1 de Messange, Claude Mallemant, Discours de Monsieur de Messange sur trois articles du Journal de Trévoux …, Paris, 1705, 12–13 Google Scholar, 15–18.

2 Hall, R., ‘The scholar and the craftsman in the scientific revolution’, in Clagett, M. (ed.), Critical Problems in the History of Science, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962, pp. 3–23 Google Scholar, 21.

3 Smith, Pamela H., The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004 Google Scholar; Long, Pamela O., Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600, Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2011 Google Scholar; , Long, ‘Trading zones in early modern Europe’, Isis (2015) 106, pp. 840–847 Google Scholar. Erwin Panofsky pointed in a classic essay to the introduction during the Renaissance of ‘transmission belts, not only between but also within the manual and intellectual spheres. We can observe the formation of groups and friendships conducive to cross-fertilization between all kinds of people, including the much-maligned humanists; on the other hand, we can observe a combination of many interests in one and the same person’. Panofsky, Erwin, ‘Artist, scientist, genius: notes on the Renaissance-dämmerung’, in Panofsky, The Renaissance: Six Essays, New York: Harper & Row, 1962, pp. 123–182 Google Scholar, 138.

4 See Ash, Eric H., ‘Introduction: expertise and the early modern state’, Osiris, second series (2010) 25, pp. 1–24 Google Scholar; as well as Klein, Ursula, ‘Artisanal–scientific experts in eighteenth-century France and Germany’, Annals of Science (2012) 69, pp. 303–306 Google Scholar – the articles both introduce the arguments and further references; Bertucci, Paola and Courcelle, Olivier, ‘Artisanal knowledge, expertise, and patronage in early eighteenth-century Paris: the Société des arts (1728–36)’, Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015) 48, pp. 159–179 Google Scholar.

5 Following the hypotheses in Rabinovitch, Oded, ‘Chameleons between science and literature: observation, writing, and the early Parisian academy of sciences in the literary field’, History of Science (2013) 51, pp. 33–62 Google Scholar.

6 In fact, Pamela Long has recently argued that there is a great need for works on artisanal reading and writing practices: Long, ‘Trading Zones’, op. cit. (3), p. 846.

7 Roberts, Lissa and Schaffer, Simon, ‘Preface’, in Roberts, Lissa, Schaffer, Simon and Dear, Peter (eds.), The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialisation, Amsterdam: Koninkliijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2007, xiii–xxvii Google Scholar.

8 Other categories of objects, such as instruments, can lead to different conclusions: Bennett, J.A., ‘The mechanics’ philosophy and the mechanical philosophy’, History of Science (1986) 24, pp. 1–28 Google Scholar; Jean-François Gauvin, ‘Habits of knowledge: artisans, savants, and mechanical devices in seventeenth-century French natural philosophy’, PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2008. Other forms of writing could also be important in this world: the painter Charles Le Brun came from a family of writing teachers who also designed letters. Gady, Bénédicte, L'ascension de Charles Le Brun: Liens sociaux et production artistique, Paris: Edition de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2010, pp. 16–23 Google Scholar.

9 While they are strongly associated with Descartes's cosmology, vortices became a common mechanism for explaining the motions of the heavens after the overthrow of the Aristotelian divide between the sub-lunar and supra-lunar world in the early seventeenth century. Le Clerc and Mallemant should not therefore be immediately seen as ‘Cartesians’ (and see below for Mallemant's debates with self-proclaimed Cartesians). See Aiton, E.J., The Vortex Theory of Planetary Motions, London: Macdonald, 1972 Google Scholar.

10 Journal de Trévoux, April 1704, article lviii, pp. 644–647.

11 Journal de Trévoux, April 1705, article lxv, pp. 663–665. Le Clerc dated Galileo's publication to 7 January 1610; this was the date of Galileo's first letter recounting his telescopic discoveries. Drake, Stillman, ‘Galileo's first telescopic observations’, Journal for the History of Astronomy (1976) 7, pp. 153–168 Google Scholar. Sidereus nuncius was published in March 1610.

