“SISS meets early careers”
A seminar series organized by the Italian Society for the History of Science
2nd series 2025
4.30pm CET

27th May 2025

Dr Duygu Yıldırım (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA)

Title: From Tunis to Florence: Materiality, Everyday Encounters, and the Limits of Knowledge

This paper examines the dynamics of knowledge exchange between Italy and the Ottoman world in the seventeenth century. Focusing on two case studies—Giovanni Pagni, an Italian physician working in a pasha’s household, and Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli, an Italian naturalist who was captured and enslaved in an Ottoman pasha’s service—it highlights the collaborative and dynamic nature of early modern knowledge production. However, not all interactions led to the creation of knowledge, even when intended. Efforts to gain hands-on expertise from enslaved individuals often relied on intermediaries, whose involvement could either enable or hinder these exchanges. This paper explores the complexities and limitations of early modern knowledge exchanges, revealing how materiality and everyday encounters both facilitated and constrained the flow of knowledge at the crossroads.

Duygu Yildirim is assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her PhD in History from Stanford University in 2021. She is the co-editor of Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds (Routledge, 2023) and her articles have appeared in Journal of Early Modern History, British Journal for the History of Science, History of Science, History of Religions, among others. She is currently completing her first monograph, Uncertain Knowledge: The Making of Slow Science between the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe.