JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 963
[A History of Blank, Missing & Empty Things, installment #75]
Many
are the things that are “missing” (or blank or empty), but seldom are they
depicted in antiquarian prints, which is why I report them every time that I
found them. Today’s installment: missing
monks.
This
image comes to us from the anti-cleric Ignaz Edler* von Born’s (1752-1791)
viciously satiristic Specimen
Monachologiae Methodo Linnaeanna…., which was published in
was there, in
a year married and finishing his first violin quartet. He was also evidently tutored in Masonic ways
by Born , who had introduced the young man into the Benevolence lodge.) The
pamphlet was a scathing rant against monkish religicisim (?!), taking off on
Born’s mineralogist background and classifying the orders according to a
diverted Linnean system. This image—for all
the world displaying four “missing” monks—catalogs their sashes, shoes and (of
course buttock-filled) underwear according to Born’s choppy and determined mal-intent. Born had evidently seen enough of religion to
make fun of it, what with his Jesuit-educated background followed by extensive
studying and a professional career in the physical sciences.
*Born
was born to the nobility, as the “edler” denotes.