12 Journal de Trévoux, July 1705, article cxvi, pp. 1253–1256.

13 Le Clerc, Sébastien, Nouveau système du monde, conforme à l’écriture sainte: Où les phenomenes sont expliquez sans excentricité de mouvement, Paris: P. Emery, 1708 Google Scholar; first published Paris: Pierre Giffart, 1706. I shall be quoting from the 1708 edition. For bibliographical reasons, it seems that Le Clerc added considerable material against Mallemant after composing an initial version of his system.

14 Heilbron, J.L., The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999 Google Scholar, p. 115.

15 Modern scholars have pointed out that even in Copernicus's system, the Sun does not occupy the exact centre of the world. This nuance was lost, however, on Le Clerc and Mallemant, as well as on seventeenth-century compilers of systems on which they relied. Compare Kuhn, Thomas S., The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957, pp. 170–171 Google Scholar; or Westman, Robert S., ‘Proof, poetics and patronage: Copernicus's preface to De revolutionibus ’, in Lindberg, David C. and Westman, Robert S. (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 167–205 Google Scholar, 170; with Gadrois, Claude, Le systeme du monde selon les trois hypotheses, Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1675, p. 86Google Scholar. Even a sophisticated astronomer like Riccioli began his descriptions of the Copernican system by claiming that the Sun is in its centre. Riccioli, Giovanni Battista, Almagestum Novum …, Bologna: Benacci, 1651, p. 102Google Scholar: ‘Copernicus itaq. in centro Universi Solem ponit immobilem’.

16 For this somewhat forced explanation see Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 120–129, and 62–65 for a putative refutation of Copernicus.

17 Blair, Ann, ‘Mosaic physics and the search for a pious natural philosophy in the late Renaissance’, Isis (2000) 91, pp. 32–58 Google Scholar.

18 de Messange, Claude Mallemant, L'Ouvrage de la creation, traitté physique du monde, nouveau systheme de ceux des anciens & des nouveaux Philosophes, Paris: La veuve de Claude Thiboust et Pierre Esclassan, 1679, pp. 17–19 Google Scholar.

19 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), preface, pp. 1–5, 20–21.

20 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), p. 3.

21 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 1–7, 175–183, quotes at 2, 7.

22 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 183–188, quote at 187–188. Candles were used by artists to illustrate the use of perspective as a light source internal to the image, and Le Clerc discussed elsewhere the passage of light through globules and its impact on the perception of colour. Bosse, Abraham, Moyen universel de pratiquer la perspective sur les tableaux …, Paris : A. Bosse, 1653 Google Scholar, Figure 15 (between pp. 54 and 55); Bosse, Traité des pratiques géometrales et perspectives enseignées dans l'Académie royale de la peinture et sculpture, Paris: A. Bosse, 1665 Google Scholar, Figure 39 (between pp. 88 and 89); Le Clerc, Sébastien, Système de la vision fondée sur de nouveaux principes, Paris: F. Delaulne, 1712, pp. 79–83 Google Scholar.

23 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 8–12.

24 Schaffer, Simon, ‘A science whose business is bursting: soap bubbles as commodities in classical physics’, in Daston, Lorraine (ed.), Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science, New York: Zone Books, 2004, pp. 147–192 Google Scholar, 158.

25 Quoted in Birch, Thomas, History of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols., London: A. Millar, 1756–1757, vol. 3, p. 29Google Scholar.

26 Newton, Isaac, Opticks, New York: Dover, 1952, pp. 214–220 Google Scholar.

27 Meli, Domenico Bertoloni, Thinking with Objects: The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006 Google Scholar.

28 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), unpaginated appendix, based on Mallemant, op. cit. (18), pp. 216–223.

29 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 189–200.

30 Doherty, Meghan C., the, ‘Discovering “true form”: Hooke's Micrographia and the visual vocabulary of engraved portraits’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society (2012) 66, pp. 211–234 Google Scholar; , Doherty, ‘Giving light to narrative: the use of images in early modern journals’, Nuncius (2015) 30, pp. 543–569 Google Scholar.

