Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Italian Studies
Episode: Janice Neri, “The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
Description: Before the sixteenth century, bugs and other creepy-crawlies could be found in the margins of manuscripts. Over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, insects crawled their way to the center of books, paintings, and other media of natural history illustration. Janice Neri‘s wonderful book charts this transformation in the practices of depicting insects through the early modern period. Inspired by the archaeology of Foucault but using an approach that spans the history of science, art history, and visual studies, The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) identifies a “...