Touber Jetze
Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 23, Postbus 716, 9700 AS Groningen.
Gewina. 2006;29(1):53-66.
Many Italian scholars in the sixteenth century studied minerals. This was not only for the sake of increasing geological knowledge. Minerals, like all other natural phenomena, reflected divine order. Minerals were thought of as a broader category than the lifeless substances found beneath the crust of the earth. Stones, generated in animal and human bodies, were included among minerals, as well. The appearance of kidney stones, gall stones and bladder stones in early modern mineral collections point to the religious motives of the scholars that studied them. In this article, I will examine the mineralogical collection brought together and described by Michele Mercati (1541-1593), the so-called Metallotheca. I will map the circles of physicians, scholars and ecclesiastics in which Mercati lived and functioned. I will then investigate Mercati's descriptions of stones, grown inside animals and men. The specific connections between Mercati and the members of the Oratory of Rome, an influential religious organisation of the Sixteenth century, direct us towards a proper understanding of the significance of Mercati's minerals. Certain minerals, including stones originating in animate bodies, were thought of as approaching the supernatural. The proper attitude for the scholar of nature would then be to turn from curiosity into awe and even veneration.
16世纪，许多意大利学者研究矿物。这不仅是为了增加地质学知识。矿物与所有其他自然现象一样，反映了神圣的秩序。矿物被认为是一个比在地壳下发现的无生命物质更广泛的类别。在动物和人体中形成的结石也被包括在矿物之中。早期现代矿物收藏中肾结石、胆结石和膀胱结石的出现，表明了研究它们的学者的宗教动机。在本文中，我将研究由米凯莱·梅尔卡蒂（1541 - 1593）收集并描述的矿物学收藏，即所谓的《金属宝库》。我将描绘梅尔卡蒂生活和工作的医生、学者和神职人员圈子。然后，我将研究梅尔卡蒂对在动物和人体内生长的结石的描述。梅尔卡蒂与16世纪一个有影响力的宗教组织罗马奥拉托利会成员之间的具体联系，引导我们正确理解梅尔卡蒂所研究矿物的意义。某些矿物，包括源自生物体的结石，被认为接近超自然。那么，自然学者的正确态度应该是从好奇转变为敬畏甚至崇敬。
