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Le Mans aquatique: un paseo urbano con reminiscencias marinas

Por Aina Trias Verbeeck, Institució Milà i Fontanals – CSIC, Barcelona

En el plan de trabajo para la estancia SciCoMove en Le Mans se reflejaba el propósito de rastrear los especímenes de origen marino en la colección del museo de historia natural, el Musée Vert.

Al cabo de pocos días de dar algunas vueltas, ver el museo y hablar con varios de sus responsables, me di cuenta que Le Mans, a 150 quilómetros del mar, pero cruzada por dos ríos -al suroeste de la ciudad confluyen el Sarthe y L’Huisne-, contenía muchas historias acuáticas.

Acercarnos a ellas antes de sumergirnos en las colecciones del museo fue un pequeño viaje para entender el mar y sus influjos desde otras perspectivas, tiempos y espacios de la ciudad y sus alrededores.

Los gigantes del mar

Durante el Mesozoico, hace 165 millones de años, el territorio de Sarthe, departamento cuya capital es Le Mans, estaba cubierto de mar, poblado por grandes reptiles.

A los pocos días de nuestra llegada a la ciudad, el Musée Vert inauguraba una exposición dedicada a estos gigantes que permanecerá hasta el verano de 2024.

Imagen 1. – Cartel de la exposición del Musée Vert de Le Mans

A lo largo del recorrido, podemos ver un centenar de fósiles y réplicas de estos seres que poblaron el lugar durante los periodos Triásico, Jurásico y Cretácico. En la fracción tardía de este último se sitúa la edad geológica Cenomaniense, -100 a -93 millones de años. Su denominación deriva del nombre latín de Le Mans, Cenomanum. Fue introducido por el paleontólogo francés Alcide d’Orbigny en el siglo XIX, al ser los afloramientos de la zona significativos para este periodo geológico en el que se observa la media más elevada de nivel del mar de los últimos 600 millones de años (eón Phanerozoico): unos 150m por encima de los niveles actuales.

En la exposición, como en las aguas de entonces, destaca el plesiosaurio jurásico, descubierto en 1864 en Sain Rémy-du-Val, restaurado y reconstruido para la ocasión. Los fósiles de yacimientos locales se acompañan de restos de ictiosaurios y dinosaurios del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural y colecciones privadas. Algunos son presentados en comparación a otros organismos contemporáneos. Podemos ver una puesta completa de dinosaurio hallada en Aix-en-Provence; cráneos facsímiles de Triceratops y Tyrannosaurus disputando el protagonismo del elasmosaurio francés o una colección de fósiles de las primeras criaturas semejantes a las aves. Una propuesta interesante para conocer a quienes compartieron el paisaje predominantemente marino del Mesozoico.

Imagen 2. Fósil de juvenil de tortuga marina procedente de Líbano, foto de la autora

El mar en los libros: Pierre Belon 1517—1564

Nos comentaba Nicolas Morel, responsable del museo, que quizás Pierre Belon sea conocido ampliamente para los asiduos de la historia de la ciencia, el renacimiento y/o la zoología, pero en Le Mans parece no gozar de gran relevancia.

Una calle y una sala en el museo llevan su nombre. Pocos recuerdan que esas tierras a la orilla del Sarthe, concretamente la comuna Cérans-Foulletourte, unos 20 km al sur del centro de Mans, fue lugar de nacimiento de uno de los aclamados como pioneros de la ictiología, aunque sus intereses abarcaran distintas temáticas, desde la anatomía comparada a la egiptología.

Imagen 3. Rue Belon en Le Mans, foto de la autora

Podemos huir de la designación de pioneros, padres o fundadores de las disciplinas, pero no negar que el legado de Belon es un elemento importante, una bisagra entre los bestiarios y libros de materia médica, los álbumes quizás más bien artísticos de peces y los inicios de los tratados de la zoología. El siglo XVI es un momento clave para las publicaciones de contenido naturalista, y la década de los 50 especialmente relevante por la aparición de nuevos tratados que respondían a nuevas necesidades y nuevas formas de observar, entender y apropiarse de la naturaleza. En este contexto, Pierre Belon du Mans es (re)conocido por ser autor de algunos de los llamados trabajos monográficos de más difusión. Publicó en París un tratado en 1551 L’histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins y otro en 1553 De aquatilibus. Libri duo Cum eiconibus ad vivam ipsorum effigiem, Quoad eius fieri potuit, expressis, ambos con el objetivo de recoger y mostrar la fauna acuática, entonces la gran desconocida.

Lo imaginario, el comercio y la pesca: la Sirène

Dejamos la Rue Pierre Belon llegando a la esplanada y plaza des Jacobins. Al cruzar la avenida Paderborne, a los pies de la imponente catedral, encontramos una fuente, el Jet d’Eau, habitada por una pequeña sirena.

Image 4. Petite Sirène de Suzanne Jean, foto de la autora

La Petite Sirène es una escultura en yeso realizada por la artista local Suzanne Jean, e inaugurada el 15 abril 2013. Al ser la más reciente de las reminiscencias, podemos pensar que resultó un eco de la otra sirena de Le Mans:

El epicentro de este ser antropomorfo lo encontramos callejeando unos trescientos metros. En la esquina de la rue de la Barillerie y la rue Marchande se encuentra un hôtel particulier del 1726, uno de los primeros edificios de esas características construidos en la ciudad extramuros. En su fachada lateral destaca un bajorrelieve que representa una sirena entre las olas frente a un barco. Está catalogado como monumento histórico desde 1931.

La mansión habría pertenecido a la familia Véron du Verger. François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais (1722-1800) es el miembro más conocido del linaje, inspirador de la fisiocracia y autor de varios tratados de economía y comercio: ensayos sobre las finanzas españolas, teoría y práctica del comercio y la marina, llegando a redactar hasta catorce artículos para l’Encyclopédie de Diderot y d’Alembert. Pero debemos buscar los orígenes de la sirena de Le Mans en sus antepasados. Por las fechas, el fundador de la propiedad podría ser su padre, François-Louis Véron du Verger (1695-1780), quien fue secretario permanente de la Real Sociedad de Agricultura de Le Mans. Fue, también, tercera generación de comerciantes de un tejido filtrante hecho de lana, la estameña, inventada por su abuelo Jean Véron (1615-1689), tatarabuelo de François, el economista, quién quizás reflejó las prácticas familiares en sus trabajos.

