The Palace of Secrets: B�roalde de Verville and Renaissance Conceptions of Knowledge

by Neil Kenny

Overview

During the Renaissance, different conceptions of knowledge were debated. Dominant among these was encyclopaedism, which treated knowledge as an ordered and unified circle of learning in which branches were logically related to each other. By contrast, writers like Montaigne saw human knowledge as an inherently unsystematic and subjective flux. This study explores the tension between these two views, examining the theories of knowledge, uses of genre, and the role of fiction in philosophical texts. Drawing on examples from sixteenth and seventeenth- century texts, and particularly focusing on the polymath Béroalde de Verville, Kenny provides an in-depth study of the two competing conceptions of knowledge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198158622
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/25/1991
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.86(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Queen Mary and Westfield College, London

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	xi
	Note on References and Abbreviations	xii
	Introduction	1
1.	Renaissance Encyclopaedism	12
1.1	Encyclopaedic ideals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries	12
1.2	Genre: Encyclopaedias and miscellanies	35
2.	From the Encyclopaedia to the Miscellany	55
2.1	Philosophical forms	57
2.2	Philosophical subjects	61
2.3	Readership	84
3.	Structuring Knowledge	90
3.1	Encyclopaedic structures	91
3.2	Encyclopaedic structure under strain	100
3.3	Miscellanies and fragmentation	110
4.	Representations of Nature	126
4.1	Meslange, diversite, and difference in nature	127
4.2	Representing meslange, diversite, and difference	136
5.	Fiction and Philosophy	158
5.1	Philosophical fictions	158
5.2	Encyclopaedic revelations inside palaces and cabinets	162
5.3	Quests inside and outside palaces and cabinets	185
6.	The Status of Knowledge	210
6.1	Ethics	211
6.2	Epistemology	218
6.3	The limits of knowledge	229
	Conclusion	241
	Appendix 1	252
	Appendix 2	260
	Appendix 3	263
	Bibliography	268
	Index	299

Editorial Reviews

"Kenny's erudition is impressive, and he offers many rich insights into the intellectual milieu of the late Renaissance, especially in France....Supplies a far fuller picture of Be'roalde's writings that anything available hitherto."—The Sixteenth Century Journal

"Thorough, precise, lucid and elegant."—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher