lost, we have in our possession Leibniz’s copy of it, made in 1685. Leibniz explicit additions to his copy are marked by sentences surrounded by “(+…+)” or by additions next to the text beginning with NB. However, just as with Leibniz’ copy of Texturæ Contemplatio, here one should be careful when analyzing Logica de notionibus. As was noted concerning Texturæ Contemplatio, Leibniz may have also hear rearranged the order of the folios. Also, to stress again, Jungius wrote each topic on a single folio; Leibniz, on the other hand, when copying Logica de notionibus writes all of these topics on one folio without indicating any separation between the topics, which Jungius might have intended to present. This is the reason why I examine these folios in the chapter discussing Leibniz; while several of the examples appearing in Logica de notionibus refer to subjects in Texturæ Contemplatio, most of them do not, and it is not clear whether these folios which discuss the textile related examples belonged in any way (in their original form) to Texturæ Contemplatio or to “Texturarum theoria”. Turning to Logica de notionibus, in a section called “De Notionibus Distinctis et Confusis” (“On clear and confusing notions”),28 one fnds a short discussion on the “Strumpfband,” i.e., a garter, being a narrow band of fabric fastened about the leg to hold up stockings. Jungius wrote on “Strümpfe” and “Englische Strümpfe” in Texturæ Contemplatio (see fol. 47r of Texturæ Contemplatio), folios which Leibniz did copy. That Leibniz was interested in “clear and confusing” notions is not surprising—he had published, in 1684, his treatise “Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis” (“Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas”), which begins with a distinction between clear and confused knowledge. Jungius himself discusses in Logica Hamburgensis confused, clear and distinct notions (see Sect. 4.2.1), and it may very well be that this section in Logica de notionibus was an elaboration on this topic. Given Leibniz’s esteem of Jungius and his acquaintance with Logica Hamburgensis, the question arises: how are the passages on the

28

A VI4: 1226.

5.2

Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

351

Fig. 5.3 Leibniz’s drawing of the folded, knotted garter (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, A VI4, Teil B: 1230; public domain)

knotted garter related to the discussion on the transition from confused to clear and distinct knowledge? The text, depicting the garter (see Fig. 5.3), notes that its three “folds” (“falten”) give a “beautiful example of confused and distinct thought”;29 by starting with the manual activity of knotting, such that there will be two knots (“falten”) above and one below, this activity begins as embodying confused knowledge, as with a young boy forming words in his mouth.30 But this learning through manual activity and practice, with the hand, through the knotting of the fabric and the creation of “falten,” is exactly what leads to and prompts the emergence of clear knowledge and concepts: “If he knew clearly [in a distinct way], he could tell you what, according to his hand, had to be the longest [band] and then, like an apron or a sling, in what order it had to be superimposed”31. This analysis also appears at the beginning of Horst Bredekamp’s book Die Fenster der Monade (2008: 12–14), but Bredekamp ascribes the text to Leibniz and not to Jungius. Bredekamp adds that when Leibniz names the knots of the garter as folds—“falten,” he “uses one of the central concepts of his philosophy” (ibid.: 14). The question, then, is whether indeed the short commentary on the knotted garter can be indeed situated within the framework of Leibniz’s refections on the fold as an image for the infnite unfolding and metamorphosis of the world and organisms, objecting to an atomistic understanding of it, as Bredekamp suggests (ibid.: 14–15).32 I claim that Jungius’ refections on the garter were situated in a completely different context. While the knotting of the garter does serve as an example for the passage from confused to clear concepts via manual practice, it has nothing to do with any metaphysical image of the fold, which did not exist in Jungius’ though. Rather,

Ibid.: 1230: “Strumpfbandel binden mit 3 falten ohn die zwey zipfel gibt ein schohn exempel confusae cognitionis et distinctae.” 30 Ibid.: “Wenn dies der scopus ist dass zwey falten oben und eine samt den zipfeln unten kommen sollen, vulgo wird es leichtlich tentando secundum granditatem rectarum gefunden, und also confuse behalten und gewohnt, wie ein knabe die lettern im munde formiren lernet.” 31 Ibid.: “Wenn ers nun distincte wuste kondte er einem sagen, was nach seiner hand das langste seyn mus, und denn wie eine shurz oder schlinge und mit was ordnung uber einander gehn.” 32 Bredekamp’s interpretation is infuenced by Deleuze’s reading of the image of the fold in Leibniz’s writings, as can be seen in (Deleuze 1993). 29

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Fig. 5.4 A sketch of “situ florum spicato” (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, A IV4: 1229, public domain), being the pattern of the knitted stocking stitch (see Sect. 4.2.3.4). Compare Figs. 5.5 and 5.6 from Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio

it comes on the backdrop of Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, as well as on the background of Leibniz’s appreciation and critique of artisanal knowledge. While the discussion on the number and position of the knots created by knotting the “Strumpfbandel,” i.e., the garter, is not to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio, both Jungius and Leibniz refer to how stockings are knitted. Jungius extensively discusses “knitted stockings” or the knitting itself (terming it “textura sinuosa”), that is, how one knits and what the threads look like (being in a “position of spiked [spicatum] threads”;33 see also Sect. 4.4). Leibniz discusses knitting with the stocking frame (see Sect. 5.3.2). Moreover, these topics are discussed as well in Logica de notionibus before and after the discussion on the garter. After drawing a sketch of what Jungius called “spicatus situs” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 40r (Group 8); see Fig. 5.4), the following passage is copied by Leibniz: An unwieldy or more crude notion is gradually interchanged with another [one, more distinct:] for example the type of weaving [texturae genus] which is in stockings, with direction and position of the threads are spiked [situ florum spicato] (since I may borrow the term from architecture), it [the type of knitting of stockings] is distinguished, and for that reason it is more distinctive, because of the clear order and manner of the application of the threads.34

The expression “situ florum spicato” and the sketch of the “spiked pattern” are to be found also in Texturæ Contemplatio (see Figs. 5.5 and 5.6 from folios 40r and 42r); see Sect. 4.2.3.4 for a discussion of this term. The reference to architecture also refers to Jungius’ usage of terms, as he described the weaving pattern as a spiked pavement or as “stones in a wall” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 40r). While one may interpret this somewhat vague sentence by suggesting that the interchanging of a confused, crude notion with a distinct one occurs when one knits with one’s own hands, as well as when observing the fnal result—i.e., the order of the knitted

Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 42r (Group 8): “visui exhibent florum situm quasi spicatum.” (AVI 4: 1229): “Conceptus brutus seu rudior paulatim alio permutatur, ut texturae genus quod est in Tibialibus sensilitate et situ florum spicato (ut ab architectis appellationem mutuer) distinguitur et inde distinctius ex certo ordine et modo applicationis flroum.”

33 34

5.2

Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

353

Fig. 5.5 (a) The shape of the knitted fabric, described as “spicatus situs” (left) and its reverse side, which looks like “stones in a wall” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 40r). (b) The reverse side of a knitted fabric is also described as squares “in a quincunx position” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 38r)

Fig. 5.6 Jungius’ drawing of a knitted fabric, from “p. 1 TEXTURA SINUOSA [16]44 Sept.” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 42r)

threads—this citation raises several problematic issues. First, one again notices how Jungius’ vocabulary may prompt confusion: “texturae genus” is used as an umbrella term for weaving as well as for other textile-related practices (for example, knitting), but as mentioned above, the text in fact (when discussing stockings) refers to knitting. However, we will see below that Jungius does highlight this terminological ambiguity, which may also be the reason why he frst calls various types of ‘textura’ “crude notions,” which become distinct when one practices and observes the resulting ‘spiked’ pattern. Second, in contrast to the manual operation of knitting, from looking at the garter, here presented as having a ‘spicato’ structure, one cannot describe the manual operation leading to it. As Leibniz already noted in 1679, once an “abstraction of matter” takes place (see Sect. 5.2.1), a clearer concept arises, as in the case of the knitting of stockings, due to “the clear order and manner of the application of the threads”, as Jungius notes.

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This certainly refects Bredekamp’s insight that Leibniz was aware of the essentiality of the manual action for obtaining clear concepts, but this does not mean that every aspect of the material and manual action should be taken into account, as several material aspects should be abstracted. Indeed, the ‘spicato’ pattern is the end result, and one cannot deduce from it, as if in reverse, which manual gestures should be undertaken while knitting. What is essential is the “order” and the “position,” as is clear from another remark on the knitted stocking, which comes two paragraphs after the discussion on the garter: “The inner surface of knitted stockings has bits of threads jutting out arranged into a quincunx, the outside [surface has threads] situated as spiked.”35 The usage of the descriptor “quincunx” is also to be found in fol. 38r of Texturæ Contemplatio, and is again a description of the resulting pattern. This explicit structure and order of the knitted stocking is an example of a clear concept, since Jungius notes, as seen in Leibniz’s copy, several paragraphs before the remark on the resulting structure of the knitted stocking, the following: “A confused concept [notio] [is to be noted] when we view the inside surface of a sinuous weaving [i.e., knitting] from its exterior, with the manner of the insertion of the threads not yet fully understood […].”36 The method of the “insertion of the threads”—that is, the manner in which they should be ‘moved’—is to be considered a confused notion, at least when one does not yet fully understand how this is done. However, weaving is actually considered by Leibniz, in another text from 1685, as what embodies a moving geometry.37 For Jungius, the manual operation is not “fully understood,” but once one understands the direction, position and order of the threads, then a clearer notion emerges. A Leibnizian reading of this text would imply that a clearer geometrical knowledge emerges, which is abstracted from the material and bodily gestures. This is also implicit in Jungius’ insistence on describing the order, or position of the inner and outer faces of the “knitted stocking” as quincunx vs. spiked. The differences, or rather the tension, between, on the one hand, how artisanal, material knowledge is embodied and practiced and, on the other, how it emerges as a set of clear notions that are expressed and eventually should be formalized, is also noted by Leibniz on several occasions. In a note from 1684, Leibniz underlines that artisans (“artifces”) know immediately when an artifact was manufactured rightly or badly, but when asked about the reasons for these judgements, they are unable to

35 (A VI4: 1230): “Interior superfcies tibialium insutilium prominentes florum particulas in quincuncem dispositas habet, exterior spicatim sitas.” 36 (Ibid.: 1226): “Notio confusa cum discernimus interiorem superfciem texturae sinuosae ab exteriore, nondum distincte cognito modo insertionis florum […].” 37 This is presented in a more metaphysical refection with respect to geometry and weaving, when Leibniz writes in ca. 1685 his “Catalogus Notionum primariarum,” presenting a list of central metaphysical categories. One of them is motion and rest (A VI4: 637: “Motus, quies”). As an example, Leibniz gives weaving as embodying a moving geometry (ibid.: 638: “[…] res textoria, sartoria, quae quodammodo ad Geometriam seu ad partem motus Geometricam, ubi non de potentia, sed motuum vestigiis.”)

5.2 Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

355

explain them.38 Another critique on the confused artisanal notions is to be found in Leibniz’s copy of Jungius’ Logica de notionibus.39 In a passage which jumps back and forth between Latin and German, Leibniz remarks on the different terms used to describe the weaving of textiles: Concerning [the] nearness [of the concepts] to entangle, fechten, to weave, to entwine, verwirren, to enfold, bäugen, to fold, valte [i.e., falte, fold], the Latins generally said implicare [to entangle, enfold] instead of implectere [to interweave], because we fold with the arm and fngers, that is to say, we bend, that is, we form [them] into an angle. The intricacy is just like the excess of the interweaving; bendel machen ist ein weben; to weave and to braid are different because weaving comes about by a certain shortening and braiding ist wie 〈schnühr〉 machen und Knüppelen.40

This passage, which brings together various operations on textiles, partly referring to the meaning of concepts and partly to manual artisanal activities, underlines that the practices involved in the weaving, plaiting and folding of threads and textiles are not easy to disentangle and differentiate from each other. And while Jungius notes later that “names are often ambiguous not so much due to a lack of words or to the weariness of name-giving, but because one thinks that some things falsely have a certain common [shared] notion,” he adds that “a confusion of notions is insuffcient