La tela adquirió gran valor a principios del XVII, lo que permitió la expansión de su comercio a través del Atlántico. Parece plausible que este hecho trajera gran fortuna a la familia y quedara plasmada la prosperidad transoceánica en el relieve de la sirena con los navíos en la nueva casa.

Otro relieve con una sirena corona la esquina de enfrente, donde arranca Rue Jankowski, acompañada de motivos ornamentales que recuerdan las escamas a lo largo de la fachada. Deberemos esperar a una nueva visita a Le Mans para indagar más sobre su historia, si tienen relación o es una emulación tardía de su vecina.

Imagen 5. Bajorrelieve de sirena en Ancien Hôtel du Verger, foto de la autora

La plaza que queda enmarcada entre esas tres calles es conocida como place de la Sirène. En 1991 se instaló la escultura ‘Sirènes’ de Claude Ribot, y son varios los comercios que ostentan ese nombre: un bar, una librería…

En definitiva, la sirena de Le Mans nos recuerda que fue a través del mar que se fraguó la expansión y fortuna de muchos, como el caso de la familia Véron du Verger. El transporte marítimo se convirtió en la principal vía de comercio de bienes y nuevos lujos de ambas indias, y así supuso también la forma en la que pudieron circular objetos, especímenes, libros e ideas de costa a costa.

Para finalizar con una última nota acuática, nos fijamos que el escudo del linaje Véron se compone de tres peces. Probablemente por mimetismo fonético con vairon (Phoxinus phoxinus, piscardo en castellano, common minnow en inglés), pez de agua dulce común en los arroyos y ríos de la zona. Aunque esta especie en concreto no es muy preciada para el consumo humano, si damos un paseo a orillas de L’Huisne, lejos de encontrar sirenas de agua dulce, vemos que siguen siendo aguas en las que se practica la pesca, actividad comercial que tuvo también gran influencia -junto al comercio, coleccionismo y otras prácticas- en la construcción del conocimiento de lo acuático y la configuración de colecciones de historia natural.

Imagen 6. Escudo del linaje Véron, Creative Commons
Imagen 7. Escultura Homme et poisson de Roland Devolder, foto de la autora

Related (re)sources:

Egmond Florike. 2022. Visual immersion: Daniele Barbaro’s fish album and the wave of interest in aquatic creatures in mid sixteenth-century Europe. Notes Rec. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2021.0084.

Goethal, A. 2018. La figure de l’entrepreneur textile dans le Maine: l’exemple de la famille Véron (1684-v.1750), Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 125-2 https://journals.openedition.org/abpo/3849.

Géants, au temps des dinosaures, Musée Vert, Museés du Mans, 2022.

Kafker, F. A. 1989. Notices sur les auteurs des dix-sept volumes de «discours» de l’Encyclopédie. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie. Numéro 7, p. 141.

Perfetti, S. 2007. Philosophers and Animals in the Renaissance. In: Volume 3: The Renaissance (1400-1600). Kalof L., Pohl-Resl B. (Eds). A cultural history of animals. Oxford, New York: Berg. p. 155.

Le Mans aquatique: a city stroll with marine reminiscences

By Aina Trias Verbeeck, Institució Milà i Fontanals – CSIC, Barcelona

My work plan for the SciCoMove stay in Le Mans reflected the intention to track down specimens of marine origin in the collection of the city’s natural history museum, the Musée Vert.

After a few days of wandering around, seeing the museum, talking to several people, I realised that Le Mans, 150 kilometres from the sea but crossed by two rivers – the Sarthe and L’Huisne come together in the southwest of the city – contained many aquatic stories.

Approaching these stories before immersing in the museum’s collections was a small journey that allowed me to understand the sea and its sway from other perspectives, times and spaces in the city and its surroundings.

The giants of the sea

During the Mesozoic, 165 million years ago, the territory of the Sarthe, the department whose capital is Le Mans, was covered by the sea, populated by large reptiles.

A few days after our arrival, the Musée Vert inaugurated an exhibition dedicated to these giants, which will remain open until the summer of 2024.

Figure 1. Poster of the exhibition at the Musée Vert in Le Mans

Along the parcours, we can see more than a hundred fossils and replicas of these creatures that inhabited the site during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The Cenomanian geological age, -100 to -93 million years ago, is located in the late Cretaceous. Its name comes from the Latin name of Le Mans, Cenomanum. It was introduced by the French palaeontologist Alcide d’Orbigny in the 19th century, as the outcrops in the area are significant for this geological period when the highest average sea level of the last 600 million years (Phanerozoic eon) was observed: about 150m above present levels.

In the exhibition, as in the waters of the time, the Jurassic plesiosaur, discovered in 1864 in Saint-Rémy-du-Val and restored and reconstructed for the occasion, stands out. The fossils from local sites are accompanied by ichthyosaur and dinosaur remains from the National Museum of Natural History and private collections. Some are presented in comparison to other contemporary organisms. We find a complete dinosaur nest with eggs found in Aix-en-Provence; facsimile skulls of Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus competing for prominence with the French Elasmosaurus and a collection of first bird-like creature fossils. An interesting set to get to know those who shared the predominantly marine landscape of the Mesozoic.

Figure 2. Juvenile sea turtle fossil from Lebanon, photo by the author

The sea in books: Pierre Belon 1517-1564

Nicolas Morel, in charge of the museum, told us that Pierre Belon may be quite known to those who are familiar with the history of science, the renaissance and/or zoology, but in Le Mans he does not seem to have great prominence.

A street in the city and a room in the museum are named after him. Few remember that this land on the banks of the Sarthe, namely the commune of Cérans-Foulletourte some 20 km south of the centre of Mans, was the birthplace of one of the acclaimed pioneers of ichthyology, although his interests ranged from comparative anatomy to Egyptology.

