This project investigated the transformation of the artisanal workshop with its changing patterns of circulation, exchange, and transmission of knowledge in the early modern period. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries “trading zones” emerged. In these spaces exchanges between artisanal cultures (characterized by learning by doing) and scholarly cultures (characterized by learning by reading) took place. This project was concerned both with the contexts and conditions of the emergence of these trading zones as well as with the common languages and objects of exchange invented in these spaces. One particular focus was on how early modern collections functioned as sites for the production of art and knowledge.