(A VI4: 586): “Similiter videmus pictores aliosque artifces probe cognoscere, quid recte, quid vitiose factum sit, at judicii sui rationem reddere saepe non posse, et quaerenti dicere, se in re quae displicet, desiderare nescio quid.” According to Jones (2016: 82), Leibniz, while appreciating artisanal knowledge, eventually considered such practices “as decidedly inferior to theoretical knowledge as a way of knowing, however much artisanal skill surpassed theoretical knowledge in understanding the particulars of nature and the means to manipulate it […] he called for artisanal skills and knowledge to be explicitly stated and conceptually clarifed.” 39 A similar tension—between the materiality of the thread, its being a metaphor, and its abstraction (e.g., to a line) also appears in several of Leibniz’s writings. Trettin (1991: 65–66) notes that Leibniz, when describing his calculus ratiocinator, uses the metaphor of the Ariadne’s thread as a thread that is supposed to guide the human mind through the labyrinth of thinking, which might be threatened by misunderstandings and ambiguities. See (Gensini 1992). See also: (AII: 570): “La veritable methode nous doit fournir un flum Ariadnes, c’est a dire un certain moyen sensible et grossier, qui conduise l’esprit comme sont les lignes tracées en geometrie, et les formes des operations qu’on prescrit aux apprentifs en Arithmetique.” The metaphor of the “thread”, and especially of the “flum meditandi” is, in some sense, much more than a metaphor; it also indicates the material support which carries in itself its own reasoning. Olga Pombo, after listing the variety of thread images that Leibniz uses in his writing, such as “flum palpabile,” “flum cogitandi,” “flum meditandi” or “flum mechanico,” notes the following: “According to Leibniz, rigour should be achieved by the use of a symbolic system which would render visible the more abstract ideas and would constitute a material support for thought and reasoning, a ‘flum Ariadnes’ […] that is, a symbolic criterion, a manipulatory device. Something which mathematics has already developed and which, as Leibniz used to say, needs nothing but paper and ink” (Pombo 2015: 558). 40 (A VI4, part B: 1227): “Ob vicinitatem, implectere fechten texere; intricare verwirren, implicare bäugen, plica valte, fere implicare dicunt Latini pro implectere quia brachio et digitis plicamus, id est fectimus hoc est in angulum fguramus. Intricatio est quasi excessus implexionis, bendel machen ist ein weben, texere et plectere differunt quia texere ft compendio quodam, plectere ist wie 〈schnühr〉 machen und Knüppelen.” 38

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[incomplete] due to the observation of the senses.”41 But just how this incomplete observation of the senses can be overcome—by formulating, for example, mathematical (or, more precisely, geometrical) ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’, being an example of the sought-after clear, distinct notions—is not explicated. Also Leibniz himself does not explicate such process, neither in his 1675 note “Geometria Amoenior” nor in the framework of Leibniz’s copies from 1685.42 But taking into account that the text from Logica de notionibus refects topics from Texturæ Contemplatio, one may very well assume that both Jungius and Leibniz refected upon these ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’ as distinct, clear notions; moreover, this set of notes from Logica de notionibus clearly shows a different direction of thought, not to be found in Texturæ Contemplatio, concerning the notions themselves related to textil and artisanal practices.

5.2.3

From 1687 onward: an unfulflled wish

The notes from 1685, while not calling explicitly for the publication of Texturæ Contemplatio (in its original or edited form), must have reminded Leibniz of the relevance of Texturæ Contemplatio to his own thought. On 20 January 1687, Leibniz writes to Johann Vagetius: [Heinrich] Sivers […] had given hope of completing [editing] the Textoria of Jungius, which would be very useful, especially if there is time for him to supply a theory with practice [theoriam cum praxis], concerning which there is varied material in Hamburg. On that occasion, an accurate description could be added of the instrument invented in Scotland so many years ago, [an instrument] by which foot stockings are made.43

This shows that Sivers might have planned to edit and publish Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio (indeed, recall that Jungius himself integrated notes from Sivers in Texturæ Contemplatio; see Group 11  in that manuscript), a publication which Leibniz certainly wished for. Interestingly enough, Leibniz refers here again to the stocking frame—although he may be referring to his own description of it, which will be examined in Sect. 5.3.2 (see also Sect. 5.5), claiming that its description should be added to the future edition of Texturæ Contemplatio.44 Moreover, one can

41 (Ibid.: 1227–1228): “Nomina ambigua plerumque non tam inopia dictionum aut taedio onomathetisandi, sed quod censerent res aliquas falso notionem aliquam communem habere. […] Notionum confusio a sensus observatione imperfecta.” 42 I follow here Krämer (1992), who claims that this sensuous incompleteness can also be overcome by introducing mathematical symbols and signs, being essential for creative thought (when the function of communication becomes secondary). 43 (AII2, part B: 147, N. 34): “Cl. Siverus quem etiam a me salutari peto ni fallor aliquando et Textoriam Jungianam pertexendi spem fecerat, quod perutile foret, praesertim si vacaret illi theoriam cum praxis conferre, cuius rei multiplex Hamburgi materia est. Ea occasione possit adiici accurata description instrumenti aliquot abhinc annis in Scotia inventi, quo Tibialia funt.” 44 Note, however, that Leibniz erroneously claims that this machine was invented in Scotland.

5.2

Leibniz and Texturæ Contemplatio

357

note that this machine, or in general, the future publication of Texturæ Contemplatio, incorporated Leibniz’s ideal of “Theoria cum Praxi.”45 The above letter is in fact an answer to a letter that Vagetius sent to Leibniz two months prior, on 7 December 1686; Vagetius notes that Sivers wishes to edit the mathematical works of Jungius,46 and Leibniz comments with a footnote, written on that letter, that “Textoriam would be published [vellem edi].”47 But on 22 February 1687, Vagetius writes back to Leibniz: “Mr. Sivers said that some number of pages of the Texturae had been given by him to Fogel, whereas the writings of Jungius were, in fact, in the hands of Fogel. At length, [Michael] Kirsten handed over [the writings], having been taken into his own [hands], to the public library. Therefore, these sought-after folia will be in those manipulis.”48 This may indicate that Sivers gave up on editing Texturæ Contemplatio, and the manuscript was eventually returned to the library. This, in fact, raises the question: how many copies and manuscripts of Texturæ Contemplatio existed during those years, if Sivers and Kirsten had access to “Texturae schedas” in Hamburg? Vagetius is referring in this letter either to the original manuscript “Texturarum theoria,” which remained in Jungius’ Nachlass in Hamburg, but was burnt in 1691, or to another copy of Texturæ Contemplatio. While Leibniz, in his copies from 1685, was very much aware that Jungius situated his refections on textiles in a more philosophical framework, the letters from 1687 show that he had not given up on having those notes edited in a more mathematical manner. But Sivers, who expressed interest in editing Texturæ Contemplatio, died in 1691, and did not complete this editorial work. The notes on ‘Textura’ in Hamburg were probably destroyed in the 1691 fre in Vagetius’ house. Leibniz expresses his wish again in September 1695, in a letter to Lorenz Hertel, that someone else complete the task that Jungius and Sivers began: I wanted to remind of what I said to you before about Mr. Cumberland [Heinrich Kummerfeld], Professor of Mathematics in Hamburg. Having joined practice to theory, and having the talents of the late Mr. Sivers, but more vigor to assert them; he would be the most suitable in the world for one of the most useful purposes, and from which he will return more honored, as he would be the frst to work there as a mathematician. It deals with giving

To recall, this motto was chosen by him for the Prussian Society of Sciences, which he founded in 1700, and indicated an inseparable alliance between practice and theory, implying that either science should be useful for the practical implementation or that scientifc knowledge should arise from practice—and these in order to promote the public good. See: (Knobloch 1987; Poser 2016: 381–439). 46 Sivers was responsible for the publication of the last edition of Geometria empirica in 1688. This edition contains a preface by Sivers, in which he gives explanations to some parts of Geometria empirica. See (Jungius 2004: 30-34). Sivers was also one of the editors (besides Balthasar Mentzer) of Jungius’ Phoranomica, published in 1699 as the ffth part in Tassius’ Opuscula Mathematica. 47 (A II2, part B: 108, letter 22): “Exstimulare ad accelerandum institutum qui poterit, voletque, bene de Jungio, Sivero et re literaria Mathematica, plane credo, merebitur.” Recall that at that time, Leibniz already had Jungius’ manuscript in his possession. 48 (A II2, part B: 157): “Texturae schedas aliquot, inquit Dn. Siverus a se D. Fogelio esse datas. Quae v[ero] Fogelii in manibus fuerant Jungiana, D. Kirstenius ad se recepta, tandem Bibliothecae publicae tradidit. Requirenda ergo haec istis in schedarum manipulis erunt folia.” 45

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us mathematical descriptions and explanations of the mechanical arts: He could begin with the manufacture of fabrics and materials for all kinds of clothing, continuing what Messrs. Jungius and Sivers began with de arte Textoria, of whom he is the worthy successor; and without amusing himself, at the beginning, examining the things with [i.e., possessing] all geometrical regularity, it would suffce that he begins by giving us defnitions or constructions of all kinds of fabrics in order, marking their characteristic properties, both with regard to their manufacture as well as to their use, being able to easily fnd the necessary information in Hamburg. This would be more useful than one might think, even in physics, because the parts of plants and animals were made by nature, quodam genere texturae [as some kind of tissue, fabric].49 (A I11: 97–98)

It is clear from this letter that Sivers did not fnish editing and revising Jungius’ notes on weaving. Leibniz hence offers this project to Heinrich Kummerfeld, who apparently also did not complete this task (or rejected it). It also seems likely that Leibniz gave Texturæ Contemplatio to Kummerfeld, as the manuscript in Hamburg no longer existed in 1695. Remarkable is Leibniz’s emphasis on the “geometrical regularity” of the fabrics, though it is not clear from the letter what is meant by this geometry. One may suggest that Leibniz aimed at a more theoretical manuscript, giving “defnitions or constructions of all kinds of fabrics”; this is a clear reference to Jungius’ way of thinking, as Jungius also began his manuscript on weaving with ‘defnitions’ and ‘theorems’. Also remarkable is Leibniz’s comment, made almost en passant, that a study of the geometry of weaving will also be helpful to the research on plants and animals, since all of them are made from a kind of “textura.”50 Leibniz’s conception of ‘textura’ is related to his textile metaphors, which I will discuss below. As we saw in Sect. 2.2, during the 17th century, the consideration of

“J’avois dessein de vous faire souvenir de ce que je vous avois dit autresfois touchant Monsieur Cumberland Professeur des Mathematiques de Hambourg. Ayant joint la practique à la theorie, et ayant les talens de feu Monsieur Sivers, mais plus de vigueur pour les faire valoir; il seroit le plus propre du monde à un dessein des plus utiles, et dont il luy reviendroit d’autant plus d’honneur, qu’il seroit le premier qui y travailleroit en Mathematicien. C’est de nous donner des descriptions et explications Mathematiques des arts mecaniques: II pourroit commencer par la fabrique des étoffes et matieres des habillemens de toute sorte; poursuivant ce que Messieurs Jungius et Siverus, dont il est le digne successeur ont commencé de arte Textoria; et sans s’amuser au commencement à eplucher les choses avec toute la regularité geometrique, il suffroit qu’il commencat par nous donner des defnitions ou constructions de toute sorte d’etoffes par ordre, en marquant leur propriétés caracteristiques, tant à l’égard de leur fabrique, qu’à l’égard de leur usage, pouvant trouver aisement à Hambourg les informations necessaires. Cela seroit plus utile qu’on ne pense, même en physique, car les parties des plantes et des animaux ont este faites par la nature, quodam genere texturae.” 50 In 1676, Leibniz also asks Claude Perrault to conduct research concerning “la texture interieure des corps qui nous sont les plus familiers” (A II1: 412). However, note that Leibniz changes his mind during his lifetime concerning the mathematization of the texture of “plants and animals”: Justin E. H. Smith notes that at “this early stage [seen in Leibniz earliest writings] […] Leibniz is enthusiastic about the possibility of ‘mathematizing medicine’ […] [but] [b]y the dawn of the eighteenth century, Leibniz is much more skeptical about the possibility of such a mathematization […]” (2011: 84), following the work of Raphaële Andrault (2011). See also Smith (2016) on Leibniz’s failed attempt to mathematize ‘medicine’ or the more general biology of natural bodies. 49

5.3

Leibniz on Tunics and Stockings

359

the texture of materials—or of their atoms—as a determinant property was common,51 and as Ishizuka (2016) stresses (see Sect. 2.2.7), from the second half of the 17th century, the conception of the fber-woven body was also not uncommon. Leibniz’s reference to the realm of the organic points to a more metaphysical conception, which we also saw in Sect. 2.2.7, where bodies unfold and refold in a constant transformation and metamorphosis, and seen as a tunic, which “cannot be said to be resolved all the way down into points” (Leibniz 2001 [1676]: 187).