Figure 3. Rue Belon in Le Mans, photo by the author

We may shy away from the designation of pioneers, fathers (notoriously it is hardly spoken of mothers) or founders of disciplines, but we cannot deny that Belon’s legacy is an important element, a hinge between the bestiaries and medical books, the rather artistic albums of fish and the beginnings of treatises on zoology. The 16th century was a key period for natural history, and the 1550s were particularly important because of the appearance of new publications that responded to new needs and new ways of observing, understanding and appropriating nature. In this context, Pierre Belon du Mans is known for being the author of some of the most widely disseminated so-called monographic works. He published in Paris in 1551 L’histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins and in 1553 De aquatilibus. Libri duo Cum eiconibus ad vivam ipsorum effigiem, Quoad eius fieri potuit, expressis, pursuing the aim of collecting and showing the aquatic fauna, the big unknown back then.

The imaginary, trade and fishing: La Sirène

Leaving Rue Pierre Belon behind, we arrive at the esplanade and square des Jacobins. Crossing the Paderborne avenue, at the foot of the imposing cathedral, we find a fountain, the Jet d’Eau, inhabited by a little mermaid.

Figure 4. Petite Sirène by Suzanne Jean, photo by the author

The Petite Sirène is a plaster sculpture by local artist Suzanne Jean, unveiled on 15 April 2013. As a recent piece, it may be thought to be an echo of the other mermaid of Le Mans:

The epicentre of this anthropomorphic being can be found about three hundred metres down the street. On the corner of rue de la Barillerie and rue Marchande there is an hôtel particulier from 1726, one of the first buildings of this type to be built in the city outside the walls. On its side façade we find a bas-relief depicting a mermaid in the waves in front of a boat. It has been listed as a historical monument since 1931.

The mansion belonged to the Véron du Verger family. François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais (1722-1800) is the best-known member of the lineage, inspirer of physiocracy and author of several treatises on economics and commerce: essays on Spanish finances, theory and practice of commerce and the navy, even writing up to fourteen articles for Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. But we must look further back to find the origins of the Le Mans mermaid related to François Véron’s ancestors. According to the dates, the founder of the property would have been his father, François-Louis Véron du Verger (1695-1780), who was the permanent secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society of Le Mans. He was also a third-generation manufacturer and merchant of a woollen filter fabric, the stamen, invented by his grandfather Jean Véron (1615-1689), the great-great-grandfather of François, the economist, who may have transferred the family knowledge and practices to his writing work.

Certainly, the cloth became famous and very valuable at the beginning of the 17th century, which allowed the family the expansion of trade across the Atlantic. It seems plausible that this brought them great fortune and that the transoceanic prosperity was reflected in the relief of the mermaid with the ships on the new house’s wall.

Another relief with a mermaid stands on top of the opposite corner, where Rue Jankowski begins, accompanied by ornamental motifs resembling scales along the façade. We will have to wait for another visit to Le Mans to find out more about their history, whether they are related or a late emulation of its neighbour.

Figure 5. Bas-relief of a mermaid in the Ancien Hôtel du Verger, photo by the author

The square between these three streets is known as Place de la Sirène. The sculpture ‘Sirènes‘ by Claude Ribot was installed there in 1991, and there are several businesses that bear this name: a bar, a bookshop…

In short, the mermaid of Le Mans reminds us that it was through the sea that the expansion and fortune of many, such as the Véron du Verger family, was forged. Maritime transport became the main means of trade in goods and new luxuries from both Indies, and thus also the means by which objects, specimens, books and ideas could circulate from coast to coast.

To end with another final aquatic note, we noticed that the coat of arms of the Véron lineage is composed of three fishes. Probably by phonetic mimicry with vairon (Phoxinus phoxinus, common minnow in English), a freshwater fish common in the streams and rivers of the area. Although this species in particular is not highly prized for human consumption, if we take a walk along the riverside of L’Huisne, far from finding freshwater mermaids, we see that these are still waters where fishing is practised, a commercial activity that reminds us its notorious role – together with trade, collecting practises and many others– in the construction of knowledge of the aquatic and the configuration of natural history collections, especially marine specimens.

Figure 6. Coat of arms of the Véron lineage, Creative Commons
Figure 7. Sculpture Homme et poisson by Roland Devolder, photo by the author

Related (re)sources:

Egmond Florike. 2022. Visual immersion: Daniele Barbaro’s fish album and the wave of interest in aquatic creatures in mid sixteenth-century Europe. Notes Rec. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2021.0084.

Goethal, A. 2018. La figure de l’entrepreneur textile dans le Maine: l’exemple de la famille Véron (1684-v.1750), Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 125-2 https://journals.openedition.org/abpo/3849.

Géants, au temps des dinosaures, Musée Vert, Museés du Mans, 2022.

Kafker, F. A. 1989. Notices sur les auteurs des dix-sept volumes de «discours» de l’Encyclopédie. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie. Numéro 7, p. 141.

Perfetti, S. 2007. Philosophers and Animals in the Renaissance. In: Volume 3: The Renaissance (1400-1600). Kalof L., Pohl-Resl B. (Eds). A cultural history of animals. Oxford, New York: Berg. p. 155.

Seminario: “Colecciones científicas en movimiento”

El lunes 12 de diciembre de 9 a 14 horas se brindará el Seminario del proyecto RISE SciCoMove “Colecciones científicas en movimiento. Museos provinciales, archivos y practicas coleccionistas (1800–1950)” en el Auditorio Planta Baja de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo.

El proyecto SciCoMove se centra en el estudio de los intercambios científicos transatlánticos con el objetivo de compartir ideas acerca de cómo se construye el conocimiento sobre las colecciones de los museos. Este proyecto ofrece una visión más compleja de la historia de las colecciones paleontológicas, antropológicas, entomológicas y botánicas de los museos de Europa y América Latina. Está dirigido por las Dras. Nathalie Richard, Universidad Le Mans, e Irina Podgorny, CONICET – Museo de La Plata.

