Conrad Gessner and the Question of the Confessionalization of Natural History

Abstract

Did allegorical interpretations of animals disappear from Protestant natural histories due to what has been described as the literalist mentality of the Reformers? This paper uses histories of animals by (or deriving from) the Zurich-based naturalist Conrad Gessner to argue for two claims: First, that not every instance of the disappearance of allegorical meanings can be explained through the emphasis on literal meanings in Reformed hermeneutics; this is so because moral and mystical interpretations of the wild animals of the Book of Job can be found in the commentary by Gessner’s teacher, Conrad Pellikan. Secondly, this paper argues that moral interpretations of ants persist in Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum, a work based on Gessner’s unpublished notes. Such interpretations are compatible with Pellikan’s moral and mystical interpretations of the ants of the Solomonic Proverbs. What does disappear are the eschatological interpretations of ants found in Catholic natural histories such as those of Ulisse Aldrovandi. I conjecture that the repudiation of the notion of personal merit in Reformed theology could explain this divergence.