5.3

Leibniz on Tunics and Stockings

The last section hinted at how Leibniz might have considered a possible connection between the notion of ‘texture’ and mathematics, also indicating that animals “are made by nature” as a type of ‘texture’. This reference to ‘texture’ is not to be confused with Leibniz’s reference to animals which themselves weave: spiders and silkworms. Though a thorough discussion on this subject will take us outside the framework of this book, one should note that Leibniz termed spiders “weaving machines,”52 and considered the silkworm a “living machine that produces silk.”53 But at the same time, Leibniz highlights the contrast between these machines and machines with which “silk is converted into human clothing” (Leibniz 2016: 249), that is, he stresses the differences between man-made machines (e.g., the various looms, the stocking frame, and even his own calculating machines, as we will

Justin E. H. Smith notes that Leibniz’s “animal economy” was also infuenced by Thomas Willis, “a physician and founding member of the Royal Society who published the treatise De anima brutorum in 1672” (Smith 2011: 79). In this manuscript (De anima brutorum, Chap. 1, p. 4), Willis writes that “the teaching of Epicurus passed on from antiquity, and revived again in our century […] introduces the clearly corporeal Soul [and] […] consists in the texture [textura] of subtle atoms, and asserts […] that from the mind of Gassendi there resounds this same, that the animal is a sort of loom [telam], in which the body is the warp [stamen], while the soul is the weft [subtegmen]” (translation taken from: Smith 2011: 80). The reference to Gassendi’s textura atomorum is clear (see Sect. 2.2.4). 52 The expression appears in a text written by Leibniz between 1680 and 1686, called Corpus hominis (translation to English is found in: Smith 2011: 290–296). The entire citation is as follows: “The Bodies of Animals are Machines of perpetual motion, or, to put it more clearly, they are machines comparable to a certain fxed and singular species of perpetual organic motion that is always maintained in the world. Thus for as long as there are spiders there will be weaving machines […]” (translation taken from: Smith 2011: 290–291). 53 Phemister (2011: 57), referring to Leibniz’s response to Stahl (Leibniz 2016: 249ff). Note that also Jungius discusses in Texturæ Contemplatio the ‘weaving’ of spiders (“textura aranearum”), but he is much more explicit concerning the differences, though for another reason: “in a strict sense, [a spider’s web] is not a weave. The [spider’s] threads do not alternate in [their] position, nor are they entwined, but [rather] they are fashioned together.” (Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 50r (Group 14)). 51

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see later) and the ‘divine’ weaving machines (such as organisms).54 However, the difference, i.e., that man-made machines must be operated externally, as opposed to living machines, is not a sharp one: Leibniz admits “that even the silkworm can perform its task only under appropriate external circumstances” (Phemister 2011: 57). The main difference between the spider as a weaving machine and the loom as an artifcial weaving machine is that the spider is not to be explained via a mereological account, that is, via relations between the whole and its parts, as is possible (and done) with the loom. Moreover, for the loom, if one deconstructs it to its parts, one will reach the particular individual parts that cannot be further disassembled; these parts, moreover, will no longer function as a machine, in contrast to the divine machines, where every part does function as a machine in and of itself.55 As Smith (2016: 265) notes, for Leibniz “an organic body is distinct from a mere mechanical body in that it is infnitely complex,” where the parts of the artifcial machines are not machines.56 This short discussion on organic and man-made machines that weave and produce threads and fabrics leads us to the theme of this section, being Leibniz’s thoughts on two of these machines: the ribbon loom and more importantly, the stocking frame. This discussion is only a partial one: to complete it one would have to include, at the very least, Leibniz’s involvement—from the end of the 17th century—in erecting a silk industry in Dresden and in Berlin, among other places, as a means of fnancing a scientifc society, i.e., the Societät der Wissenschaften.57 One would also have to inquire Leibniz’s acquittance with Chinese weaving machines, which are briefy mentioned in his 1689 Phoranomus seu de potentia et legibus naturae (Leibniz 2007: 692). Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, one would have to explore whether the notion of ‘textura’ played the essential role in Leibniz’s thinking58 that it played in the thinking of other 17th century scholars Phemister (2011: 56), who follows Duchesneau (2011), notes that “for Leibniz, living machines are subject mainly to internal infuences, in contrast to non-living machines subject primarily to external infuences.” 55 This is noted explicitly by Leibniz in his Monadology: “For a machine made by human art is not a machine in each of its parts; for example, the tooth of a brass wheel has parts or fragments which are not artifcial so far as we are concerned, and which do not have the character of a machine, in that they ft the use for which the wheel was intended. But the machines of nature, living bodies, are still machines in their smallest parts, into infnity. It is this that makes the difference between nature and art, that is, between the divine art and ours.” (Leibniz 1989c: 649). 56 See also Becchi (2017), as well as Leibniz’s position in Système nouveau de la nature from 1695: “We must then know that the machines of nature have a truly infnite number of organs […] A natural machine still remains a machine in its least parts” (Leibniz 1989b: 142). 57 See: Li (2018), Brather (1993: 259–262). 58 A search for ‘textura’ in the online registry of Leibniz’s writings (http://telota.bbaw.de/leibniziv/ Sachregister/sachreg_start.php) shows that he did not employ the notion often. A possible indication to the somewhat marginal place this notion had in Leibniz’s thinking is to be seen in a letter that he wrote to Claude Nicaise on 5 June 1692, in which he advises Nicaise and the Cartesians “de ne se pas attacher à un babil inutile des petits corps, dont la texture est encor en effect, et le plus souvent une qualité occulte à nous” (A II2: 534). On occult qualities during the 17th century, see: (Hutchison 1982). 54

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(see Sect. 2.2). However, before discussing these two textile machines in Sect. 5.3.2 and Sect. 5.3.3, I will begin in Sect. 5.3.1 with Leibniz’s refection on textiles as metaphors and how he considered textiles philosophically.

5.3.1

Leibniz on Folded Tunics

In the letter to Lorenz Hertel from September 1695, Leibniz mentions, concerning the future edition of Texturæ Contemplatio, that one should begin with an inquiry “of all kinds of fabrics […] their manufacture [and] their use.” But how does Leibniz consider textiles, fabrics, and their materiality? This question was already discussed briefy above, when inspecting Leibniz’s copy of Jungius’ refections on confused and distinct notions and their references to Texturæ Contemplatio. As I will explicate in this section, Leibniz also considered textiles in a different way, which was not related to how they were presented in Texturæ Contemplatio. I already mentioned briefy, at the end of Sect. 2.2.7, Leibniz’s 1676 dialogue Pacidius to Philalethes, which considered folded and unfolded tunics as a metaphor for never-ending transformations and the insolvability of matter. To recall, Leibniz notes the following: “The division of the continuum must not be considered to be like the division of sand into grains, but like that of a sheet of paper or tunic into folds. And so although there occur some folds smaller than others infnite in number, a body is never thereby dissolved into points or minima […] the tunic cannot be said to be resolved all the way down into points” (Leibniz 2001: 185, 187). What are the other indications that fabrics and textiles were operating as a metaphor in Leibniz’s writings? Mogens Lærke (2015) points out that in a text on Saint Augustin from 1680–1690 Leibniz notes that “[t]he whole universe is one continuous body. Nowhere divided, but transfgured like wax, or folded in different ways like a garment.”59 In both this citation and the one from 1676, one can see that the image of the garment in Leibniz’s thinking is connected to the image of the fold, as that which cannot be reduced to fnal or basic elements. Indeed, in another text from 1687–1681, Leibniz remarks that “unity always lasts as long as it can without destroying multiplicity, and this happens if bodies are understood to be folded rather than divided.”60 In 1702, Leibniz writes in a letter to Pierre Bayles on the organic bodies which unfold and refold themselves infnitely: It must also be said, according to the exact correspondence of soul and body, that the organic body always subsists, and can never be destroyed, so that not only the soul, but even the animal must remain. This comes from the fact that the least part of the organic body is still organic; the machines of nature being folded in themselves to infnity. Thus neither fre

“Totum universum est unum corpus continuum. Neque dividitur, sed instar cerae transfguratur, instar tunicae varie plicatur” (A VI4: 1687). Translation taken from (Lærke 2015: 1198). 60 “Nam unitas semper manet quanta maxima potest, salva multitudine, quod ft si corpora plicari potius quam dividi intelligantur” (A VI4: 1401). Translation from (Lærke 2015: 1198). 59

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nor other external forces can ever disturb anything but the bark [...] And every organic body of nature, being infnitely folded, is indestructible. And the proof that it is infnitely folded is that it expresses everything. Moreover, the body must express the future state of the soul or Entelechy that it has, and this by expressing its own future state.61

Though not at the center of this citation, one cannot help thinking that the “machines of nature” being “infnitely folded” stand in contrast to the man-made weaving machines. What dominates these quoted passages is, however, not weaving (organic or man-made), but the image of the fold and, more implicitly, the image of infnite layers of cloth.62 Lærke concludes that the “image of folding thus shows up fairly frequently in texts from the late 1670s and early 1680s, but remains a component in later texts as well” (Lærke 2015: 1198). This is to be seen in Leibniz’s 1714 essay Principes de la nature et de la grâce. In this essay, Leibniz notes that: one could learn the beauty of the universe in each soul, if one could unfold all its folds, which only develop perceptibly with time [si l’on pouvoit déplier tous ses replis, qui ne se développent sensiblement qu’avec le temps]. But since each distinct perception of the soul includes an infnity of confused perceptions which envelop [enveloppent] the entire universe, the soul itself does not know the things which it perceives until it has perceptions which are distinct and heightened. And it has perfection in proportion to the distinctness of its perceptions. Each soul knows the infnite, knows everything, but confusedly.63 (Leibniz 1989a: 640)

Moreover, for Leibniz, the folding and unfolding of a cloth and of fabric were taken as a metaphor for a process of change, of a continuous transformation:64 “Not only souls, therefore, but animals as well, cannot be generated or perish; they are only developed, enveloped, reclothed, stripped, transformed” (ibid.: 638). For Leibniz, the fold might be seen as that which resists attempts either to found everything on presupposed, unchangeable basic units or to be completely reduced and dissolved into distinct components. This can be mainly seen in the passage from Leibniz’s 1676 dialogue Pacidius to Philalethes, presented above, and may stand in contrast to how Leibniz might have seen a possible mathematization of textiles and texture,

(A VI5: N. 2655, p. 265502–265503) (from the Vorausedition, Nov 2021): “Il faut dire encor suivant l’exacte correspondance de l’âme et du corps; que le corps organique subsiste tousjours, et ne sçauroit jamais estre détruit, de sorte que non seulement l’âme, mais même l’animal doit demeurer. Cela vient de ce que la moindre partie du corps organique est encor organique; les machines de la nature estant repliées en elles mêmes à l’infni. Ainsi ny le feu, ny les autres forces exterieures n’en sçauroient jamais deranger que l’écorce […] Et tout corps organique de la nature, estant infniment replié, est indestructible. Et la preuve qu’il est infniment replié, est, qu’il exprime tout. De plus le corps doit exprimer l’estat futur de l’âme ou de l’Entelechie qu’il a et cela en exprimant son propre estat futur.” 62 These are associated by Leibniz in 1704 (in the New Essays) to the character of the Harlequin, a metaphor “employed to express the idea of the natural indestructibility of every living body […] and an infnite complexity” (Becchi 2017: 16). See also Smith (2016: 254). 63 The translation was slightly changed. 64 See also (Albus 2001: 147). 61

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as he notes in 1695, that one should begin with “defnitions […] of all kinds of fabrics.”65 But the folded tunic points to another direction of thought: what the folds of the tunic and the drapery enable, one might say, is a thinking of this infnite process, but one which cannot be described with a fnite collection of mathematical laws or with a reduction to a fnite number of concepts. With Leibniz’s account of continuity, the body does not dissolve into a collection of points or minimal elements: there are folds within folds, and one can never claim that a tunic or an “organic body of nature” is divided into points. Leibniz objects explicitly, in his refection on the folded tunic and the fold, to the mathematical point, the atom of Gassendi, the Cartesian cogito (Leibniz 2001: 185)—that is, to the various corpuscular theories of the 17th century; Leibniz’s objection presents an interesting twist in these corpuscular theories, because some of the protagonists advocating the corpuscular view of matter also advocated the notion of ‘texture’ and textile metaphors to promote this view, not reject it. Against the approaches that reject infnite enveloping and unfolding of indefnite processes, Leibniz posits the folds, which form (themselves) without any rupture or discontinuity. Along with this conception, in 1714, Leibniz presents the enveloping of the folded drapery as a continuous process of metamorphosis: “Animals change, take on, and put off, only parts; in nutrition this takes place little by little and through minute, insensible particles, but continually […]” (Leibniz 1989a: 638). While Leibniz’s image of the folded fabrics as a metaphor for an infnite unfolding, metamorphosis and development of the world and the organism is described above,66 one should also note that a material aspect is to be found in almost all of the above references: the nearly constant reference to fabrics and cloths. But at the same time, it is important to note as well that while the folded tunic stood as a metaphor for an ever-changing organism in Leibniz’s thinking, Leibniz did note, in 1695, the “geometrical regularity” of fabrics, which may point to a tension between the two conceptions. This statement from 1695 can be seen as a refection of Leibniz’s 1675 wish to expand geometry, expressed in his note “Geometria Amoenior,” where he remarks that the “Geometry of tailors” should be part of a future geometry. This tension is also to be noted in the differentiation introduced by Leibniz between the organic and man-made “weaving machines.” Concerning these “weaving machines,” and to return to the 1675 note, recall that Leibniz calls to consider within this geometry a specifc man-made machine: “the silk stocking instrument,” referring to the stocking frame, which will be the subject of the next section.