En este seminario los investigadores extranjeros invitados serán: Cristiana Oghina-Pavie, (Universidad de Angers, Grupo TEMOS-FRE CNRS, Francia), Franck Laurent (Universidad de Le Mans, Francia), Alma Hanning (Universidad de Bonn, Alemania) y Amandine Pequignot (Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Paris, Francia).

El seminario es gratuito, sin inscripción y será en español e inglés. Está organizado por el Archivo Histórico del Museo de La Plata y el Proyecto Rise SciCoMove, financiado por la Unión Europea a través de su programa Horizonte 2020 para la investigación e innovación científica y el subsidio Marie Sklodowska-Curie.

SciCoMove Training Session:  a participant’s experience

By Emilia Mac Donagh, UNLP

From the 4 to the 8 of July, the postgraduate course “HISTORIA NATURAL, COLECCIONES, ARCHIVOS Y MUSEOS. SIGLOS XIX Y XX” took place in the Museum of La Plata. As a PhD fellow at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, I enrolled. But honestly in the beginning I was only moved by how catchy I found the name and it´s affinity to my thesis topic. At that moment I wasn’t aware of the fact that the academic proposal had its origin in a SciCoMove workshop/training session. But the surprise could not have been more gratifying. The fusion of both opened the gates of the SciCoMove Project and allowed people with different backgrounds and from different points of Argentina to take a look at the work that’s currently being done within this project.

It was an intense week of hard work and exchanges. The course offered expositions and testimonies by professionals from different places like Switzerland, France, and Argentina. But, moreover, it was marked by the constant promotion of dialogue and exchange among everyone who was involved. And that included those of us who were taking it as a postgraduate course, the teachers, and the PhD student members of the SciCoMove Project.  Being able to debate, share ideas, and co-create with people from different places and academic backgrounds, and who participate in projects like SciCoMove, represents a great opportunity of academic and professional growth.

Throughout the week, Irina, Susana and Natalie invited us to review the history of all museums as institutions, focusing in the particular case of the La Plata Museum, where we actually were. Being inside the museum was not a minor detail when breaking down it’s emergence story, and understanding that it is not as lineal and fluid as it is usually portrayed.

We wandered around the museum, and visited the exhibitions, the deposits, and the archive. For some this implied their first time in the museum and its guts. And for others like me, this meant a known place unveiling new connotations and possibilities. The study and analysis of collections, archives and objects that are or have been a part of the museums allows to revisit and rethink how the boundaries of the scientific field are and have been historically built. From that perspective the course proposed a guide to consider what (and who) are conceived inside those borders as well as how this is constantly being reshaped.

One of the things that blew my mind during the course was the idea of objects in museums and collections as artifacts. This is one of the pillars in which the SciCoMove project strands in order to tell how these objects have been moved around different places.  I was familiar with the concept of artifact and its traditional application in archaeology. Artifact, as a concept is traditionally used in opposition of what is pristine and untouched. So, anything that has signs of being exposed to some kind of human work, becomes an artifact. Of course, all tools found in an archaeological context easily fit this classification. Now the interesting part comes when we define what is this “human work”, and how it impacts the objects.

Sometime ago a friend archaeologist had revealed to me that this concept had many more possibilities, as he implied in his work that the soils and strata where the archaeological objects were found could be seen as an artifact too. And I found this somehow related. Just as the soils, the “natural” objects often found in the museums are normally conceived just as a part of nature, portraited in the exhibitions, or safeguarded in the collections. Then, for example, we could think about a piece of dinosaur bone. It probably has been dug out, reconditioned after, placed in a particular place according to one particular bone structure, and displayed in a room charged with conjectures about it. All those procedures involve changes in the objects, even if they are meant for preservation. When thinking about it, to classify, arrange chronologically, restore, build up, and all other actions that take place when working within museums and collections are human work. The same goes to any type of object, no matter how “natural” or “cultural” we might think it is, from the point when an object becomes something collected, categorised, saved, etc. it begins to be conceptualised. And that is the key to start talking about artifacts, because to give meaning is one of the firsts and most basic human works.

From a historical perspective, with case-study examples and in line with the goal of the SciCoMove Project, the course aimed to make evident that when constructing scientific knowledge, no man nor woman of science acts alone. Neither in the past or present.

At the beginning of the week, Irina Podgorny insisted that we let aside the idiomatic barriers and size the situation to meet other people and even make friends. Following her advice, along the week we saw how the theoretical and conceptual talks slipped out of the classes and continued unto the bars. There´s no better empiric proof than that of what role company, assembly, and the collective play for the generation of knowledge.

Thereby, my bond with museums has a long history. Since I started studding anthropology in the Collage of Natural Sciences, which is associated with the Museum of La Plata. And now I am carrying out my PhD studies considering museums as spaces of science communication and heritage safeguard, and on how to problematize that, within the construction of scientific knowledge. With that in mind, participating of the course has been a very valuable and rewarding experience, especially considering the opportunity to get in touch with the SciCoMove Project.

I have a Bachelor´s Degree in Anthropology by the Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), where I now also taught. In 2021 I got a University Diploma in Public Science Communication, by the UNICEN. Currently I am carrying out my PhD, working in the Laboratory of Applied Ethnography Investigations, and with a scholarship from the UNLP, under the tutoring of Gabriela Morgante (LINEA UNLP-CIC) and Mariano Bonomo (Dept. Arqueología, Museo de La Plata). My thesis centers  on museums as places for the collective construction of knowledge and the heritage safeguard, and takes place in Molinos (Calchaquí Valleys, Salta)

SciCoMove Training Session:  La experiencia de participar

By Emilia Mac Donagh, UNLP

Del 4 al 8 de Julio en el Museo de La Plata, se desarrolló el curso de posgrado “HISTORIA NATURAL, COLECCIONES, ARCHIVOS Y MUSEOS. SIGLOS XIX Y XX”. Como estudiante del doctorado en Ciencias Naturales de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, me inscribí al curso, honestamente impulsada sólo por lo llamativo del título y la afinidad con mi tema de estudio. Ignoraba, al momento, que partía de la propuesta de un taller y un curso de formación de SciCoMove con título homónimo. Pero la sorpresa no pudo haber sido más grata.  La fusión de ambas instancias permitió a abrir las puertas de SciCoMove, y que personas con diferentes formaciones y de diferentes puntos de la Argentina pudiéramos dar un vistazo al trabajo que están realizando actualmente desde el proyecto.