31 Wallis, Patrick, ‘Review of Pamela O. Long, Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400–1600 ’, Renaissance Quarterly (2012) 65, pp. 915–916 Google Scholar, 916. For a general statement see Farr, James R., Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 135Google Scholar.

32 ‘It [the book of nature] is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures’: Galilei, Galileo, ‘The Assayer’, in Drake, Stillman and O'Malley, C.D., The Controversy on the Comments of 1618, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960, p. 184Google Scholar. However, even against the backdrop of such a statement, Galileo was interested in quantitative standards of precision measurement from a very early phase of his career. Bertoloni Meli, op. cit. (27), pp. 50–51.

33 Turnbull, H.W. et al. (eds.), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 7 vols., Cambridge: Published for the Royal Society at the University Press, 1959–1977, vol. 2, pp. 297–298 Google Scholar, 301.

34 I follow the terms both authors used, even though they are not completely technically accurate, relating as they are to a geocentric situation.

35 [Claude Mallemant de Messange], Nouveau systheme du monde, s.l., s.d. (1679), pp. 17–18; Mallemant, op. cit. (18), pp. 216–217. Koyré, Alexandre, ‘The significance of the Newtonian synthesis’, in Koyré, Newtonian Studies, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965, pp. 3–24 Google Scholar, 4–5.

36 On the movement of the Sun see Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 25–27.

37 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 94–95, 194–195.

38 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 106–110. Le Clerc claimed the most qualified contemporary astronomers found that the greatest distance between the Earth and the Sun is 11,187 diameters of the Earth, and the shortest distance is 10,813.

39 [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), p. 12.

40 Kuhn, op. cit. (15), p. 270; Heilbron, op. cit. (14), pp. 162–163.

41 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 54–57. The observed value for precession during the late seventeenth century was 50″, though the calculations for obtaining this value could be quite complex. Richard S. Westfall, ‘Newton and the fudge factor’, Science (23 February 1973) 179, pp. 751–758, esp. 756.

42 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), p. 19. Le Clerc returns to this claim several times, e.g. at 141–148.

43 Philip Benedict, ‘The owl of Minerva at dusk: Philippe Le Noir de Crevain, a pastor–historian under Louis XIV’, in Benedict, The Faith and Fortunes of France's Huguenots, 1600–85, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, pp. 248–276, 257–258.

44 [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), pp. 42–43; Mallemant, op. cit. (18), pp. 251–252.

45 Mallemant, op. cit. (18), preface, n.p.

46 By making the fixed stars into planets revolving around their own vortices, the size of the universe could be reduced, thereby removing an objection to the Copernican system – thus argues [Alexandre Tinelis, Sieur de Castelet], Lettre de Monsieur de Castelet à Monsieur Mallement de Messange, sur les deux nouveaux Systhémes qu'ils ont inventez, s.l, s.d. (1679), pp. 3–5. At issue was the argument against the Copernican system based on the inability to measure the parallax of the fixed stars: Schofield, Christine Jones, Tychonic and Semi-Tychonic World Systems, New York: Arno Press, 1981, pp. 190–201 Google Scholar; Helden, Albert Van, Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimension from Aristarchus to Halley, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985, pp. 49–53 Google Scholar, 62–63, 73–76, 87–90, 116, 157–159.

47 [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), p. 23; Mallemant, op. cit. (18), p. 223.

48 Recueil d'observations faites en plusieurs voyages par ordre de Sa Majesté …, Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1693. On the expeditions see Dew, Nicholas, ‘ Vers la ligne: circulating measurements around the French Atlantic’, in Delbourgo, James and Dew, Nicholas (eds.), Science and Empire in the Atlantic World, New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 53–72 Google Scholar; and , Dew, ‘Scientific travel in the Atlantic world: the French expedition to Gorée and the Antilles, 1681–1683’, BJHS (2010) 43, pp. 1–17 Google Scholar.

49 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 68–70.

50 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 80–81.

