From the hair of a famous dead poet to botanical ornaments and meat pies, the subjects of this book are dynamic, organic artifacts. A cross-disciplinary collection of essays, Organic Supplements examines the interlaced relationships between natural things and human beings in early modern and eighteenth-century Europe. The material qualities of things as living organisms - and things that originate from living organisms - enabled a range of critical actions and experiences to take place for the people who wore, used, consumed, or perceived them.

Teyler's Foundation in Haarlem and its 'Book and Art Room' of 1779, edited by Ellinoor Bergvelt and Debora Meijers, examines for the first time this institution in the context of scientific, museological, political, artistic, religious and philosophical developments. The key moment was the decision in 1779 to give a free interpretation to the testament of its founder, the Mennonite entrepreneur Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1702-1778): stimulated by the naturalist Martinus van Marum, the Foundation's board decided to build an impressive museum room and to establish a natural science collection. The institution thus entered an era in which older scientific and collecting traditions engaged with new developments towards a research institution and a public museum of natural history, physics and art. Contributors: Ellinoor S. Bergvelt, Terry van Druten, Arnold Heumakers, Eric Jorink, Paul Knolle, Debora Meijers, Wijnand Mijnhardt, Bert Sliggers, Koenraad Vos, and Holger Zaunstoeck.

Drawing from literary studies, philosophy, and the history of science, in this interdisciplinary study Hanna Roman argues that the language of Buffon's Histoire naturelle (1749-1788) could not be separated from the science it conveyed; the language communicated nature's vital order, form and movement. In the Histoire naturelle, the ability of language to embody and communicate the living essence of nature grew increasingly poignant as Buffon established his hypothesis that the Earth, initially a molten ball of fire, was dying as it slowly became colder. The author highlights Buffon's Epoques de la nature (1778) in which he implied that to save nature from cold death, people must learn to create actual heat according to the model provided by his lyrical, dynamic language, the energy of which would transform into re-warming a cooling globe. In this way, Roman argues that Buffon's literary simulacrum of nature taught his readers not only about the history of nature and its laws, but also how to interact with nature differently, transferring to them the skills necessary to modify the surrounding world in order to better fit the desires and dreams of humanity. A new world could be more than imagined-it could be engineered through language.