This fascinating collection of essays examines how knowledge-making during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Europe was gendered and impacted by changing representations of gender. Another key topic is how knowledge was produced and disseminated among men, women, and various groups in early modern European society. In choosing the title Gendered Touch, the editors are unequivocal in their view that “the essays . . . make no sharp distinction between the social history of men, women and gender, simply because . . . these things are not separable” (7). The introduction, entitled “Gender, History and Science in Early Modern Europe,” discusses key texts of the 1980s by Catherine Merchant, Evelyn Fox-Keller, and others on women and science in early modern Europe, alongside the work of Joan Scott on the nature of gender relationships. This is the theoretical framework used when discussing the individual contributions.
The first part of the book contains two essays that explore the ancient figure of Maria the alchemist, the supposed inventor of the heated bath (bain marie), whose text was known to Europeans via an earlier Islamic tradition. In the first essay, Raggetti discusses the earlier opinions that this Maria/Miriam/Maryam was variously the mother of Jesus, the sister of Moses (Miriam the Jewess), a Coptic slave offered to Muhammad, or a prophetess. In the second, Martelli discusses the early modern fascination with Maria the alchemist and the impact of her ideas on early modern science, including on Isaac Newton.
The second part of the book contains three essays focusing on scientific knowledge-making in the household and pharmacy. These essays emphasize how the making of foods such as cheese and marmalade conserves—processes which were exclusively the domain of women—required expertise in scientific knowledge. This expertise was gained by watching, learning from other women who passed down the secrets of the craft of cheesemaking, and eventually through their own lived experience. Savoia argues that the craft of cheesemaking required a gendered touch, as milk was transformed into cheese through a chemical process that demanded knowledge of the chemistry involved and the scientific methodologies to use during production. The next essay lays out that while upper-class women may not have made marmalade and other conserves themselves, they were expected to supervise the process and often would add the finishing touches to the preserves as part of after-dinner entertainment for guests (Claxton). The domestic world of women dovetailed with medicine-making, and both women of the artisan and upper classes were holders of the secrets of making medicines. These women were medical agents, despite not receiving formal training as doctors or apothecaries (Minuzzi).
The final part of the book focuses on the eighteenth century and the experiences of women with significant scientific knowledge. Faustina Pignatelli was the second woman admitted to the Bologna Academy of Sciences, recognized in her day as a brilliant mathematician. However, after death, she was forgotten (Findlen). Paulze-Lavoiser acted as a secretaire—a cultural agent and notetaker—for her scientist husband, and her participation in the laboratory (at her home) and the thoroughness of her recording of the experiments was an opportunity for self-promotion (Antonelli). This chapter is the only one that specifically looks at a scientific partnership between a man and a woman, so I am not convinced that this volume meets its objective of discussing both men and women and the making of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, that the knowledge required to play a musical instrument involved embodied performance turning on a musician's understanding of the gendered touch required for that instrument makes for an interesting chapter (Fontaine), but one which does not fit well with the volume's theme. The same could be said of the postface, which tries to make too-tenuous connections to the modern day (Govoni).
Nevertheless, this an excellent collection which furthers our understanding of women, gender, and science in early modern Europe. It demonstrates the myriad ways in which scientific discoveries and gendered conceptions of knowledge-making could be produced in early modern Europe, and the opportunities and barriers women faced when participating in that field of endeavor.