51 For Mallemant see Mallemant, op. cit. (18), p. 223 (parallax), 144–145, 221 (refraction).

52 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 111–115. Le Clerc did not refer in this context to the greater thickness of the atmosphere when observing objects closer to the horizon.

53 Dew, ‘Vers la ligne’, op. cit. (48), pp. 62–63.

54 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 183–188.

55 Discussion of the passage of a star in Aquarius, Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 78–79.

56 Heilbron, op. cit. (14), p. 98.

57 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 34–39, quote at 36.

58 More broadly see Buchwald, Jed Z., ‘Discrepant measurements and experimental knowledge in the early modern era’, Archive for History of Exact Sciences (2006) 60, pp. 565–649 Google Scholar.

59 Jouhaud, Christian, Les pouvoirs de la littérature: Histoire d'un paradoxe, Paris: Gallimard, 2000, pp. 20–21 Google Scholar, 368.

60 Bryson, Norman, Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancien Régime, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 29–31 Google Scholar; Heinich, Nathalie, Du peintre à l'artiste: Artisans et académiciens à l’âge classique, Paris: Minuit, 1993 Google Scholar; and compare Gady, op. cit. (8), pp. 233–264.

61 This argument is in dialogue with Aït-Touati, Frédérique, Fictions of the Cosmos: Science and Literature in the Seventeenth Century, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2011 Google Scholar; and several recent articles by Ribard, Dinah: ‘Arpenter: Essai d'analyse non procédurale et non discursive d'une querelle du XVIIIe siècle’, Littératures classiques (2013) 81, pp. 269–279 Google Scholar; Ribard, ‘Le menuisier et l'enfant’, Gradhiva (2014) 20, pp. 84–108 Google Scholar; Ribard, ‘La science comme littérature à l’époque moderne’, Littératures classiques (2014) 85, pp. 135–152 Google Scholar.

62 See, for example, the marriage of François Noblesse, a ‘dessinateur ordinaire du Roy’, to Marie-Margueritte Morisse, the daughter of a goldsmith and jeweller, in Archives nationales, Minutier central des notaires des Paris, XCIV 100, 9 June 1697, or the marriage of Thomas Germain, identified as a ‘Sculptor goldsmith to the King’ to Marie Bignon, the daughter of a goldsmith and jeweller, in Archives nationales, Minutier central des notaires des Paris, CXV 386, 7 January 1720. On the milieu see Kaplan, Steven J., ‘The luxury guilds in Paris in the eighteenth century’, Francia (1981) 9, pp. 257–298 Google Scholar.

63 Préaud, Maxime, ‘Biographie’, in Inventaire du Fonds Français: Graveurs du XVIIe siècle, vol. 3, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 1980, viii, pp. 11–12 Google Scholar; Meaumé, Edouard, Sébastian le Clerc et son oeuvre, Paris, Baur et Rapilly, 1877, pp. 8–16 Google Scholar.

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65 Jombert, op. cit. (64), vol. 1, pp. xxxviii–xxxix.

66 Jombert, op. cit. (64), vol. 1, p. xxxix.

67 Clerc, Sébastien Le, Pratique de la géométrie sur le papier et sur le terrain, avec un nouvel ordre et une méthode particulière, Paris: T. Jolly, 1669 Google Scholar; Clerc, Le, Discours touchant le point de vue, dans lequel il est prouvé que les choses qu'on voit distinctement ne sont veuës que d'un oeil, Paris: T. Jolly, 1679 Google Scholar.

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69 Cf. Biagioli, Mario, ‘The social status of Italian mathematicians, 1450–1600’, History of Science (1989) 27, pp. 41–95 Google Scholar, 44–45, 56.

70 Valleriani, Matteo, Galileo Engineer, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, pp. 207–211 Google Scholar.

71 For example, see his work in Recueil d'observations …, op. cit. (48).

72 Recueil d'observations …, op. cit. (48).

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74 Vallemont, op. cit. (73), p. 182.

