Ingenuity in the Making explores the myriad ways in which ingenuity shaped the experience, discourse and conceptualization of materials and their manipulation in early modern Europe. Contributions range widely across the arts and sciences, examining objects and texts, professions and performances, concepts and practices. The book considers subjects such as spirited matter, the conceits of nature, and crafty devices, investigating the ways in which wit acted in and upon the material world through skill and technique. Contributors ask how ingenuity informed the “maker’s knowledge” tradition, where the perilous borderline between the genius of invention and disingenuous fraud was drawn, and what were the ambitions of material ingenuity in a rapidly globalizing world.

The book gives a great overview of the different uses and approaches to ingenuity in early modern Europe and may be of interest for historians and philosophers alike. In addition, the book is well written, by leading scholars in their fields, and relies on very relevant sources.

* Centaurus *

Ingenuity in the Making offers a cornucopia of new insights into the ways in which early modern women and men attributed powerful qualities to the processes of nature and the acts of their own bodies and minds. It expands the notion of ingenuity from its narrow definition as intellectual creativity into the much broader realm of mechanical, technical, and perceptual skills, and thus sheds new light on makers and innovators outside the accepted notion of artists who were still struggling for social recognition and institutional acceptance.

-- Christine Göttler, University of Bern

A rich treasure chamber full of carefully crafted gems of scholarship, this collection brings together abundant and original evidence that concepts of ingenuity in early modern Europe had as much to do with the making and materials of art as with the excellence of intellect. The fascinating case studies assembled in this volume illuminate the polyvalent cultural meanings of materials and of artistic processes at this time.

-- Pamela H. Smith, Columbia University

Beyond the individual studies, the volume as a whole coheres beautifully and will be indispensable for scholars concerned with genius and ingenuity in any of its forms.

* Isis *

Richard J. Oosterhoff is Lecturer in Early Modern history at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Jose Ramón Marcaida is Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews, UK. Alexander Marr is reader in the history of early modern art at the University of Cambridge, UK and a Fellow of Trinity Hall.