See (Smith 2016) on Leibniz’s attempts to advance a “treatment of the mathematical infnite, [which did not] enable[] him to provide a fully compelling account of the infnite structure of natural bodies” (ibid.: 269). 66 See also Albus (2001: 148–157). 65

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Leibniz on the Stocking Frame

We already saw above that on 20 January 1687, when Leibniz writes to Vagetius about Sivers’ future edition of Texturæ Contemplatio, he recommends adding the description of the stocking frame. Which description was he referring to in this letter? And was this the only time between 1675 and 1687 that Leibniz mentions this machine? As we will see in this section, the stocking frame had already been repeatedly mentioned in Leibniz’s writings before 1675, and these references point not only to a deep acquaintance with the mechanical operation of this machine, but also to a certain mathematization of textile-related activities, though one which is left unexplained. As we saw above, in 1673, Leibniz describes his impressions from his encounters with the local artisans in Paris: he wishes to “tirer d’eux leurs secrets et inventions” (A I1: 416). Describing the artisanal practices that he witnessed, Leibniz later explains his aim of “voulant faire faire ma Machine Arithmetiqve […] dont le model a esté fait il y a long temps et a esté mostré en France et Angleterre” (ibid.: 417). But before mentioning his arithmetical machine, he notes that he observed the stocking frame: “La Machine qvi fait en ouurier des bas et des étoffes de soye, est icy en vogue.” This is most likely the frst time that Leibniz refers to this machine explicitly. But how accidental is this coupling between the stocking frame and Leibniz’s arithmetical machine? As we will see, the comparison between the two machines reappears a few years later. In 1676, a year after writing his note “Geometria Amoenior,” Leibniz writes a manuscript that was originally planned as a preface to his De quadratura arithmetica; the title of this manuscript was “An exoteric dissertation: On the use of geometry, its present state, its newest additions.”67 Indeed, as Davide Crippa claims when analyzing this manuscript, “[s]ince 1673, Leibniz had been convinced that this realm of geometry [of the mathematics required to solve the problem of the quadrature of the circle] lay beyond Descartes’ geometry, which was of little or no use when it came to problems of quadrature and rectifcations” (Crippa 2019: 102). This is also to be seen in the introduction to the 1676 manuscript, in which Leibniz notes that one “hears arguments about the worthlessness of geometry,”68 but claims, referring to Descartes, that geometry is much broader and includes much more than the reduction of its problems to a series of algebraic equations.69 Leibniz compares geometry to an ocean which can hold many theorems: “For just as it is the same

67 Dissertatio exoterica de usu geometriae, et statu praesenti, ac novissimis ejus incrementis, in: (A VII6, manuscript 491). 68 (A VII6: 484): “Quae saepe mihi cum Variorum Studiorum hominibus communicatio est, audire subinde fecit querelas de vanitate Geometriae, quibus illa frustra opponat demonstrationes suas, quando non de veritate sed usu quaeritur.” 69 See also Leibniz’s critique on Descartes’ conception of geometry, in: (A III1: 139): “Monsieur Descartes a travaillé après Viète, à reduire les questions de Geometrie, aux resolutions de Equations, dont le calcul est entièrement Arithmetique.”

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ocean which, inasmuch as it touches various shores, is now called the Atlantic, now the Ethiopian, and now the Indian, so too the same art of [geometrical] knowing, suitable to every argument, makes a bay [hence, is suitable] for various theorems.”70 Continuing this line of thought, Leibniz argues that there are those “who do not know that they themselves are geometers, although they reason seriously and profoundly by means of that style of argumentation which they understand.”71 Here, Leibniz names two types of inventors: the “geometrical genius” and the “combinatorial genius.” Those who have combinatorial talent “have more luck and less work; their inventions are simple and are entirely explained in a few words; since they are, for the most part, in need of observation rather than refection […].”72 As an example of a combinatorial invention, Leibniz counts the work of the “alchemists” or “the separation of the parts of wine” by Galen.73 Recall that 10 years before (in 1666), Leibniz actually considered weaving of (black and white) threads as a combinatorial activity (see Sect. 5.2.1); however, any reference to this way of thinking is no longer to be found in the text from 1676.74 That is, in contrast to the combinatorial genius, i.e., those who are [endowed] with a geometrical genius [talent], their discoveries are diffcult and profound and put forth with much meditation. The sorts of things which are not easily explained and not immediately understood by any listener or viewer. An elegant example of this is a weaving machine [Machina textrice], now frequently used here and there, the invention of a certain Scotsman, which occupied its inventor for nine whole years; or [another example is] an arithmetical instrument, which carries over all the work of the mind [animi] to wheels.75

The weaving machine that Leibniz is referring to, invented by a “certain Scotsman,” is most probably the stocking frame, notwithstanding the erroneous attribution to a Scotsman rather than an Englishman (i.e., William Lee). We already saw in the letter to Vagetius in 1687 that Leibniz makes this same mistake; hence, it is probable that this “weaving machine” is the stocking frame. The question is, however, what is the arithmetical instrument to which Leibniz is referring? The notion of carrying over “the work of the mind to wheels” may refer to Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline, (A VII6: 487): “Quemadmodum enim Oceanus idem est, qui prout varia litora alluit, nunc Atlanticus, nunc Aethiopicus, nunc Indicus appellatur; ita eadem sciendi ars omni argumento apta variorum theorematum velut sinus facit.” 71 Ibid.: “Unde sunt aliqui qui se Geometras esse ignorant ipsi, cum severe tamen et profunde in eo quod intelligent argumento ratiocinentur.” 72 (Ibid.: 488): “Combinatoria ingenia plus habent felicitatis, minus laboris; simplicia sunt inventa eorum, et paucis verbis tota dicuntur; ut plerumque animadversione potius quam meditatione […].” 73 Ibid.: 488–489. 74 Though, as we will see below, the two texts (from 1666 and 1676) deal with different textile practices: tapestry vs. mechanized knitting. 75 (Ibid.: 487–488): “Qui Geometrico sunt ingenio eorum inventa diffcilia sunt, et profunda, et multa meditatione expressa. Qualia nec facile enuntiantur, nec statim a quovis auditore aut spectatore intelliguntur, unde Exemplum elegans habemus in Machina textrice, nunc passim frequentata, Scoti cuiusdam invento, quod novennio integro occupavit autorem suum, aut in Arithmetico instrumento, quod omnem animi laborem in rotas transfert.” 70

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designed and built by Pascal between 1642 and 1644. Alternatively, however, Leibniz may very well be referring to his own “living” automatic calculating machine, which can “by itself add, subtract, multiply, and divide all numbers,”76 as Leibniz notes in a letter to Herzog Johann Friedrich of Hanover from 1671; the principle of this machine’s operation, a model of which was presented in 1673 to the Royal Society in London, was based on Leibniz’s invention of the stepped reckoner. If by “arithmetical instrument” Leibniz is indeed referring to his own calculating machines, it is remarkable that he compared these to a “weaving machine,” as this shows the admiration felt for and the degree of complexity attributed to the latter machine at that time. This citation from 1676 points to certain acquaintance with the stocking frame itself, and in particular with how one operates it. Indeed in the collection LeibnizHandschriften zur Technica (LH 38), one fnds two undated sheets of paper that thoroughly describe the stocking frame. The frst sheet (LH 38: fol. 99r) contains a depiction of the stocking frame (see Fig. 5.7) with “300 éguilles, 300 platines, 50 ondes [and] 50 plombs” (LH 38: 101v).77 The second sheet (LH 38: 100r–101v) is a highly detailed description of how one operates the stocking frame, a description which also stresses a frst-person account of the operator’s physical hand and foot movements.78 The description begins as follows: Le bas est attaché aux éguilles, pour continuer donc à travailler, il faut crocher le mestier, c’est à dire il faut appuyer du pied sur une des marches à costé (car il y en a trois, 2 à costé et une au milieu) et car une corde va de la marche jusqu’au ressort ou balancier qu’il fait pour plier, et par là, les éguilles qui est tout le mestier qui estoit lache, devient roide et ferme. C’est à dire le grand ressort du milieu qui porte le métier, et qui estoit auparavant dans son estat naturel, et obeissait facilement, est a présent forcé et bandé en sorte qu’il n’obéit plus [fa]cilement.79 (LH 38: 100r)

Leibniz’s description on folios 100r and 101r is presented in the Appendix to this chapter (Sect. 5.5) in its entirety, because it is one of the earliest descriptions of the stocking frame from the end of the 17th century. We do not know when this note was written, but one may assume that it was during the 1670s, due to Leibniz’s fascination with this machine during that period, and since he obtained Texturæ Contemplatio in 1678. Remarkable is Leibniz’s emphasis on two aspects: frst, the embodied knowledge needed to operate this machine; (A I11: 160): “[…] eine lebendige Rechenbank nenne, dieweil dadurch zu wege gebracht wird, dass alle Zahlen sich selbst rechnen, addieren, subtrahieren, multipliciren […].” 77 On (LH 38: fol. 99v) one fnds a drawing of a feur-de-lis; recall that the same drawing also appears in Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, fol. 32r (Group 11). This may indicate that Leibniz’s copy of Texturæ Contemplatio and his notes on the stocking frame were written or copied in around the same period. 78 Whether the operator was Leibniz himself is unclear. One fnds, for example, the following expressions in frst-person: “maintenant je met[s] le pied sur la marche d’en haut,” “Le fl estant pris, je baisse le mestier un peu, pour le délivrer du crochet qui le tenoit” (LH 38: fol. 100r), or “je tiens le pouce serré avec la main” (LH: fol. 101r). 79 The last sentence was written in a smaller handwriting, and was probably added later. All the words written in superscript are written in this way by Leibniz, above the preceding word. 76

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Fig. 5.7 Leibniz’s drawing of the stocking frame, from an undated folio (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek  – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover, LH 38: fol. 99r; public domain). Leibniz draws the various parts of the machine, such as “platines”, “pouce” or “ressort”

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second, the detailed description of the machine itself and its various parts: “platines,” “pouce,” “ressort,” “éguilles,” “chevalet.” These two aspects echo Leibniz’ wish to “tirer d’eux leurs secrets et inventions” (A I1: 416), expressed in 1673 concerning the artisans’ practices; but they also show an ambivalent relation concerning artisanal knowledge: rather than encouraging artisans to record their own knowledge, the codifcation of technical practices, upon which technological progress was argued to depend, was considered a job more suited to philosophers (Young 2017: 542).80 In this sense, these two aspects not only show Leibniz’s appreciation of the artisanal-embodied knowledge, leading to the construction of this well-functioning machine and to the mechanization of an artisanal practice (that is, knitting), but also—taking into consideration the comparison between the stocking frame and Leibniz’s own arithmetical machine—indicate Leibniz’s hope to construct his own arithmetical machine, which would operate as successfully as the stocking frame. Considering Leibniz’s thorough account of the stocking frame, it is not surprising that this was not the only time Leibniz mentioned it. In the late 1670s, he corresponded with Johann Daniel Crafft (1624–1697), a German merchant and alchemist who established a silk manufactory in Leipzig in 1674. At the end of 1677 and in 1678, Crafft sent Leibniz a number of letters concerning an improved stocking frame. In December 1677, referring to the frst letter, Leibniz writes to Jean Gallois, a mathematician and a member of the Académie Française, that there is “a curious person [Crafft], who has spent his whole life in the feld of manufacturing and trade, who wrote to me that he has found and executed in such a convenient way the material used to make silk stockings.”81 However, the person to have really improved the referred to stocking frame is Johann Joachim Becher,82 who is not even mentioned in Leibniz’s letter to Gallois. I therefore present here a short detour concerning Becher’s own refections on the stocking frame. 5.3.2.1 Johann Joachim Becher on the stocking frame As described in Sect. 2.1.1, the stocking frame underwent several improvements during the 17th century. One of those improvements was made by Johann Joachim Becher (1635–1682), as Krünitz describes in 1841.83 Becher was working on those stocking machines, and since it is well-known that his relationship with Leibniz

See also the discussion above (Sect. 5.2.2), where Leibniz stresses the inability of artisans to explain their judgments. 81 (A III2: 294): “II y a un autre curieux versé toute sa vie dans ce qui regarde les manufactures et le commerce, qui m’a écrit d’avoir trouvé et executé d’une façon si commode le mestier qui sert à faire les bas de soye.” 82 (A III2: 294, footnote to line 17). 83 (Krünitz 1841: 199): “Hölzerne Stühle gab schon Becher an; sie haben holzerne Walzen und hölzerne Unden, welche an diesen Stühlen Schwingen genannt werden.” 80

