The World of the Polyhistors: Humanism and Encyclopedism

Abstract

In 1713 and 1715 Johann Burkhard Mencke subjected the scholars of the Holy Roman Empire to a searching examination. They failed it. His two speeches “On the Charlatanry of the Learned”—best sellers wherever they were not banned—ridiculed the minds and the mores of the polyhistors with equal zest. Mencke anatomized their love for overblown titles:Today … you see many demanding to be called Clarissimus who are absolutely unknown outside the walls of their city; Magnificus, who have scarcely any dignity at home; Consultissimus, who have little or no advice to give: and Excellentissimus, who do not know as much about anything worth knowing as the veriest tyro.