Fue una ardua semana de trabajo e intercambios. El curso brindó exposiciones y testimonios de profesionales de diferentes lugares, como Suiza, Francia y Argentina.  Pero, sobre todo, estuvo marcado el fomento del diálogo y el intercambio, entre todas las personas que participan. Y esto incluye a las personas que lo estábamos tomando como curso de posgrado, a las docentes a cargo y a los doctorandos de SciCoMove. Debatir, compartir ideas y construir con personas de otras formaciones, de otros lugares representa una gran oportunidad para el crecimiento personal y profesional.

A lo largo de los encuentros las docentes del curso nos invitaron a revisar la historia de los museos, en general, y tomando como caso particular el Museo de La Plata, donde además nos encontrábamos físicamente. Estar allí no resultó menor a la hora de desglosar el relato del surgimiento de este espacio, y comprender que no es tan lineal y fluido como a veces se lo presenta.

Pudimos recorrer el museo, las muestras, los depósitos y el archivo. Para algunos implicaba conocer por primera vez el Museo y sus entrañas, aunque para otros representaba un espacio ya conocido, cotidiano, o hasta nuestro espacio de trabajo, develando nuevas connotaciones y posibilidades. El estudio y análisis de colecciones, los archivos y los objetos que forman o han formado pate de museos permite rever y repensar cómo se construyen hoy en día, y cómo se han construido históricamente las fronteras del campo científico. Desde allí el curso nos proponía una guía para ver qué (y quiénes) se conciben dentro de estos límites, pero también cómo estos últimos se reformulan constantemente.

Uno de los aspectos que más me fascinó del curso fue la propuesta de concebir a los objetos, que se hallan en los museos, como artefactos. Este es uno de los pilares del Proyecto SciCoMove para el estudio del movimiento de estos objetos. Por mi formación de gado, estaba familiarizada con la aplicación más tradicional que el concepto artefacto posee para la arqueología. “Artefacto” suele usarse en oposición a lo que se piensa prístino e intacto. Así, cualquier cosa que presente signos de haber estado expuesto a algún tipo de trabajo -acción- humano, se convierte en artefacto. Las herramientas halladas en un contexto arqueológico, por supuesto que encajan fácilmente en esta clasificación. Ahora, la parte más interesante llega cuando intentamos definir qué es “acción humana”, y cómo impacta en los objetos.

Algún tiempo atrás, un amigo arqueólogo me había revelado que este concepto posee muchas más posibilidades, el mismo insinuaba en un trabajo que los suelos y los estratos donde se hallan los restos arqueológicos pueden ser vistos como artefactos también. Encuentro esto de alguna forma relacionado con lo que se planteaba en el curso. Como los suelos, los “objetos naturales” que comúnmente encontramos en los museos, suelen concebirse como una parte de la naturaleza expuestas en las muestras, o salvaguardadas en las colecciones. Podríamos, por ejemplo, pesar en un fragmento de hueso de dinosaurio entonces. Probablemente fue excavado, extraído, reacondicionado, colocado en una posición particular de a cuerdo a una estructura ósea particular, y presentado en una habitación, cargada con conjeturas sobre el mismo. Todos esos procedimientos involucran cambios en los objetos, incluso si persiguen fines de preservación. Al pensarlo, clasificar, ordenar cronológicamente, restaurar, reconstruir, y todo el resto de las acciones que se llevan a cabo con el trabajo en museos y con colecciones, son acciones puramente humanas. Y lo mismo aplica apara cualquier tipo de objeto, sin importar que tan “natural” o “cultural” creamos que sea, desde el momento en el que un objeto pasa a ser algo recolectado, categorizado, guardado, etc. pasa a estar conceptualizado. Y esa es la clave para empezar a hablar de artefactos, porque dar significado es una de las acciones humanas más básicas.

Desde una perspectiva histórica, con ejemplos de estudios de caso, y en línea con los objetivos del proyecto SciCoMove, el curso pretendía dejar, en evidencia que a la hora de construir conocimiento científico ningún hombre o mujer de ciencia actúa sólo. Ni en el pasado, ni hoy en día.

Al empezar la semana, Irina Podgorny (una de las docentes a cargo del curso) nos insistió en que dejáramos de lado las barreras idiomáticas y aprovecháramos la ocasión para conocer a otras personas y hasta incluso “hacernos amigos”. Siguiendo su consejo, vimos como lo largo de la semana, las charlas conceptuales y teóricas terminaban filtrándose fuera del aula y seguían en los bares. No hay mejor comprobante empírico que este del rol que juega lo colectivo, la compañía y el encuentro para la generación de conocimiento.

Mi relación con los museos se remonta ya a un tiempo atrás. Estudie la licenciatura en antropología en la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales de la UNLP, que está asociada al Museo de La Plata. Mi especialización en comunicación pública de la ciencia, influyó en que actualmente para mi doctorado me centre en y considere a los museos como espacios de comunicación de ciencia, además de salvaguarda del patrimonio, y sobre como problematizar esto en el marco de la construcción de conocimiento científico. Entendiendo esto, fue una experiencia muy valiosa y gratificante haber participado del curso, con la oportunidad de entrar en contacto del proyecto SciCoMove.

Estudié Antropología en la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, donde actualmente soy docente. En 2022 terminé una Diplomatura universitaria en Comunicación Pública de la Ciencia, en la UniCen. Actualmente cuento con una beca doctoral de la UNLP, con lugar de trabajo en el Laboratorio de Investigaciones Etnográficas Aplicadas, bajo la dirección de Gabriela Morgante (LINEA UNLP-CIC) y la co-dirección de Mariano Bonomo (Diisión Arqueología, Museo de La Plata). Mi tesis se centra en los museos como espacios para comunicación y construcción colectiva de conocimiento, así como para la puesta en valor del patrimonio, en la localidad de Molinos (Valles Calchaquíes, Salta).