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was strained,84 I would like to examine Becher’s work on the mechanization of weaving and knitting practices. Becher, an alchemist and the initiator of numerous projects, was a visitor of many of the courts of the Holy Roman Empire. The projects that he led often resulted in a dead end or failure, though in the course of his life, there was hardly a feld of activity in which he did not try to work or to initiate a project—usually with little success; for example, he initiated the establishment of a silkworm farm, the draft of a reform pedagogy, and one for an insurance policy for court offcials against corruption (Lorber 2007, 2012, 2017, 2018). One of Becher’s projects was indeed the improvement of the stocking frame. In 1669, he bought a stocking loom in Amsterdam, “no doubt for his next project” as Smith notes (1994: 161). Smith does not mention what this project was; it may actually have been referring to two possible projects. The frst one is rather an older project of Becher’s: the establishment of the silkworm farm. In 1664, Becher presented this idea to the elector Ferdinand Maria of Munich, who approved the operation of Becher’s newly founded silk manufactory. However, as he was working mostly in Vienna during the second half of the 1660s, and had been appointed as the “imperial commercial advisor,” Becher found out that the shareholders of the Bavarian silk company had requested his exclusion from this company (ibid.: 118) and hence, he ceased participating in this project. The second project is the improvement of the stocking frame. Becher describes, in 1682, in his book Närrische Weißheit Und Weise Narrheit, among other inventions, the stocking machine as an invention of a student from Oxford: 12. also a wooden instrument: to knit fne wool stockings every day. At Oxford University in England there was a student who fell in love with a woman. Since he was unable to win her heart, he became melancholic and started brooding. In the process, he invented a wonderful instrument for knitting silk stockings with great speed [agility] and accuracy, which the English call Framm [Frame], and kept this invention a secret. I brought the frst [such instrument] to Vienna, where the President of the Chamber had thirty copies made. These instruments are very expensive – one copy costs at least a hundred Reichstaler. They have many parts [entia], are made of pure iron and are often changeable. There is always something to be repaired, because they have a lot of steel springs, which are the reason why you cannot make well woolen stockings, because they cannot process the wool well. This is why I invented another instrument which – apart from needles and gears – is completely made of wood and has not a single spring, because of which it [the instrument] is quite immutable [since no spring should be replaced], which is why it works quickly and easily. It costs at most 20 Reichstaler and you can make few pairs of stockings every day.85 (Becher 1682: 11–12)

An examination of the relations between Leibniz and Becher is beyond the scope of this short detour. See however (Berger 1993). 85 “Ejusdem Hoͤltzern Inſtrument: Wollene feine Strumpffe ͤ zu ſtricken/ jedes Tages ein Paar. Auf der Univerſitatͤ zu Oxford in Engelland iſt ein Student geweſen/ der hatſich in ein Weibsbild ͤ verliebet/ und weil er ihrer nit genieſſen koñen/ iſt er in Melancholi gerathẽ und ans Speculiren ͤ kom̃ en/ und hat endlich dz wunderbare Inſtrument erfunden mit einer groſſen Behandigkeit und ͤ ͤ Subtilitatͤ ſeydene Strumpffe zu ſtricken/ welches die Engellander Framm nennen/ und Anfangs ͤ ſehr geheim gehalten. Ich habe das erſte nach Wien gebracht/ all wo der Cammer-Praſt-dem 84

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It is obvious that Becher’s historical account is not a faithful refection of how the machine was invented. Becher notes what later would become the accepted narrative—that the inventor (Lee) invented the machine because he was rejected by the woman he loved.86 However, in Becher’s recounting of the events, the inventor was from Oxford, and kept the invention a secret; in fact, it was quite the opposite, as noted in Sect. 2.1.1. Whether or not Becher was the frst to bring the machine to Vienna is also unclear; however, it is clear that Becher did improve the stocking machine, at least according to his own account.87 Becher’s description from 1682 is an account of an invention which he introduced to his colleagues in the late 1670s; one can fnd evidence for this in a few of the letters that Crafft wrote to Leibniz. Crafft was originally a doctor; he traveled quite often in his youth, acquiring knowledge of natural science, chemistry and economics, which he successfully put to practical use in the German courts, especially in Mainz and Dresden. During his various meetings in these courts, he got to know Leibniz and Becher; with Leibniz he was in tight contact: his correspondence with Leibniz from 1671 to 1697 comprises 157 letters. With Becher, Crafft was more of an intermediary, but also a rival, and their relation was more strained.88 Crafft, however, writes to Leibniz on 20 November 1677 that he and Becher had become “best friends” and share all their secrets.89 Crafft notes that Becher “has not been unhappy with many mechanical inventions: among others, he has greatly improved the existing iron stocking instrument, and has found it perfect, by making it from wood, so that it far exceeds the iron ones due to many reasons, and can be made and maintained at a lower cost than the others […] I might bring one in natura.”90 On the same day, Crafft writes to Martin Elers, describing Becher’s ͤ ͤ dreyſſig Stucke laſſen machen: es ſeyn die Inſtrumenta ſehr theuer/ angeſehen das Stuck zum wenigſten auff hundert Rthlr. kommt/ haben ſehr viel entia, und ſeyn von lauterem Eyſen gemacht/ ͤ auch ſehr wandelbar/ und iſt allzeit was daran zu ficken/ ſiehaben ſehr viel ſtahlerne Federn/ ͤ ͤ welche Urſach ſeyn/ daß man nit wol wullene Strumpffe darauff arbeiten kan/ dieweil ſie die Wolle ͤ nicht wol zwingen konnen. Ich habe derohalben ein ander Inſtrument erfunden/ welches ausͤ genommen der Nadeln und Zancker/ von lauter Holtz iſt/ und keine eintzige Feder hat/ derentwegẽ ͤ gantz unwandelbar iſt/ geſchwind und leicht darauff zu arbeiten/ und koſtet zum hochſten in allem ͤ ͤ zwantzig Rthlr. man kan taglich ein paar Strumpfe darauff machen.” I thank Michael Lorber for his help with the translation. 86 See also (Henson 1831: 38–39). 87 However, Hills describes that at the end of the 17th century, there was actually a shift in the reverse direction, in how the stocking frames were produced: no longer from wood, but rather from metal: “The needles must have been fner, and apparently they were soldered into brass combs. The jacks and sinkers must have been made from thin sheet iron or brass instead of wood […]” (Hills 1989: 178). 88 See (Smith 1994: 114). 89 (A III2: 269): “[…] sindt wir [die] besten freunde, vnd stehen mir alle deßen Secreta offen.” 90 Ibid.: “[Er] ist auch in etlichen Mechanischen inventionen nicht vnglucklich gewesen: vnter andern hat Er die bewuste eysene Strumpf-instrumenta sehr verbeßert, vnd perfect außgefunden, wie dieselbe von holtz also zue machen, daß Sie die Eysene vmb vielerley vrsachen weit vbertreffen, vnd mit leichtern kosten ehender alß von den andern eines gemachet vnd vnterhalten werden kann […] [Ich] bringe aber vielleicht eines in natura mit von hier.”

5.3

Leibniz on Tunics and Stockings

371

wooden stocking machine in almost the same words, and asking him for possible fnancing to produce this machine.91 Whether or not Leibniz indeed saw Becher’s stocking frame is not clear. One may ask whether Leibniz’s own description of the stocking frame was a description of Becher’s frame. The answer is no: Becher describes his machine as not having any springs, and since Leibniz explicitly mentions the “ressort” (i.e., the spring) in his description, he must have been describing a different stocking frame. A year later, on 24 December 1678, Crafft writes to Leibniz and recounts three of Becher’s inventions. One of them is again the stocking machine: “His [Becher’s] wooden stocking instrument is so perfected that it is not possible to make it [the stocking] so well with a free hand.”92 *** Becher’s and Crafft’s fascination with the stocking frame may have contributed to Leibniz’s interest in this machine. Returning to Leibniz’s own writings on the stocking frame, one should add the letters Leibniz and Vagetius wrote to each other in 1687, stating that the future edition of Texturæ Contemplatio should be supplemented with a description of this machine. To recall, there Leibniz underlines the coupling of “theory with praxis,” which alludes to the discussion on how mechanical inventions can improve man’s working conditions.

5.3.3

Leibniz on the Ribbon Loom

The stocking frame was not the only textile machine described by Leibniz; another that is present in his writings is the ribbon loom, which was discussed in Sect. 2.1.2. In the early 1680s, Crafft was already corresponding with Leibniz about the great potential that lies in these machines, informing him on 6 December 1680 of the following: “In re textoria hatt [Crafft] nun miracula vnter handen, es scheinet, daß der gantzen wellt eine newe lection werde vorgeben ratione usus, ist es in hoc genere der rechte lapis philosophicus” (A III3: 293). Crafft, who names this machine also “lapis textorius” (ibid.: 341, 353, 643) or “Res Spigilica” (ibid.: 472, 476, 570) and praises this machine to be found in a state of “perfection” (ibid.: 512), sends Leibniz a fabric sample and recommends that he would consult a Passementerie weaver (“Bordewirckers”). However, in December 1682, Crafft also reports that he has to stop working with his instruments, since the fabrics produced have gone out of fashion, and he must therefore have a modifed machine built (ibid.: 760). Notwithstanding Crafft’s diffculties, Leibniz still valued these looms as what may improve working conditions. Interestingly, Leibniz stresses years later, in ca. 1706, the mathematical principles behind this machine. Discussing an Ibid.: 271: “Ob und wieviel sie daran Spendiren wollen, sondire er, so komme vielleicht selbsten über.” 92 Ibid.: 589: “Sein holtzernes Strumpf-Instrument sey in solcher perfection, daß nicht muglich so guth auß freyher hand zue machen.” 91

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“ingenious instrument of weavers” (“textoribus ingeniosoribus instrumentum”), also termed “Spigilicum” – hence, the ribbon loom, Leibniz mentions it concerning how the friction of this machine can be reduced, and notes the following discovery of Ole Rømer from 1674 (Leibniz 1906: 118), that cogwheels with epicycloidal teeth revolve with a minimum of friction.93 In a manuscript titled Discussion d’une question utile et curieuse, most probably from 1678,94 Leibniz notes that “it is necessary to admit the introduction of instruments, which simplify work, and by means of which one man can do as much as several men.”95 However, he then lists several cases in which weaving machines— referring implicitly to the Mühlstühle and Schnürmühlen, i.e., the ribbon looms,— were banned from use for fear that this would lead to unemployment, though for Leibniz, the advantage of these machines and instruments was the resulting increase in man’s capacities (“l’augmentation de son pouvoir”).96 The economic advantage and speed of these knitting and weaving machines (compared to manual work) are emphasized in the notes Leibniz wrote in September 1688, preparing for a lecture in the presence of Kaiser Leopold I who—to recall— issued the edict in 1685 forbidding the use of several different types of weaving machines, especially the ribbon looms (see Sect. 2.1.2). Leibniz remarks, after describing the achievement of the sciences, that there are inventions coming from the “practica Artium […] whose uses are illuminating. Accordingly, I have many new inventions, some of which are my own, some of which are the work of others, but I have revealed them only to a few.”97 The frst three machines mentioned are Leibniz’s own “Machina Arithmetica,” a machine called a Machinam deciphratoriam, and various weaving machines: “One has people who have made such advancements with Machinis Textoriis, so that foral ribbons and cloths [textiles] can be produced with incredible convenience and speed, and little of this is made in Germany, but rather by foreigners […].”98 Leibniz refers later in this passage to “Bandmühlen,” i.e., the ribbon looms. This passage not only suggests the economic It should be noted that the attribution of the above claim to Rømer appears in the 1710 volume of Miscellanea Berolinensia (Leibniz 1710: 315). 94 While in (A IV3, N. 63) the text is dated as a text from 1687, it was most probably written in 1678, since it refers to a decree from Hanau issued in this year. I thank Charlotte Wahl for pointing this out; see also Sect. 2.1.2. 95 (A IV3, part B: 491) “[…] il faut admettre l’introduction des instrumens, qui abregent le travail, et par le moyen des quels un seul homme peut faire autant que plusieurs.” 96 Ibid.: 492. 97 (A IV4: 68): “Bishehr von Theoreticis so den grund zu aller praxi legen, nun komme auff practica Artium selbsten, und solche Erfndungen deren Nuzen alsbald erhellet. Habe demnach viel Neue erfndungen, so theils meine inventiones, theils von andern hehrkommen, aber noch wenigen bekand.” 98 Ibid.: “Man hat Leute an der Hand, die es in Machinis Textoriis weit gebracht, also daß die geblümte fgurische bande und Zeuge mit unglaublichen Vortheil und geschwindigkeit zu verfertigen, und weilen dergleichen wenig in Teutschland sondern alles bey frembden gearbeitet wird […].” 93