75 Le Clerc, op. cit. (13), pp. 123–124. The ‘planisphere’ Le Clerc constructed could mean ‘an astronomical instrument, used to observe the motions of the heavens’, such as an astrolabe, or a projection on a map. Furetière, Antoine, Dictionnaire Universel …, The Hague: A. et R. Leers (1690)Google Scholar, s.v. ‘planisphere’.

76 Archives nationales, Minutier central des notaires des Paris, XI 443, 17 November 1718, published by Weigert, Roger-Armand, ‘Documents inédits relatifs à S. Le Clerc’, Annuaire de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de la Lorraine (1937) 46, pp. 305–320 Google Scholar, 315.

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78 Bertrand, op. cit. (73), p. 8 n. 1.

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86 Béguin, Katia, ‘L'académie du grand Condé: Un asile de liberté scientifique?’, in Demeulenaere-Douyère, Christiane and Brian, Eric (eds.), Règlement, usages et science dans la France de l'absolutisme, Paris: Lavoisier, 2002, pp. 25–35 Google Scholar; and briefly in Aiton, op. cit. (9), pp. 72–75.

87 [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), pp. 25, 37–38. For the exact date see [Castelet], op. cit. (46), p. 1.

88 [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), pp. 26–27.

89 [Castelet], op. cit. (46), pp. 1–3; [Mallemant], op. cit. (35), p. 4.

90 [Castelet], op. cit. (46), p. 3.

91 [Castelet], op. cit. (46), p. 3.

92 The Academy's registers drily note that on 22 January 1678 Cassini read his observations on Castelet's new system: Archives de l'Académie de sciences, procès-verbaux, t. 7 f. 135v.

93 [Castelet], op. cit. (46), pp. 3–4. Journal des sçavans, 14 March 1678, pp. 96–97. The tone of the journal author is cautious in reporting Castelet's claims, and does not endorse them.

94 [Castelet], op. cit. (46), p. 8.

95 Tinelis, Alexandre, Castelet, Sieur de, Exposition d'un nouveau sisteme du monde, plus surprenant & mieux prouvé que celuy de Copernic, contenu dans une Letrre de Mr. De Castelet, à Mr. de Saint Yon, Medecin du Roy, s.l., 1681 (Anna Amalia Library, Weimar)Google Scholar. It seems that no copies were readily available in Paris in the early nineteenth century, as the publication is surveyed on the basis of the review in the Journal des sçavans by de la Lande, Jérôme, Bibliographie astronomique; avec l'histoire de l'astronomie depuis 1781 jusqu’à 1802, Paris: Imprimerie de la République, 1803, p. 289Google Scholar.

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97 Bertrand, op. cit. (73), p. 8 n. 1.

98 Mallemant, op. cit. (18), p. 157–178.

99 Tinelis, Alexandre, Castelet, Sieur de, Le Messager céleste …, Paris: L'Académie des Nouvelles Découvertes, Claude Blageart and Laurent d'Houry, 1681 Google Scholar, preliminary discourse, n.p.

100 Béguin, op. cit. (86), p. 33.

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108 Vallemont, op. cit. (73), dedication, n.p.

109 Mariette, op. cit. (105), iii, p. 105. See also Smentek, Kristel, Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in Eighteenth-Century Europe, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014 Google Scholar.

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116 Castelet, op. cit. (99), preliminary discourse, n.p.

117 Jombert, op. cit. (64), vol. 1, p. lxxiii.

118 Moréri, op. cit. (110), s.v. ‘Mallemans, Claude’; Papillon, op. cit. (79), p. 9.

119 Revel, Jacques, ‘The region’, in Nora, Pierre (ed.), Rethinking France: Les lieux de mémoire (tr. Perron, Janine Maltz), 4 vols., Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006, vol. 2, pp. 149–82, 159Google Scholar.

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124 Rabinovitch, op. cit. (5), pp. 43–46.

125 For a brief theoretical statement see Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Principles of an economic anthropology’, in Smelser, Neil J. and Swedberg, Richard (eds.), Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd edn, Princeton: Princeton University Press and Russell Sage Foundation, 2005, pp. 75–89 Google Scholar, esp. 77–78.

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