Poster Award 2022: “Natural history, collections, archives and museums in 19-20th centuries”

During the Training Session in La Plata in July 2022, its participants took part in a poster competition. Divided into five groups and given exciting topics to explore, as well as some guidelines on what constitutes a visually appealing poster, they embarked on the journey of concise writing and visual communication.

The results were varied and reflected vividly the creativity and imagination of each group. The same stands true for the discussions that followed the presentations of the posters. Choosing the winner was not easy and the elaborations lasted for much longer than the planned one hour. It was so difficult that it led to the jury renouncing on the idea of selecting only one winner so each poster was celebrated for its qualities and each group received congratulations from the teaching staff.

From Paris to La Plata: the story of the cast skull of Quiberon

By Franco Orlandi, UNITO

Among the many skulls and casts preserved in the anthropological collection of the Museum of La Plata, the cast skull numbered 1745 in the catalogue complied by then-director Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1872-1938) in 1911, is of particular interest to learn more about the circulation of scientific knowledge and collections between Europe and America in the 19th century.  

The story of the cast 1745 begins in France in December 1864, when a group of quarry workers began excavating on a hill in the Quiberon peninsula to extract stones. The hill of Manné-Beker-Noz, located near the village of Saint-Pierre (Morbihan, France), had been known to the local people since time immemorial for the dolmen that surmounted its crest. During the excavation of the site, the quarrymen found by chance a prehistoric tomb containing the skeletal remains of an adult male and a terracotta urn of large size (fig. 1). After being informed of the discovery, Alexandre Gressy, a member of the learned society of Morbihan, went to the site to study and collect the bones and the artifact. In this he was helped by the colleague René Galles, who drew sketches of the archeological finds.

Sketch of the tomb of Quiberon, «Bulletin de la Societé polymathique du Morbihan » (1865), p. 52.

The discovery was reported a few months later on the journal of the Societé polymathique du Morbihan by its president, the physician Gustave de Closmadeuc (1828-1918). In addition to being the chief surgeon of the Vannes hospital, Closmadeuc was also an avid archeologist. In his article he explained that the importance of the discovery consisted first of all in the good state of conservation of the Man of Quiberon, which would allow for a detailed anthropological examination. For this purpose, Closmadeuc had taken upon himself the task of putting together the different cranial fragments found in the tomb and sent the reconstructed skull to the Laboratory of Anthropology directed by Paul Broca in Paris for analysis:  

«By dint of patience I managed to match and glue together most of the cranial fragments. I was thus able to reconstitute the head, which is currently in the hands of Mr. Broca and Mr. Follin […] who offered me their help. […] We will then leave it to our eminent colleagues to inform us about the anthropological value of the skull that we have entrusted to their examination» (Closmadeuc 1865, pp. 42-3).

Paul Broca (1824-1880), the most famous anthropologist of nineteenth century France, published the results of his analysis on both the «Bulletin of the Societé polymathique»and the Bulletin of the Society of Anthropology of Paris. Like Closmadeuc, Broca stressed the extraordinary significance of the archeological discovery in Quiberon. «My dear confrere», he wrote in a letter to Closmadeuc in June 1865, «The skull of Quiberon that you sent us is one of the most important remains of the Stone Age» (Broca 1865, p. 47). Most ethnologists and linguists of the time believed that, during the Stone Age, Europe had been populated by a backward and racially homogenous human group marked by the brachycephalic head shape. This group, scholars maintained, was later replaced by the more civilized Indo-Aryan people, whose skulls were dolicocephalic. The Quiberon skull, however, seemed to tell a very different story: «This skull is the most dolicocephalic of all the Stone Age skulls that have been found so far in France» Broca pointed out with surprise (fig. 2).

Figure 2. Cast skull of the Man of Quiberon preserved in the Museum of La Plata. The dolicocephalic shape of the head is clearly visible. Picture by Nathalie Richard.

Since archeological evidence suggested that the Man of Quiberon had enjoyed high social status, Broca decided to compare the measurements of his skull with those of 90 upper-class nineteenth century Parisians. He concluded that the Quiberon skull «bears, in relation to the average type of the modern French, many characteristics of inferiority similar to those which are present today in certain savage, or at least highly barbaric, races». For Broca, the shape of the Quiberon skull resembled that of «negroes and Neo-caledonians». In his works, he distinguished two types of dolicocephaly: the frontal dolicocephaly, found among the «Germanic races», and the occipital dolicocephaly, typical of «African and Oceanic races». The first was characterized by a highly developed frontal region and was therefore considered an indicator of high intelligence. The second, on the other hand, was marked by a highly developed occipital region at the back of the skull, which was believed to be the seat of instinct and therefore considered an indicator of a more primitive and animal mind.

By underlining its features of inferiority and characterizing its occipital dolicocephaly as primitive and African (and thus very different from the frontal dolicocephaly found among civilized people like Indo-Aryans), the French anthropologist tried to solve the contradiction that the Quiberon skull had exposed: the presence of early dolicocephalic skulls in Stone Age France. Rather than questioning the existing theories on the racial composition of prehistoric Europe, Broca resorted to the explanation that the Man of Quiberon belonged to a human group less racially evolved than Indo-Aryans.

The skull of Quiberon remained in Paris, where it became part of the collection of the Society of Anthropology.  In 1874, however, a copy of it was sent to Buenos Aires. In fact, in that year Broca exchanged a number of specimens with the Argentinian amateur collector Francisco Pascasio Moreno (1852-1919), who he had never met in person but whom he knew through a mutual acquaintance with Carlos Germàn Burmeister (1807-1892), director of the National Museum of Natural History of Buenos Aires. Among the 15 casts that Broca sent to Argentina and that later became part of the collection of the Museum of La Plata was the Quiberon skull. The original specimen remained in France, probably to allow further studies of it. On his part, Moreno sent to Broca a series of Patagonian prehistoric skulls, although we do not know which ones and in what number. As a result of this exchange, Moreno was appointed correspondent of the Society of Anthropology of Paris and his article on the prehistoric cemeteries of Patagonia was published in its journal.