5.3

Leibniz on Tunics and Stockings

373

advantage of these machines;99 it also shows how highly Leibniz thought of the Machinis Textoriis, considering them to be as important as his own calculating machines. Similar arguments appear in a letter Leibniz wrote in 1699, mentioning there also the stocking frame, noting that “some people object to this kind of laborsaving machinery, claiming that it makes the poor breadless. For this reason, a few years ago in Regensburg, stocking and ribbon mills [die Strumpf und bandmuhlen] were banned. But […] this ban has had little success.”100 However, it is not only the economic advantage that should be considered: in a letter from 1705, Leibniz remarks on how the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences would beneft from a (technical) description of the “Artes mechanicae” and the weaving-dependent “Manufacturen,” a description which was not yet available. To begin with this description, Leibniz proposed that the stocking frame (“Strumpfstricker instrument”) be presented and described clearly in order not only to conceive of it and its use as a whole, but also to understand every “strange” part of it via textual description and fgures, as he himself had done with his own description, as noted above.101 *** One can therefore pinpoint two main directions in Leibniz’s thinking on textiles, which might be seen as opposing each other: frst, his interest in the mechanization of the working artisanal processes and in how these machines work, and a comparison of these processes to computation machines. This is to be seen in several of his refections: his interest in distinct, clear notions, which is also infuenced from Jungius, the description of all of the parts of the stocking frame as well as how it operates in practice, and his insistence on adding a mechanical description of this machine in the new edition of Texturæ Contemplatio. This thought direction is certainly also to be seen in the parallels Leibniz draws between the stocking frame and his own calculation machines. On this basis, one should be able to develop a mathematical explanation of the machines involved (e.g., the stocking frame) and of the fnal product (e.g., fabrics and their geometric regularity). This direction is also to be seen in Jungius’ suggestion that clear notions with respect to knitting can be developed once one understands the order and position of the threads, a suggestion which Leibniz must have appreciated.

In 1695, Leibniz stresses the economic importance and advantages of linen production in Germany (A I11: 167–169). See also (Robinet 1994: 267). 100 (A III8: 261): “Plusieurs trouvent à redire contre ces sortes de machines qui épargnent le travail des hommes, pretendant qu’on oste le pain aux pauvres. C’est pourquoy on defendit il y a quelques années `a Ratisbonne les machines `a rubans et `a bas, die strumpf und bandmuhlen. […] cette défense n’a gueres eu d’effect […].” 101 (A I25: 190): “Und den anfang zu machen, so wolte man den H. Professor ersuchet haben, das so genante Mestier, Strumpfstricker instrument deutlich zubeschreiben und vorzustellen, daß man es sowohl perspectivisch im ganzen, als auch iedes theil absonderlich sehen und deren usum mit der ganzen invention aus der beschreibung und den fguren verstehen könne […].” 99

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In addition, if we take into account Leibniz’s statement from 1676, that his calculating machines carry over “the work of the mind to wheels,” together with another one of his statements regarding his stepped reckoner, that it relegates mechanical activity, such as calculation, to the machine,102 one may claim that both machines—the stocking frame and the stepped reckoner—free the body and mind from repetitive actions, leaving the artisan or the scholar time for free refection. However, taking into account that the stocking workers had to count the ‘rows’ that they were knitting with the stocking frame and constantly treadle the machine, one may wonder how this machine left any time for free refection. Moreover, from Leibniz’s own description of how one operates the stocking frame, one can see that he was very aware of its operation being highly repetitive; see (LH 38: fol. 101r): “Ainsi voila qui est fait pour cette fois, et pour recommencer, il faut recrocher le mestier.”103 Therefore, one may at least claim that both instruments relegate—at least in theory—the artisanal or manual work to a machine—a relegation that would also resolve the linguistic confusion introduced by Leibniz when discussing the various textile-related practices. This resolution would indeed follow, since the construction of these machines would not only relegate calculation, mechanical and manual operations to a machine; it would also—as a precondition of this—impose a necessary clarifcation of processes and actions. In that respect, it is notable that a similar statement on freeing man from memorizing calculations and mechanical operations also appears in the notation book for weavers written in 1799 by the weaver Friepes. To recall from Sect. 2.1.3, Friepes indicates that weavers who do not have time to think can, with the help of the notation introduced in his book, relegate the thinking on weaving processes to the written notation. The second direction of thought can be seen when Leibniz employs textile metaphors: these posit the folded tunic as a metaphor for a never-ending transformation. The organic machines—the weaving spider and the weaving silkworm, mentioned briefy above—cannot be accounted for using a mathematical or mechanical description, since they certainly cannot be decomposed to their basic constituent parts. They evolve, transform, their texture constantly changes, they fold and unfold themselves. This activity, one may claim, can never be relegated to a machine.

In a 1685 manuscript titled Machina arithmetica, Leibniz describes the advantages of his calculating machine as follows: “it [the machine] will be desirable to all who are engaged in computations which, it is well known, are the managers of fnancial affairs, the administrators of others’ estates, merchants, surveyors, geographers, navigators, astronomers, and [those connected with] any of the crafts that use mathematics” (Smith 1959: 180). In a later passage in which he describes the machine’s various uses by and advantages for geometers, astronomers, and opticians, he notes the following: “For it is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation, which could be safely relegated to anyone else if the machine were used” (ibid.: 181). 103 Leibniz however does not mention that this repetitive artisanal work caused various illnesses. Note that Leibniz was in contact with Bernardino Ramazzini and knew of the frst edition of his book De Morbis Artifcum Diatriba from 1700 (see the letters in: A III8, N. 7, 8, 31, 51 etc.). Only the second edition discusses illnesses of weavers (see Sect. 2.1.1), so it is not clear whether Leibniz was aware of such diseases. Nevertheless, Leibniz does note the specifc illnesses of mine workers (A III8: 373). 102

5.4

5.4

Rereading Texturæ Contemplatio: a Fabric Unraveled

375

Rereading Texturæ Contemplatio: a Fabric Unraveled

Similar to Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, one can detect various directions of thought in Leibniz’s conception of textiles and textile machines. In this sense, those conceptions and the way they relate to, refect and interact with each other may also be considered rhizomatic. Indeed, the two above-described main directions in Leibniz’s thinking on textiles are not entirely opposed to each other, but they do sustain tense relations, as the silkworm, for example, is eventually also a “weaving machine,” but its way of evolving cannot be described similarly to the repetitive, mechanical way in which the stocking frame was described by Leibniz. But while the rhizomatic structures in Jungius’ and Leibniz’s thinking on textiles and weaving have affnities with each other, seen for example in how both considered clear and confused notions, it is clear that Leibniz situated Jungius’ conceptions in general, and his Texturæ Contemplatio in particular, in another confguration. This is seen not only with Leibniz’s refections on the stocking frame, a machine which is not mentioned at all in Texturæ Contemplatio, but also with Leibniz’s emphasis on the possible mathematical domains (combinatorics, geometry) which may account for weaving and knitting, or for weaves and tapestry. The fact that Leibniz insisted that mathematical descriptions of certain textile machines (for example, the stocking frame) or of certain fabrics be added to Texturæ Contemplatio shows that he thought of publishing an edition of Texturæ Contemplatio (also) as a more mathematical treatise. Why Texturæ Contemplatio was never eventually edited or published is not known. Several scholars gave up the project of its editing, and one may conjecture that Leibniz’s own convoluted thought on it—that this manuscript should provide both philosophical insights and mathematical theory, that it should deal with both organic and man-made weaving and textile machines, or that it may present both the texture of animals and their never-ending metamorphosis—did not contribute to or further promote its editing or publication. However, I do not claim here that Texturæ Contemplatio is a project whose publication ended in failure, or was completely forgotten. While it can be considered as precarious, it was not burnt or purposefully set aside; rather, it did have a community of readers, even if only a small one, and it did fnd its place in Leibniz’s philosophy, as well as in his other refections on weaving. This place, as noted above, was certainly not identical to Jungius’ confguration of thought. In that sense, the fact that Leibniz resituated Texturæ Contemplatio in his own thinking and writings may indicate that Texturæ Contemplatio itself, and the ideas unfolded in it, can be likened to an unraveled fabric: this manuscript survived, but only partially, and its ideas were integrated in different frameworks of thought, explicitly refecting later philosophical conceptions, technological developments and changing social conditions. In that sense, Texturæ Contemplatio is a rhizomatic fabric which, during the entire 17th century, was woven and rewoven, raveled and unraveled.

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5.5 Appendix: Leibniz’s Notes on the Stocking Frame The following is a transcription of Leibniz’s notes on the stocking frame from LH 38, folios 100r and 101r; Leibniz’s drawing of the stocking frame itself is shown in Fig.  5.7. The notes are undated; the 17th century orthography, the crossed-out words and the size of the handwriting are all preserved. All of the superscripted words were written in this way by Leibniz, above the preceding word written in the normally sized handwriting. Most of the notes written by Leibniz in the margins are added as footnotes, unless stated otherwise. Parentheses were added by Leibniz, whereas square brackets are my own additions.104 [beginning of fol. 100r] In the right margin of fol. 100r, next to the frst paragraph, Leibniz writes the following explanation: Le mestier est proprement cette partie de la machine qui est mobile et portée du grand ressort; cette porte les platines. Mais les eguilles sont immobiles. The main column of fol. 100r: Le bas est attaché aux éguilles, pour continuer donc à travailler, il faut crocher le mestier, c’est à dire il faut appuyer du pied sur une des marches à costé (car il y en a trois, 2 à costé et une au milieu) et car une corde va de la marche jusqu’au ressort ou balancier qu’il fait pour plier, et par là, les éguilles qui est tout le mestier qui estoit lache, devient roide et ferme. C’est à dire le grand ressort du milieu qui porte le métier, et qui estoit auparavant dans son estat naturel, et obeissait facilement, est a présent forcé et bandé en sorte qu’il n’obéit plus [fa]cilement.105 [A]lors donc quand le mestier est en repos, je prends ma soye, et la couche sur les eguilles tout du long, estant couchée sur les eguilles, pendant ce temps j’ay toujours tenu un pied sur la marche d’en bas ; maintenant je met le pied sur la marche d’en haut, +,106 et par là je fais courir le chevalet. C’est à dire il y a une poulie qui fait aller une corde qui mene le chevalet avec elle, et ce chevalet passe en dessous de la queue des ondes, qui sont attachées par le milieu avec une broche de fer, qui passe tout au travers; par ce moyen le devant des ondes est baisse [baissé] avec ses pla ses deux platines, car dans chaq[ue] onde le devant est fendu, et il y a une separation en deux, et il y a deux platines attachées dans les deux parties de la separation attachée avec un clou de cuivre qui passe tout au travers. Ces deux platines sont tombées et pressent le fl en bas de l’éguille qui se trouve justement entre ces deux platines. Mais entre les deux ondes il y a un plomb qui porte aussi ses platines, deux trois

I warmly thank Suzanne Lassalle for transcribing these two folios. The last sentence was written in a smaller script. 106 The following sentence is found in the right margin: “+ tantost l’une tantost l’autre marche est en haut selon le costé où est le chevalet.” 104 105

5.5

Appendix: Leibniz’s Notes on the Stocking Frame

377

deux ou trois platines. Mais ces platines ne font rien encor que de servir de nombre et tenir le flet ferme; car les platines des ondes, quand elles sont tombées, sont bien plus basses.107 Le fl estant pris, je baisse le mestier un peu, pour le delivrer du crochet qui le tenoit. Je serre le pouce, c’est-à-dire avec le pouce je presse une petite barre de fer piece de fer qui tient à une barre de fer laquelle baisse la queue des ondes, et releve par là les platines qu ce qu’on appelle décrocher le mestier. En le faisant, il faut l’am on l’amene un peu à soy, et par la on amene le fl dessous la pointe de l’éguille. À cette heure, je serre le pouce et c’est à dire je presse une piece de fer, qui appuye sur la queue des ondes ce qui releve les platines tombées et les fait mettre tout egal avec les platines des plombs. [end of fol. 100r] [beginning of fol. 101r] Cela le fait fait pendant tout ce temps le mestier est comme suspendu, car j’ay appuye [appuyé] toujours du pied su sur la marche,F 108 et je tiens le pouce serré avec la main, de peur que les platines ne retombent; Maintenant je afn d’arrester le mestier, je frappe trois coups de mon mestier, sur la soye, ou contre les eguilles immobiles, et par la, je presse la soye bien fort dans la teste des éguilles, et la fais bander. Car les eguilles sont immobiles et ne tiennent point au mestier qui tient les platines. A cette heure j’oste un pied sur la marche d’en haut, qui est tantost le gauche, tantost le droit, selon le costé du chevalet. L’autre pied demeure cependant toujours sur l’autre marche. C’estant Ayant donc osté le pied, je puis remettre mon métier en haut, et le ressort grand ressort, (qui est dans tout dans le milieu) n’estant plus forcé le tient Cl suspendu, en son repos. Maintenant je presse avec le pied libre sur la marche du milieu, et appuye sur une barre de fer, qui tombe de travers sur toutes les pointes des eguilles, lesquelles eguilles ont un trou ou tente, qu’on appelle chasse; et la pointe presse en bas, entre dans cette chasse, et le fl de soye est comme enfermé dessous la pointe. Pendant tout ce temps la, le bas demeuroit toujours sur les éguilles en arriere, maintenant je l’amane a moy, sur la pointe des éguilles, jusqu’à la barre, qui presse à peu pres au milieu entre le teste et la pointe. Cela fait, j’oste le pied de la marche du milieu; pour oster la ba la barre, qui va elle meme en haut (par le moyen d’un contrepoids et d’une poulie de derrière) et j’amene le mestier encor plus, et tout avant afn que le f le bas tombe tombe par dessus l’autre mail [maille] que je viens de faire dessous la pointe. Cependant la barre estant osté le[s] pointes se sont relevées et sont sorties des chasses. The symbol # appears between the words “plus” and “basses.” The following sentence is written in the right margin, symbolized with the letter F: “mais peu, et sans presser fort le ressort.” 107 108

