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SUMMARY:A magnetic world: understanding the lodestone in the early modern 
 Iberian empires - Leonardo Carrio Cataldi (LMU Munich)
DTSTART:20201116T130000Z
DTEND:20201116T140000Z
UID:TALK131755@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Joanne Green
DESCRIPTION:There is a well-known historical narrative about magnets that 
 ranges from Petrus Peregrinus's findings (1269) to William Gilbert's earth
 -magnetic theory (1600). That is\, broadly speaking\, from one of the firs
 t systematic descriptions of the magnet and the magnetic compass to the id
 ea that the Earth itself behaves as a giant magnet\, with two opposite pol
 es. In my talk I will propose a different approach to this topic by addres
 sing the question of how the lodestone was understood\, used and commercia
 lized in the early modern Iberian empires. Drawing upon sources from diffe
 rent domains (natural history\, literature\, legal disputes) my aim will b
 e to discuss how the global expansion of Iberian empires challenged the un
 derstanding of the magnet and its uses. A more general question might aris
 e from this discussion: what would a new social and intellectual history o
 f such a key 'stone' look like\, seen from the perspective of early modern
  Iberian empires?
LOCATION:Zoom
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