Letters on Natural Philosophy – The Scientific Correspondence of a Sixteenth–Century Pharmacist, with Related Texts

“This edition and translation of the Letters on Natural Philosophy of the sixteenth-century pharmacist Camilla Erculiani makes an important contribution to the history of science, Italian literary history, and the study of early modern women and gender. The critical introduction discusses Erculiani’s biography and the world of the apothecary, while the contextualization of the ideas Erculiani engages with and challenges demonstrates the editor’s deep grasp of the texts that follow. Those texts include not only Erculiani’s letters, but also letters of the Venetian thinker Sebastiano Erizzo, which help make the case for Erculiani’s real correspondence with other philosophers, and the Consilium of jurist Giacomo Menochio, which highlights the precariousness of the intellectual territory into which Erculiani wandered.” -- Meredith Ray, University of Delaware