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Ainsi voila qui est fait pour cette fois, et pour recommencer, il faut recrocher le mestier. C’est a dire je le tient vers moy et en meme temps j’appuye du pieds sur la marche d’embas. par la je plie le grand ressort, et fais descendre le mestier ; et je le pousse en arriere et par la il se met sur son crochet; C’est a dire j’oste le pied de la marche, et par la il le releve luy meme par le moyen du grand ressort, et le remet sur son crochet; et les platines des plombs qui jusqu’icy n’avoient rien fait, que presser la soye en avant lorsqu’en frappe, sans la baisser en bas. De là pace lorsqu’on recroche le mestier on le baisse, et en le baissant toutes, platines soit des ondes ou des plombs qui sont toutes égales parce que je serre le pouce, attrapent le bas avec c’est-à-dire le mail nouveau, avec lequel il est suspendu à l’éguille et le ramènent en arrière pour recommencer. In the right margin, to the side of the second-to-last paragraph, Leibniz depicts the needle and writes the following:

a teste c pointe b endroit on presse la barre le[s] cuirs sont fort serrés du costé d’a et baissés du costé de c, mais relevés du costé en bosse du costé de b, pour faire mieux offce de ressort.

Abbreviations The following are abbreviations of several manuscripts, editions and book used throughout this chapter. (i) Works by Joachim Jungius: Texturæ Contemplatio: A bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), in: Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

Bibliography

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(ii) Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A Leibniz’s edited works, to be found in: Leibniz, G. W. (1923–). Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Abbreviated by the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s works. LH 38 Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

Bibliography Albus, Vanessa. 2001. Weltbild und Metapher. Untersuchungen zur Philosophie im 18. Jahrhundert. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Andrault, Raphaële. 2011. ‘Mathématiser la médecine’: les enjeux de la position leibnizienne. In Leibniz and the Empirical Sciences, ed. Juan A.  Nicolás and S.  Toledo, 17–34. Editorial Comares: Granada. Ashworth, E. Jennifer. 1967. Joachim Jungius (1587–1657) and the Logic of Relations. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 49 (1): 72–85. https://doi.org/10.1515/agph.1967.49.1.72. Becchi, Alessandro. 2017. Leibniz, the Microscope and the Concept of Preformation. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 39 (1): 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-017-0130-9. Becher, Johann Joachim. 1682. Närrische Weißheit Und Weise Narrheit. Frankfurt am Main: Zubrod. Brather, Hans-Stephan. 1993. Leibniz und seine Akademie: Ausgewählte Quellen zur Geschichte der Berliner Sozietät der Wissenschaften 1697–1716. Berlin, Boston: Akademie Verlag. Bredekamp, Horst. 2008. Die Fenster der Monade. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ Theater der Natur und Kunst. 2nd ed. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Burkhardt, Hans. 1990. Jungius, Leibniz und die Logica Nova. In Praktische Logik: Traditionen und Tendenzen, ed. Peter Klein, 57–83. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Cassirer, Ernst. 1929. Leibniz und Jungius. In Beiträge zur Jungius-Forschung, ed. Adolf Meyer, 21–26. Hamburg: Hartung. Crippa, Davide. 2019. The Impossibility of Squaring the Circle in the 17th Century: A Debate Among Gregory, Huygens and Leibniz. Cham: Birkhäuser. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01638-8. Dascal, Marcelo, Quintin Racionero, and Adelino Cardoso. 2006. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: The Art of Controversies. Dordrecht: Springer. De Risi, Vincenzo. 2007. Geometry and Monadology. Leibniz’s Analysis Situs and Philosophy of Space. Basel, Boston: Birkhäuser. ———. 2016. Leibniz on the Parallel Postulate and the Foundations of Geometry. The Unpublished Manuscripts. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19863-7. Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque. London: The Athlone Press. Duchesneau, François. 2011. Leibniz Versus Stahl on the Way Machines of Nature Operate. In Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz, ed. Justin E.H.  Smith and Ohad Nachtomy, 11–28. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0041-3_2. Friedman, Michael. 2018. A History of Folding in Mathematics: Mathematizing the Margins. Cham: Birkhäuser. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72487-4. Gensini, Stefano. 1992. ‘Filum meditandi’: Semiotics and Scientifc Knowledge in the Thought of G. W. Leibniz. Histoire Épistémologie Langage 14 (2): 107–127.

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Henson, Gravenor. 1831. The Civil, Political and Mechanical History of the Framework Knitters, in Europe and America. Vol. 1. Nottingham: Richard Sutton. Hills, Richard L. 1989. William Lee and His Knitting Machine. The Journal of The Textile Institute 80 (2): 169–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405008908659197. Hutchison, Keith. 1982. What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientifc Revolution? Isis 73 (2): 233–253. https://doi.org/10.1086/352971. Ishizuka, Hisao. 2016. Fiber, Medicine, and Culture in the British Enlightenment. New  York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-93268-9. Jones, Matthew L. 2016. Reckoning with Matter: Calculating Machines, Innovation, and Thinking About Thinking from Pascal to Babbage. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press. Jungius, Joachim. 2004. Joachim Jungius’ Geometria empirica und Reiß-Kunst, ed. and trans Bernd Elsner. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kangro, Hans. 1968. Heuretica (Erfndungskunst) und Begriffskalkül: Ist der Inhalt der Leibnizhandschrift Phil. VII C 139r-145r Joachim Jungius zuzuschreiben? Sudhoffs Archiv 52 (1): 48–66. ———. 1969. Joachim Jungius und Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Ein Beitrag zum geistigen Verhältnis beider Gelehrten. Studia Leibnitiana 1 (3): 175–207. Knobloch, Eberhard. 1987. Theoria cum praxi. Leibniz und die Folgen für Wissenschaft und Technik. Studia Leibnitiana 19 (2): 129–147. Krämer, Sabine. 1992. Symbolische Erkenntnis bei Leibniz. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 46 (2): 224–237. Krünitz, Johann G. 1841. Oekonomische Encyclopaedie. Vol. 176. Berlin: Pauli. Lærke, Mogens. 2015. Five fgures of folding: Deleuze on Leibniz’s monadological metaphysics. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23 (6): 1192–1213. https://doi.org/10.108 0/09608788.2015.1019337. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1710. Tentamen de Natura et Remediis Resistentiarum in Machinis, quae a corporum superincessu oriuntur, occasione dissertationis praecedentis ejusdem argumenti. Miscellanea Berolinensia ad incrementum scientiarum. Vol. 1, 307–317. ———. 1849. Leibnizens mathematische Schriften, ed. Carl Immanuel Gerhardt. Berlin: A. Asher. ———. 1906. Leibnizs Nachgelassene Schriften physikalischen, mechanischen und technischen Inhalts, ed. Ernst Gerland. Leipzig: Teubner. ———. 1977 [1678]. Harmonica & Phytoscopica Scripta Posthuma Joachimi Jungii Hamburg. In Joachimi Jungii Logicae Hamburgensis additamenta, ed. Joachim Jungius and Wilhelm Risse, 305. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ———. 1989a. The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason. In Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd ed. The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy), ed. Leroy E. Loemker, 636–642. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-94-010-1426-7_67. ———. 1989b. Philosophical Essays. Trans. R. Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 1989c. The Monadology. In Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd ed. The New Synthese Historical Library (Texts and Studies in the History of Philosophy), ed. Leroy E. Loemker, 643–653. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 1990. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil. Chicago, La Salle: Open Court. ———. 2001. Pacidius to Philalethes: A First Philosophy of Motion. In Labyrinth of the Continuum: Writings on the Continuum Problem, ed. and trans. Richard T. W. Arthur, 126–221. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 2007. Phoranomus seu de potentia et legibus naturae, ed. Gianfranco Mormino. In Dialoghi flosofci e scientifci, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. Francesco Piro, Gianfranco Mormino, and Enrico Pasini, 680–885. Milan: Bompiani. ———. 2016. The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, eds. and trans. François Duchesneau and Justin E. H. Smith. Yale University Press. ———. 2020. Leibniz: Dissertation on Combinatorial Art. Trans. Massimo Mugnai, Han van Ruler, and Martin Wilson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Chapter 6

Conclusion: A Fabric Rewoven

Abstract This fnal chapter returns to analyze the encounters between mathematicians, natural philosophers and artisans. Precisely because neither Jungius nor Leibniz managed to consolidate and present the texts they wrote and copied as a unifed, conclusive theory of texture and textile practices, which establishes a solid body of ‘scientifcal’ knowledge, the chapter offers to view such encounters as a never-ending meeting of two domains: the new empirical and mathematical sciences of the 17th century and the artisanal realm of textile practices. Such meetings, so is the concluding thesis of the chapter, unfold each time anew in different ways, whose results cannot be foreseen in advance.

While reading the frst pages of Texturæ Contemplatio, as presented in Sect. 3.2, one may get the impression that this manuscript introduces a unique point of view in the landscape of the emerging 17th century empirical and mathematically oriented sciences, presenting the results of an unexpected but perhaps not so surprising encounter between mathematicians, natural philosophers and textile artisans. This impression is intensifed by the observation that Leibniz also decided to posit these ‘mathematical’ refections as the frst pages in his copy of Texturæ Contemplatio, or when he indicates that the stocking frame was invented by a geometrical genius. However, as we saw in Chapters 2, 4 and 5, the actual relationships between the textile crafts and techniques of weaving and of knitting and abstract mathematical theories presented by Jungius and afterwards by Leibniz were less profound than hoped for, refecting the complex relations between artisans and natural philosophers during that period. On the one hand, the various scholars who strove—implicitly or explicitly—to achieve such a meeting between mathematics and weaving practices: for example, Hartlib, Descartes, Hooke, Jungius, Leibniz and even Sivers, as well as Jungius’ other colleagues and students who read, copied and edited Texturæ Contemplatio, did not manage to offer a solid theory or develop new mathematical domains from these meetings. In that respect, perhaps due to their ambivalent attitude concerning artisanal knowledge, these future projects did not end with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6_6

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any ‘mathematization of texture’, whatever this mathematization might have looked like. On the other hand, the conceptual–metaphorical transfer, seen especially with how the notion of ‘textura’ functioned in various ways—either as exploratory or explanatory notion or model, with Bacon, Comenius, Boyle and Locke—did not consolidate into a concept which was later integrated within the mathematically framed sciences at the end of the 17th century; rather, it was transferred to the anatomical discourse in the 18th century, only to be completely forgotten in the century that followed. In that respect, while one here can point to evidence of the transfer of artisanal-embodied knowledge, or at least of its infuence and reconceptualization, it mainly remained, as I claimed at the end of Chapter 2, on the level of a metaphorically laden concept, which later faded away. The reasons for this fading away or ‘failure’—and I will return to this term later—are varied. As Pamela O. Long notes, this “blurring of two separate realms [practitioners and humanists] did not occur universally through all ranks of society, nor did it change the hierarchical social and political structure of that society.” Long also stresses that the “spheres of overlap and interchange between the skilled and the learned did not occur everywhere” (2011: 128, 131), which is very much true for the skilled weavers and the learned natural philosophers. But exceptions existed, as we saw with Jungius and Leibniz, who certainly met artisans, and were certainly aware of artisanal knowledge being embedded in a community of weavers, knitters and textile merchants. That being said, one should recall that the three theoretical models presented here—the ‘mathematization of nature’, the practitioner–humanist trade and the conceptual-metaphorical transfer—cannot be considered as the only ones that might account for the meetings between artisans and scholars. It is clear that there is an irrevocable distance between a past reality and a current historical reconstruction, and this distance becomes evident in the explication of the theoretical models employed to analyze the meetings unfolded in this book. Clearly, the interpretation might be completely different if other models were applied. Indeed, the diffculties presented by Texturæ Contemplatio (besides its being a precarious collection of notes) consist not only of those emerging when interpreting it according to the above-mentioned models, but also of those stemming from the stunning lack of any written report from the weavers themselves on their practices, i.e., the lack of documentation of the embodied knowledge of the historical textile artisans. Hence, one may very well claim—if we return to one of the theoretical models proposed here—that the lack of manuscripts written by weavers themselves during the early 17th century hindered the creation of such a ‘trading zone’, as noted explicitly by Hartlib. But other reasons for this convoluted artisan–scholar relationship may come into play. Might it be that the artisanal work was considered to have added value which cannot be formalized or abstracted, prompting a fascination with it on the one hand, but construing this knowledge as non-describable on the other? Or rather that the codifcation of artisanal practices should be done by philosophers any not by artisans, since the artisans, so Leibniz, cannot explain their own judgements? Or do Jungius’ writings (but also the refections of the other scholars seen in Sect. 2.2) express a yearning for an artisanal practice which, in fact, does not exist, or exists only in the imagination? Or is there in Jungius’ writings a supposition or

