Culture of Knowledge: Networking the Republic of Letters, 1550–1750

Correspondence was the “information superhighway” for s scholars and researchers during the early modern world. The Department of Comenius Studies of the Institute of Philosophy AS CR is one of the closest partners in a project based at the University of Oxford titled Cultures of Knowledge. Between 1550 and 1750, regular exchanges of letters encouraged the formation of virtual commu­nities of people worldwide with shared interests in various kinds of knowledge. Included were classical scholars, philologists, antiquaries, patristic scholars, orientalists, theologians, astronomers, botanists, experi­mental natural philosophers, emissaries’, ‘free-thinkers,’ and many other denizens of the “Republic of Letters.” Since 2009, the Cultures of Knowledge project at Oxford University has been using a variety of research methods to reassemble and understand these networks. Supporting this effort is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As well as co-organizing the inaugural series of workshops in Prague, Cracow and Budapest, and the 2010 Universal Reformation conference in Oxford, both Institutes have also been active throughout the project in preparing the Comenius catalogue for Early Modern Letters Online (EMLO).