In conclusion, the (cast) skull of Quiberon tells us the story of specimens and ideas that travelled from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and not just from the peripheries to the centers. It also shows how 19th century collecting practices were closely intertwined with racial theory and physical anthropology’s attempt to elaborate a racial hierarchy of the world’s population.

Figure 3. Picture by Nathalie Richard.

Selected sources and bibliography

Claude Blanckaert, De la race à l’évolution. Paul Broca et l’anthropologie française. 1850-1900, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2009.

Paul Broca, Étude anthropologique du crane de Manné-Beker-Noz, «Bulletin de la Societé polymathique du Morbihan » (1865), pp. 47-49.

Gustave Closmadeuc, Tombeau découvert au Manné-Beker-Noz, Bulletin de la Societé polymathique du Morbihan (1865), pp. 39-46.  

Máximo Farro, La formación del Museo de La Plata. Coleccionistas, comerciantes, estudiosos y naturalistas viajeros a fines del siglo XIX, Rosario, Prohistoria, 2009.

Robert Lehmann-Nietsche, Catálogo de la Sección Antropológica del Museo de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Coni Hermanos, 1911, http://naturalis.fcnym.unlp.edu.ar/id/20110709008868

Chris Manias, Race, Science, and the Nation. Reconstructing the Ancient Past in Britain, France and Germany, Abingdon, Routledge, 2013.

Irina Podgorny, Margaret Lopes, El desierto en una vitrina. Museos e historia natural en la Argentina, Mexico, Limusa, 2008 (2e éd., Rosario, Prohistoria, 2014).

Nathalie Richard, Travelling skulls. About some skulls and casts kept in the storerooms of the Museum of La Plata, 2022, https://scicomove.hypotheses.org/959

Alejandro Martinez présente ses travaux à Angers

Bacilles, sauterelles et controverses scientifiques. Félix d’Hérelle (1873-1949) et les premiers essais de contrôle biologique des insectes nuisibles en Argentine.

Le 14 mars 2022 à 16h30 à la Maison de la recherche Germaine Tillion (5bis bd. Lavoisier Angers)

 De la fin du XIXe siècle jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle, les infestations de sauterelles ont été l’un des problèmes les plus graves à résoudre pour les agriculteurs argentins. Différentes méthodes ont été utilisées pour les arrêter : barrières de métal ou de tissu, différents types de pièges, leurs œufs ont été détruits, des lance-flammes et toutes sortes d’engins ont été utilisés, qui se sont souvent avérés inutiles. Les moyens chimiques, tels que l’arsenic, ont également eu leur tour, bien qu’en raison de leur toxicité pour les humains et le bétail, ils n’aient pas été largement utilisés. Dans l’historiographie de la lutte antiacridienne, le récit de ces moyens “mécaniques” et chimiques plus populaires et plus connus a jeté une ombre sur l’histoire des moyens biologiques et leur rôle dans la gestion d’insectes économiquement importants.

En Argentine en particulier, la lutte biologique contre les insectes nuisibles a démarré relativement tôt, entre la fin du XIXe siècle et le début du XXe siècle. L’un de ses principaux promoteurs de l’époque, l’entomologiste Angel Gallardo, proposait de suivre l’exemple des États-Unis et de certains pays européens qui ont introduit des espèces exotiques pour lutter contre les parasites agricoles par des “moyens scientifiques”. Dans cette optique, Gallardo se rend en France en 1911 et entre en contact avec le bactériologiste Félix d’Hérelle, qui a découvert un bacille capable d’infecter et de tuer les sauterelles, et l’invite à tester sa méthode en Argentine. 

Il s’agissait toutefois d’une tentative de résolution d’un problème complexe – qui retient encore l’attention des scientifiques aujourd’hui – par le biais d’une solution qui, bien qu’innovante, nécessitait encore beaucoup de recherches et de tests. La lutte biologique n’était pas seulement en contradiction flagrante avec les méthodes chimiques, mais c’était une activité qui nécessitait également, et nécessite toujours, de développer une compréhension détaillée des relations écologiques qui n’étaient pas claires. Son efficacité restait à prouver et en ce sens, malgré l’enthousiasme manifesté par certains, beaucoup étaient réticents et méfiants quant à l’utilité réelle de cette “nouvelle” méthode. Ainsi, l’avis des “experts” n’était pas unanime et les contestations n’étaient pas rares.

Les différends avec d’autres collègues et groupes de recherche ont laissé une trace durable dans la carrière scientifique de Félix d’Hérelle. La plus célèbre d’entre elles, la dispute sur la priorité de la découverte du bactériophage, a été largement rapportée et discutée dans l’historiographie de ces dernières années. Dans le cadre de cette conférence, nous souhaitons toutefois nous concentrer sur les étapes précédant cette découverte, alors que d’Hérelle débutait dans la bactériologie et cherchait à se faire une place dans le concert scientifique international. Son séjour en Amérique latine a constitué une étape stratégique dans sa formation et sa future carrière. Nous sommes particulièrement intéressés par les essais réalisés en Argentine et les conflits qui ont surgi autour de cette expérience.

The reception of Cesare Lombroso’s theories in France: the case of Le Mans’ learned society

By Franco Orlandi, University of Turin

In 1876 Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), a professor of Forensic Medicine and Public Hygiene at the University of Turin and widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern criminology, published the first edition of The Criminal Man, one of the most famous criminological treatises ever written. In his book, Lombroso claimed that criminals were a subspecies of the human race and that they exhibited distinct physical and mental features than law-abiding individuals, such as unusual shapes of the skull, the presence of tattoos and a lack of moral sense. According to Lombroso, criminal behavior was not the result of a free will, but of a biological predisposition. Criminals were basically “throwbacks” to an earlier stage of human evolution, modern primitive men unable to control their violent and immoral instincts. The theory of the “born criminal” travelled all over the world and had an enormous influence on nineteenth century European culture, even though it had no scientific basis. This does not mean, however, that Lombroso did not encounter resistance to his ideas.