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reconstruction of artisanal textile practices which can always be formalized, a supposition expressed by the statements of the weaver Franz Xaver Friepes,1 as well as by Ada Lovelace? Here it is worthwhile to return to a few of the themes presented in the book, as they express, in other ways, the convoluted relations between artisans and scholars. First and foremost, one should note that the technological advancements in the domain of textile instruments and machines were hardly known or mentioned by Jungius or by the other scholars discussed in Sect. 2.2. There are, of course, exceptions: Leibniz discussing the stocking frame, Hartlib mentioning the (manual) ribbon loom, but the way looms (with multiple treadles and frames) functioned or were constructed was usually not even mentioned. The more local technological developments – the crumb-machine or the drum-machine – were probably not even known to most of the natural philosophers. This lack of knowledge (or ignorance) of these machines may have prompted such judgments of, for example, Bacon or Leibniz concerning artisanal knowledge, since at least the constructors of these local looms had to possess technical knowledge and understanding, in the same fashion that the artisans-constructors of Leibniz’s calculating machines had to understand the subtle mechanisms behind Leibniz’s ideas. Second, it may have been that the convoluted relations between textile artisans and scholars were also prompted by the aforementioned lack of documentation of the artisans’ knowledge. To stress, the various notations developed by the weavers were not only hardly known by humanists or by natural philosophers, but these notations themselves were also local, and hence, one could not have expected a uniform form of notation existing in different communities located in different geographical areas. While for the local communities of weavers, these written notations  – when they indeed existed – were probably mnemonic devices aiding in writing down complex patterns of embodied actions (for example, the order of treadling), for the humanists and scholars who did not know how to decipher them, these notations were almost meaningless. One must have known that these notations signifed a specifc action or order, but one did not know exactly what these notations were referring to. I would like to suggest that this lack prompted, from the side of several natural philosophers, either the invention of their own terminology or notations (see especially with Jungius), or the usage of only very few textile-related terms, such as ‘weft’, ‘warp’, or ‘loom’. Other more complicated descriptions of weaving processes hardly appear in the writings of natural philosophers, though Jungius and Leibniz are certainly an exception. However, there was one textile-related term which was constantly employed by numerous natural philosophers in the 17th century: ‘texture,’ though it was considered much more than a mere technical notion. This leads me to highlight the role the notion of ‘texture’ played in shaping and reconsidering artisanal knowledge by natural philosophers. As shown in Sect. 2.2, the notion of ‘texture’ was much more a metaphor than a mathematizable concept. As we have seen, several natural philosophers used (or even abused) this ambiguity

To recall, Friepes notes that weaving notation is for weavers “who cannot think, who do not want to think, or do not have time to think”. 1

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to account for the structure of materials without reducing this notion to a fnite set of measurable data, hence preserving its metaphorical character. This can be seen in the oscillation between Gassendi’s ‘woven atoms’ and the discussions of whether ‘texture’ is a primary or secondary quality, as well as in the usage of textile metaphors in Leibniz’s writings, emphasizing the various transformations of organisms and materials. In Jungius’ writings, this oscillation can be seen in how the title of his manuscript may be translated: as a ‘contemplation of weaving’ or a ‘contemplation of texture’. But all these metaphorical-conceptual oscillations point towards a metaphorical framework that operates and at the same time prompts the various conceptual endeavors concerning ‘texture’ in the 17th century. *** Let me return to Texturæ Contemplatio. As I noted in Sect. 4.6, I propose to consider Texturæ Contemplatio as a precarious, hybrid collection of facts, as an epistemological assemblage where ‘strange’ and ‘foreign’ facts and refections are brought together, sometimes resulting in the emergence of new knowledge, even if this was not the intended aim of Jungius’ refections. This hybrid character of Texturæ Contemplatio hence also refects the convoluted relations between the artisans and natural philosophers in the early modern period. For example, when one inspects Jungius’ notes on his missing ‘theorems’ and the ambiguous terminology that he invented, then the possibility of an eventual formalization of artisanal knowledge is negated, because the manuscript itself was conceived as open-ended, with notes and drafts being continuously added over the years. Here one must add that Jungius wrote his refections on weaves and treadle looms not only by considering looms that had existed in Europe for centuries, but also by citing from and relying on various sources that were written in different periods, ranging from the antiquity to the 16th century, thus creating an impression of a continuous, never-changing weaving practice. Needless to say, such an impression is highly misleading. But decades later, it was Leibniz who broke this image of continuity by taking into consideration the technological developments of the 17th century textile industry—the stocking frame and the automatic ribbon looms. Indeed, in this respect, Leibniz presented historical awareness: not only was he aware that the stocking frame was a novel invention, spreading throughout Europe during the 17th century, he also detailed its mode of operation; no parallel description of any textile instrument can be found in Jungius’ writings. Furthermore, Leibniz not only called to embrace the potential economic advantages of those technological advances, but also praised them as opening a new mechanical–mathematical horizon, considering them as relegating the mechanical movements of the human body to a machine. By this, he implied that another textile practice (knitting) may be mechanized, indicating that the ‘genius’ character of its inventor does not lie in the artisanal-embodied knowledge of knitting but rather in the invention of these kinds of instruments, which mechanize and automize this knowledge. If one considers Leibniz’s appreciation of Texturæ Contemplatio, then at the same time, it is clear that Leibniz repositioned the artisanal knowledge unfolded in that manuscript in a framework of thought that differed from that of Jungius.

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Nevertheless, the vicissitudes of Texturæ Contemplatio should not be considered part of a series of failed encounters between textile artisans and scholars, being an exemplar of an unfnished or incomplete manuscript on such a ‘meeting zone’ or even ‘trading zone’. Such a trade may have occurred, for example, at the conceptual level, with the usage of the notion of ‘textura’. Although Texturæ Contemplatio was not published, it was read by several scholars and it does inform us of a lively interest of 17th century natural philosophers in this notion, and in several cases, of concrete encounters between artisans, mathematicians and natural philosophers. Furthermore, to designate the non-publication of Texturæ Contemplatio as a ‘failure’ would also be misleading, similar to designating the non-publication of Leibniz’s description of the stocking frame as a failure. Taking into account Hartlib’s, Jungius’ and Leibniz’s notes and correspondences, one encounters a variety of writing modalities on the meeting zones between practitioners and humanists: these writings come in the form of notes, drafts, diagrams, drawings, letters (and drafts of letters), as well as published and unpublished manuscripts. All of these circulated among the various scholars and players. They became shared knowledge and shared practices and hence public, even without being necessarily published. Texturæ Contemplatio and the ideas it prompted can hence be considered to belong to the sphere of public knowledge. To return to the theoretical models presented in the former chapters, I suggested considering the various views on the encounters between artisans and scholars in two ways: frst, as a transition from ephemeral and volatile traces to durable theorems (see Sect. 4.6), and second, using the Leibnizian concept of “Theoria cum Praxi” (see Sect. 5.3). To the frst way belong, for example, Jungius’ theorems, which aimed at both classifcation and an attempt to present knowledge abstracted from the actual manual, corporal knowledge—or, in other words, the adoption and adaptation by experimental, natural philosophy of artisanal knowledge. In this framework, one should also consider Descartes’ call to notice the order of woven patterns or Hartib’s note that Ludwig von Wolzogen “being Mathematical” can easily describe the manual ribbon loom. In that sense, mathematics also meant an abstraction of a complex situation, with the drawing of diagrams or with the invention of notation being modalities of a conceptualization of artisanal knowledge, processes and products. But as we have seen, Leibniz’s call to consider “Theoria cum Praxi” was also unfolded by other scholars in the 17th century, in different ways: with a metaphorical–conceptual transfer which did not efface its artisanal origin, with an examination of the production process and of the artisans themselves, with writing a collection of notes on those artisanal practices—notes, which did not necessarily aim at the abstraction of such practices, with turning toward the materials in the domestic setting and toward the novel textile instruments, or with blurring the boundaries between the organic and artifcial weaving techniques. This does not mean that the meetings between scholars and artisans necessarily consisted of all of those aspects, but it does show that such meetings between weaving and more generally, textile practices and natural philosophy in the 17th century prompted

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never-ending encounters of the two domains—similar to the sea meeting the shore, with the repeated crashing of waves—whose results were never known in advance. Focusing on Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio and its repositioning in Leibniz’s convoluted refections, it is this series of encounters that the book unfolds.

Bibliography Long, Pamela O. 2011. Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press.

Abbreviations

The following are abbreviations of several manuscripts, editions and book used throughout this book. (i) Works by Joachim Jungius: Texturæ Contemplatio: A bundle titled “Textura Contemplatio Auct. Joachim Jungius” (Ms XLII, 1923, delta 28), in: Martin Fogel’s Nachlass, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover. (ii) Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: A Leibniz’s edited works, to be found in: Leibniz, G. W. (1923–). Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Abbreviated by the letter ‘A’ followed by one Roman and one Arabic numeral (representing the series and volume number) to refer to the edition of Leibniz’s collected works published in the Akademie der Wissenschaften edition of Leibniz’s works. LH 38 Leibniz-Handschriften zur Technica, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6

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Index

As numerous pages (and chapters) deal with Jungius and Leibniz, their names do not appear in the index.

A Alcega, J., 62–69 B Bacon, F., 6, 7, 14, 23, 61, 62, 69–76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 88–90, 93, 243, 250, 256, 265, 266, 272, 280, 282, 384, 385 Becher, J.J., 41, 42, 338, 368–371 Beckmann, J., 39, 43, 46 Blumenberg, H., 20–22, 61 Boyle, R., 23, 62, 79, 81, 89–93, 280

F Fairfax, N., 94 Forcadel, P., 63 G Gassendi, P., 23, 62, 79–81, 359, 363, 386 Geiger, M., 53, 55 Grew, N., 95

C Cardano, G., 151, 292, 311 Comenius, J.A., 6, 23, 62, 77, 79, 81, 89–93, 265, 384

H Harlizius-Klück, E., 4, 20–22, 48, 51, 53, 56, 60, 289, 310 Hartlib, S., 6, 23, 42, 46, 62, 76–79, 81, 88–90, 93, 265, 383–385, 387 Hooke, R., 23, 62, 66, 79, 81–89, 91–93, 267, 282, 343, 383

D Descartes, R., 6, 7, 23, 61, 62, 66, 69–76, 78, 250, 256, 340, 343, 364, 383, 387 Diderot, D., 39, 40, 344

K Kangro, H., 5, 7, 11, 237, 250, 255, 275, 278, 280, 285, 339, 340 Kreindl, F., 51, 58

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Friedman, On Joachim Jungius’ Texturæ Contemplatio, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 249, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40881-6

407

408 L Leeuwenhoek, A. van, 81–83 Lins, T., 53–55, 68 Locke, J., 23, 62, 79, 81, 89–93, 384 Lumscher, N., 52, 53, 56, 68, 294 M Münster, S., 150, 227, 311, 312 Newton, I., 62, 94–97, 246 P Plato, 20, 196, 197, 310 Pliny, the Elder, 307 Pliny, the Younger, 213, 311 Power, H., 23, 62, 79, 81–89, 282

Index R Recorde, R., 62–66, 68, 84 S Schneider, B., 4, 53, 83 Siebmacher, J., 65, 66 Sionita, G., 205, 313 Smith, P., 18, 19, 52, 54, 59, 67, 322, 369, 370 Stevin, S., 63 V Vacca, G., 343 Vandermonde, A.-Th., 97, 245, 269–274 Vitruvius, 313 Z Ziegler, M., 52, 53, 55, 68, 294 Zilsel, E., 3, 18, 327