'Conducing to the knowledge of the universe and trade': the Role of Goldsmiths in Materializing the Early Modern Globe

Description

Goldsmiths and jewelers were highly mobile artisans in the early modern world. In addition to working with precious metals and stones, many also prospected for mineral deposits and examined the material environments where they formed. Focusing on Dutch and British East India Company networks that developed over the course of the seventeenth century, I follow goldsmiths’ travels to regions rumoured to abound in gold and precious gems across the Indian Ocean. The only known sources of diamonds in the early modern period, mines in South and Southeast Asia were already nodes in a thriving Indian Ocean gem trade, which attracted Europeans to the region as much as its famous spices. Goldsmiths who voyaged to the East Indies visited mines and markets, and conveyed resulting insights from Asian environments and interlocutors to their clients and business partners. In addition to these itinerant experts, the domestic goldsmiths’ trade also facilitated the exchange of information about the places where precious minerals formed. Even artisans who had not traveled abroad could still be sources of insight into the nature of distant locales. This paper uses the seventeenth century goldsmiths’ trade to nuance concepts of mobility, circulation, and commodity chains in early modern science. I demonstrate that a combination of local and long-distance exchanges between goldsmiths and jewelers contributed to knowledge of distant parts of the globe through polycentric, multidirectional, and overlapping circuits of knowledge, objects, and capital.

Period	17 Dec 2024
Event title	Colloquium of the Working Group History of Science
Event type	Lecture series, colloquium
Location	Vienna, AustriaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National