Assembling the Scribal Self

Abstract This chapter takes a fresh look at the circle of the Paduan virtuoso and collector Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601) and at his library, which held a prominent place in the European republic of letters. This library offers an ideal opportunity to locate mathematics within the culture of Counter-Reformation Italy and to study the rise and genealogy of the technical expert, seen as distinct from a courtier, during the years of Galileo’s tenure in Padua. The main claim is that early modern archives such as Pinelli’s were instruments of invention as well as formative social spaces. Attention is turned to the materiality of knowledge and information. By combining a reappraisal of key historical actors in Pinelli’s entourage with a new examination of how storing and abridgment helped a ‘mathematization’ of nature, the paper also reevaluates the role of paper technology, lists, and indexical machines.