[In process.]

Abstract

The programme of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum (today the German Academy of the Sciences Leopoldina) was considerably revised less than twenty years after its creation, in 1652. At the heart of this reform lay the Miscellanea curiosa, the journal that ,,the Curiosi" now started publishing. The ,,epistemic genre" (Gianna PoMATA) they chose for the articles in the Miscellanea curiosa was the observatio. Writing an observatio implied singling out a nugget of experience and documenting it in writing. In the first half-century of its existence, rare things of nature figured prominently in the Miscellanea curiosa. Physicians from all over Europe sent in a seemingly endless stream of reports on monsters. This was increasingly considered as problematic by leading members and functionaries of the academy. Their reluctance to accept ever more observationes on monsters for publication in the Miscellanea curiosa can in part be accounted for by reference to the rarity paradox: preternatural phenomena, by definition rare, seemed to be almost ubiquitous in the naturalist discourse of the period. Furthermore, many of the manuscripts on monsters sent in for publication did not live up to expectations. Even more worrisome, the Curiosi could not but note that monsters were still often interpreted as prodigies bearing divine messages. They had the potential to cause unrest and disorder among the populace and therefore had to be handled with particular care.