Katherine Reinhart

This project explores the epistemic and political functions of images in a pivotal early modern scientific institution – the Académie royale des sciences, the first scientific academy in France. It reveals how various types of visual material – from anatomical drawings to allegorical reliefs on coins – were an indispensible part of the Academy’s projects, as well as providing tangible evidence of the scientific ambitions of the French state. This study cuts across conventional disciplinary boundaries between histories of art and science to explore graphic skill, visual and scientific practice, patronage structures, knowledge production, and the political uses of images.