About

Paula Findlen holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught the early history of science and medicine for many years. Her research focuses on understanding how scientific, medical, and technological knowledge emerged and became central to contemporary society, emphasizing the process by which knowledge was developed within humanistic contexts. She is particularly interested in examining a kind of scientific knowledge that did not have an autonomous existence but emerged alongside other creative endeavors, challenging the notion of a strict division between science and the humanities. Her scholarly interests extend to understanding the world of the Renaissance, especially in Italy, where she explores how politics, economics, and culture contributed to society's self-definition. She views Renaissance Italy as a historical laboratory for understanding the possibilities and challenges of an innovative society, drawing comparisons to other periods such as Gilded Age America. Additionally, she has a keen interest in the relations between gender, culture, and knowledge, emphasizing the importance of understanding the historical contributions of women and the evolving discourse on gender and society.

Research topics

• History
• Political Science
• Philosophy
• Art
• Sociology
• Law
• Classics
• Ancient history
• Art history
• Anthropology
• Media studies
• Epistemology
• Archaeology
• Cartography
• Aesthetics
• Geography

Selected publications

• Provenance and Possession: Acquisitions from the Portuguese Empire in Renaissance Italy, written by K. J. P. Lowe

  Journal of Early Modern History · 2026-03-03

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• 5 Giovanni’s Story: Sex, Passion, and Identity in Early Modern Italy

  University of Delaware Press eBooks · 2024-08-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Projecting Spirits: Speculation, Providence, and Early Modern Optical Media

  Material Religion · 2024-03-14

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Epilogue

  2023-03-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This epilogue reflects on nature’s materiality by examining aspects of the natural world that challenge our ability to grasp them, literally and figuratively. Whales and other large marine mammals, icebergs, storms, and more generally weather all fall into this category. What kinds of histories can we write of them? Who writes nature’s narratives and where?

  PublisherDOI

• :<i>The Marvels of the World: An Anthology of Nature Writing before 1700</i>

  Speculum · 2023-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Andrea Lauria. From the Renaissance Studiolo to the Contemporary Museum

  Quaderni d italianistica · 2023-07-06

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Andrea Lauria. From the Renaissance Studiolo to the Contemporary Museum. An article from journal Quaderni d'Italianistica (Esplorando il Pianeta Buzzati. Dino Buzzati a 50 anni dalla morte), on Érudit.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Renaissance of Science

  2023-05-26

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter considers how the evolution of scientific knowledge in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries laid the foundations for the landmark accomplishments of the mid-sixteenth century. The science taught in early modern universities was based on the logic, metaphysics, and natural philosophy of Aristotle, understood through the prism of the commentaries and translations of Averroes. The dislodging of Aristotle was accomplished by the recovery of Greek texts of works by figures such as Galen, Ptolemy, Plato, and Euclid. The dissemination of science was facilitated by the printing of both medieval and contemporary scientific works, including translations of Arabic and Hebrew texts. Developments in mathematics facilitated refinements in mapping and astronomy, and figures such as Mercator developed spherical geometry. Finally, in the early 1540s Copernicus’s On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, Vesalius’s On the Fabric of the Human Body, and Fuchs’s Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants offered a new understanding of nature.

  PublisherDOI

• Collective Wisdom: Collecting in the early modern academy

  Journal of the History of Collections · 2023-07-27

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Journal Article Collective Wisdom: Collecting in the early modern academy Get access Anna Marie Roos and Vera Keller (eds.), Collective Wisdom: Collecting in the early modern academy, Techne 10. Turnhout, Brepols, 2022. isbn (e-book: 978-2-503-58807-0). 323 pp., 51 col. illus. €85 Paula Findlen Paula Findlen USA pfindlen@stanford.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the History of Collections, fhad028, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhad028 Published: 27 July 2023

  PublisherDOI

• On pestilence: a Renaissance treatise on plague

  Annals of Science · 2022 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Classics
  • Philosophy
  • Ancient history
  PublisherDOI

• Father Kircher’s Big Beautiful Books

  Journal of Jesuit Studies · 2022-01-11

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Kircher (1602-80) has always been a daunting enterprise.By the end of his life, Kircher produced a vast scholarly corpus.In 1634, he arrived at the Roman College from war-torn German-

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Rebecca Messbarger

  6 shared

• Pamela H. Smith

  4 shared

• Maria Gaetana Agnesi

  4 shared

• Katharine Park

  Harvard University Press

  4 shared

• Hannah Marcus

  Harvard University

  4 shared

• Aretafila Savini De' Rossi

  University of Illinois Chicago

  4 shared

• Steven Shapin

  Harvard University

  4 shared

• Iva Lelková

  Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy

  3 shared