Paola Bertucci
Assistant Professor of History and in the History of Medicine
Research Interests
Experiments on humans; Science and spectacle; Science and secrecy; History of scientific collections; History of science and medicine 1400-1800
Current Projects
- Science, secrecy and spectacle in eighteenth century France
- Collections of scientific instruments and material culture of science in the 18th century
- Electrical experiments on human bodies: gender and sexual metaphors in the Age of Enlightenment
Selected Publications
- "The in/visible woman: Mariangela Ardinghelli (1730-1824) and the circulation of natural knowledge between Paris and Naples", Isis (forthcoming, 2013)
- “Designing the house of knowledge in 18th-century Naples: the ephemeral museum of Ferdinando Spinelli, Prince of Tarsia”, in Jim Bennett, Sofia Talas (eds), Making Science Public in the Eighteenth Century: The role of Cabinets of Experimental Philosophy, Brill (forthcoming)
- "Architecture of knowledge: Science, collecting and display in 18th-century Naples", in Helen Hills, Melissa Calaresu (eds.), New cultural approaches on Neapolitan culture, Aldershot: Ashgate (forthcoming)
- "Shocking Subjects. Human experiments and the material culture of electrotherapeutics in 18th-century England", forthcoming
- “Enlightening Towers: Public Opinion, Local Authorities and the Reformation of Meteorology in Eighteenth Century Italy”, in Playing with Fire: The cultural History of the Lightning Rod, P. Heering, O. Hochadel, D. Rhees (eds.), Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 2009
- “Domestic Spectacles: electrical demonstrations between business and conversation”, in Christine Blondel, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (eds.), Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008
- Viaggio nel paese delle meraviglie. Scienza e curiosità nell’Italia del Settecento [A journey in wonderland. Science and curiosity in eighteenth-century Italy]. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2007
- “Therapeutic attractions: early applications of electricity to the art of healing” in H.A. Whitaker, C.U.M. Smith, S. Finger (eds.) Brain, Mind and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, Boton: Springer, 2007
- “Revealing Sparks. John Wesley and the religious utility of electrical healing”, British Journal for the History of Science, 39 (2006), 341-62
- Electric bodies. Episodes in the history of medical electricity, Bologna: CIS, University of Bologna, 2001
