This is a book about some of the unexpected people and places involved in cultivating knowledge of the natural world and mastery of scientific apparatus around 1800, taking readers across continental Europe from the Enlightenment to the onset of academic professionalisation. The authors widen the horizon of inquiry by looking beyond the scientific elite of academies and prestigious science sponsored by princely courts, the focus of previous major studies of this time period. They consider people of diverse professions and occupations who advanced scientific knowledge through practical means by devoting their spare time and personal resources, thereby crossing geographic, linguistic and societal barriers. The case studies together demonstrate that such individuals contributed substantially to the spread of new knowledge and found ways to contribute technical innovations to society. The present volume is devoted to these people: the devotees of science.

Nikolaj Bijleveld is managing director of the University of Groningen Business School.Arjen Dijkstra is director of Tresoar; literature museum, archive and library of Friesland.Samuel Gessner is an associate researcher at the University of Lisbon.

1. Devotees of Science: An Introduction - Nikolaj Bijleveld, Arjen Dijkstra, Samuel Gessner
Cultivators of Knowledge: From Europe to Franeker
2. The Changing Landscape of Science in Eighteenth-Century Europe - Klaas van Berkel
3. Eise Eisinga’s World. The Profile of a Devotee to Astronomy between Enlightenment and Romanticism- Arjen Dijkstra
Brokering Knowledge: Devotees of Science
4. Electricity and Enlightenment. The Itinerant Lecturer Martin Berschitz - Oliver Hochadel
5. The ‘Paysans’ Christian Gärtner and Johann Georg Palitzsch. Astronomical Pursuits of the ‘Common Man’ and the Public Image of Science - Sibylle Gluch
6. In Service to Know the World. Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès and a Soldier’s Devotion to Studying the Colonies (1818-1839) - Hugues Chabot, Pierre Crépel, Thierry Dumont, Christian Gaillard, Maryannick Lavigne-Louis, François Renaud, Denis Reynaud, Dominique Saint-Pierre, Thomas C. Anderson
7. Putting Knowledge to Use. Clergy and Science in Denmark and the Netherlands around 1800 - Nikolaj Bijleveld
Mediation of Knowledge: Artifacts and Context
8. The Oratorian Teodoro de Almeida (1722-1804) as a Planetarium Maker in France and Portugal - Luís Tirapicos, Samuel Gessner
9. Imagining our Place amongst the Stars. Visual Astro-Knowledge and Early Modern Understandings of the Universe - Wouter de Vries
10. The Third Book of Wisdom. Eisinga, the Planetarium, and Eighteenth-Century Learning - Fokko Jan Dijksterhuis
Index
About the Authors
Word of Thanks