Cesare Lombroso. Photogravure. Credits: WikiMedia commons

This was particularly true in France, where Lombroso’s theories were rejected by the two leading representatives of the French School of criminology: Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), magistrate and director of the Justice Ministry’s statistical service in Paris, and Alexander Lacassagne (1843-1924), professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Lyons. Unlike Lombroso, both scholars explained crime in sociological rather than biological terms. Tarde denied the existence of a “born criminal” marked by a cluster of physical anomalies and maintained that the similarities between offenders derived from their belonging to the same professional group. In Tarde’s view, criminality was a learned behavior that resulted primarily from the interaction with disadvantaged social environments rather than the product of a biological predisposition. Similarly, Lacassagne dismissed Lombroso’s atavistic explanation of crime and stressed the importance of poor living conditions in the etiology of crime. ‘The social milieu – he wrote – is the culture medium of crime; the microbe is the criminal, an element which only becomes active when it finds the medium to make it ferment’ (Lacassagne quoted from Renneville 2014).  

While the reception of Lombroso’s theories in France has been the subject of numerous studies in recent years, the way in which they were received by less known actors and in more peripheral contexts is still worth investigation. One interesting case study in this regard is represented by the learned society of Le Mans. Founded in 1761 by a royal decree of Louis XV, the Society of Agriculture, Sciences, and Arts of Sarthe is the oldest learned society in the Sarthe region. In 1840 it launched its own journal, which continues to be published to the present day. An analysis of all the volumes of the Bulletin published from 1840 to 1927 seems to reveal that Lombroso’s ideas did not spark much debate in the local scientific community. In fact, only one article refers to the controversial theories of the Italian scientist. The text was published in 1890 by Paul Hervé, a physician at the local hospital and a member of the Sarthe’s learned society, and reported the content of a communication he had presented a few months earlier to the Medical society of Le Mans. The article, which was entitled Essai sur la suggestion mentale (Essay on Thought Transmission), quoted the testimonies of several men of science of unquestionable credibility who had witnessed firsthand apparently inexplicable phenomena of thought transmission, mental telepathy and hypnosis, and concluded that the latter should be made the subject of serious scientific investigations. In the final bibliography, Hervé included two works written by Lombroso: the 1889 French translation of L’Homme de génie (The Man of Genius) and the 1886 second Italian edition of Studi sull’ipnotismo (Studies on Hypnotism). In addition to studying crime and criminals, Lombroso became in fact very interested in spiritualism, mediumship and hypnosis, publishing several works on the topic and even attending séances presided over by the world-famous medium Eusepia Palladino, an experience that produced a strong impression on him. After outlining the main theories that had been formulated hitherto to explain thought transmission, Hevré went on to discuss whether this phenomenon could be considered the product of a pathological condition. After all, he noted, most of the subjects involved in these experiments suffered from nervous disorders, hysteria in particular. Although he discarded this hypothesis, Hevré quoted in a footnote a passage from Lombroso’s L’Anthropologie criminelle et ses récents progrès (Criminal anthropology and its recent progress), in which the Italian criminal anthropologist had claimed that genius was often associated with pathology, especially with epilepsy and degeneration:

The fact that genius is frequently derived from parents either addicted to drink, of advanced age, or insane, certainly points to this conclusion, as also does the appearance of genius subsequently to lesions of the head. It is also indicated by frequent anomalies, especially of cranial asymmetry; the capacity of the skull being sometimes excessive, sometimes abnormally small; by the frequency of moral insanity, and of hallucinations; by sexual and intellectual precocity, and not rarely by somnambulism. To these we may add the prevalence of suicide, which is, on the other hand, very common among epileptic patients

(Lombroso 1890, pp. 110-111)
Cesare Lombroso attending a séance in Milan in 1908. Salt print photo. Credits: Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology

In conclusion, an analysis of the Bulletin de la Société d’ agriculture, sciences et arts de la Sarthe seems to confirm that French scientists and physicians adopted a rather hostile attitude towards Lombroso’s theories. However, the article by Paul Harvé shows that Lombroso’s publication were read and discussed not only in intellectually thriving cities like Paris and Lyons, but also in more peripheral locations like Le Mans.

Selected bibliography

Paul Hevré, “Essai sur la suggestion mentale”, Bulletin de la Société d’ agriculture, sciences et arts de la Sarthe, 24 (1889), pp. 357-424.

Cesare Lombroso, L’anthropologie criminelle et ses récent progrès, Paris, Felix Alcan, 1890.

Marc Renneville, “Exploring the History of French Criminology (1885-1939): the Case of the Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle”, Criminocorpus, 2014, http://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2753

Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, Lorenzo Leporiere, “Becoming Eusapia: The Rise of the ‘Diva of Scientists’” Science in Context 33, 4 (2020), pp. 441–71. doi:10.1017/S026988972100020X.

Carlos S. Alvarado, Massimo Biondi, “Cesare Lombroso on Mediumship and Pathology”, History of Psychiatry 28, 2 (2017), pp. 225–241. doi:10.1177/0957154X16686904.

Museo de La Plata as the centerpiece of the SciCoMove

Museo de La Plata as an affiliated entity of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata is an important partner of the SciCoMove project. It holds an important collection of around 4 million pieces and specimens, most of them from Argentina and other South American countries. Moreover, the Museo is also a home to an archive that preserves the documents helping in research on the history of science.

Francisco P. Moreno, the founder and the first director of the Museo de La Plata. Photograph by Nathalie Richard.

On 7 December 2021, the team of the Museo de La Plata and the co-coordinators of the SciCoMove project, Nathalie Richard and Irina Podgorny, discussed the work to be done, research to be carried and the secondments to be implemented both to and from the museum.

Researchers Susana V. García, Alejandro Martínez, Ana Carolina Arias, Adriana Marvaldi, Guadalupe del Río, Sara Montemayor, as well as Analía Lanteri (Director of the Museo), Mariela Amor (architect qnd photographer) et Abogada Agostina Curcio (Directora of the Department of International Relations of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata) were present at the meeting which took place in a magnificent Council Chamber of the museum.