Art and Science in the Spanish Baroque explores the intersections between two defining chapters in early modern history: the development of modern science and the unfolding of Baroque culture.

This book examines three domains of seventeenth-century Spanish science and art: collecting, natural history and the visual arts, painting in particular. Its topics include the role of images in the creation and circulation of knowledge; the significance of cabinets of curiosities and art collections; still-life and vanitas paintings and their relationship with the world of learning; and the symbolic and religious interpretation of Asian and American nature.

The author focuses on case studies such as the visual representation of the bird of paradise and the passion flower, the expedition of Francisco Hernández to New Spain, the collection of wonders of the enigmatic Juan de Espina, the naturalist work of Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, and the Baroque meditation on the vanity of the world and its expression in paintings by artists such as Antonio de Pereda and Juan de Valdés Leal.

Bringing together the history of science and the history of art, this revised, updated and lavishly illustrated edition of Art and Science in Spanish Baroque offers new perspectives on one of the most remarkable and fascinating periods in history.

José Ramón Marcaida López is a tenured researcher at the Institute of History, CSIC (Spanish National Research Council). His main research interests lie in the relationships between science, visual culture and artistic practice in the early modern period, with a particular focus on the Hispanic world. He has held research and teaching positions in the history of science and history of art at the University of Cambridge and the University of St Andrews. He is actively involved in public engagement, which has led him to collaborate with institutions such as the Biblioteca Nacional de España and the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Sobre la edición original

“This ambitious and enlightening prize-winning book examines the relationship between science and art in Baroque Spain, considering the importance of nature as a subject for both artistic and scientific investigation and production. Richly researched and elegantly and convincingly argued, it succeeds both as a study of scientific and artistic texts and images that provides new interpretations of important figures and works and also as a thoughtful historiographic intervention […]”, Daniela Bleichmar, Isis

“Marcaida allows readers to understand the sciences of the baroque as international phenomena with an intellectual center in Spain. […] Writing with brio, range and sensitivity, Marcaida has made a lasting contribution to European scientific and cultural history”, John Slater, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies

“Arte y ciencia en el barroco español es una obra de referencia para todo aquel interesado en la historia del conocimiento en la Edad Moderna. Como todo libro ambicioso, su valía está tanto en el terreno que cubre como en las vías que abre para seguir investigando”, María Lumbreras, Asclepio. Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia

“La originalidad del libro de Marcaida radica en que trasciende una presentación externa, atractiva visualmente, para llevar al espectador (quiero decir, al lector) hacia un interior más complejo y fascinante. Y en ese interior hay de todo”, José Pardo-Tomás, Andalucía en la Historia

“Con aproximaciones como la de Marcaida, la cartografía entre [arte y ciencia] comienza a llenarse de puentes […]. En esas relaciones, en esos puentes que unen espacios separados, es donde las preguntas sobre el barroco pueden ser reformuladas para seguir alborotando la historiografía”, Luis Vives-Ferrándiz Sánchez, Imago. Revista de Emblemática y Cultura Visual

“With Arte y ciencia Marcaida successfully achieves his goal of describing the complex and multilayered interactions that occurred between two important aspects of early modern European culture”, Scott Hendrickson, Journal of Jesuit Studies

“An original contribution to the understanding of the origins of modern science and a no less original contribution to the study of the history of Spanish science”, Susana Gómez López, Nuncius