Manuscripts in Motion: The Diffusion of Galilean Copernicanism

Abstract

Manuscript diffusion was not a passive act of replication and reception, but an active process of recontextualization, reinterpretation, and even intentional rewriting. Authorial attempts to control the diffusion of manuscripts through intended social channels often encountered resistance and subversion as networks regrouped, texts were altered, or manuscripts were forwarded to unintended recipients. Traditionally, such variants have been viewed as corruptions rather than evidence of use. Authors, well aware of these risks and opportunities, incorporated such instabilities into their own writing strategies, and used the unintended transformations of diffusion as a hypothetical safeguard for unorthodox arguments. This essay analyses the diffusion of Galileo's Copernican letters and tracts (1613–16). The texts in question, whose subject matter is the relationship between hermeneutics and power, offer an uncanny case study of the self-transforming nature of early modern manuscripts.