Quanta prudentia et usus administrandæ reipublicæ: Quiccheberg and Mylaeus on the utility of techne

Abstract

Abstract Two mid-sixteenth-century treatises, by Samuel Quiccheberg (1565) and Christophorus Mylaeus (1551), provide important insights into how early modern collections were understood in their own day to be useful. This essay argues that both authors conceptualize utility in relation to the Aristotelian concept of prudence: the kind of practical wisdom required to govern effectively. Although the two texts were written on very different topics – respectively, how to create a Kunstkammer and how to write history – Quiccheberg and Mylaeus share an understanding of wisdom that posits ‘techne’, in the form of collected works of artistry, as a necessary aspect of prudential governance.