The Situated Science of Nicola Caputi

The Situated Science of Nicola Caputi examines the scientific writings of Nicola Caputi (1696–1761), a physician from Salento and member of the Neapolitan Academy of Sciences. The book offers the first comprehensive study of Caputi’s oeuvre, reconstructing his role as a local observer within the early eighteenth-century scientific culture of the Kingdom of Naples.. At the center stands the De tarantulae anatome et morsu (1741), a natural history of the Apulian tarantula and tarantism that integrates anatomical dissections, microscopic observations, and clinical cases with reflections on testimony and authority. Alongside this major work, the volume analyzes Caputi’s pharmacological dissertation on the delfinio—composed in 1733 and published in 1741—concerning a Salentine plant studied for its therapeutic efficacy against fevers, and his Guadina difesa (1751), an environmental inquiry into the salubrity of a contested body of water near Lecce.. Together, these writings illuminate the interplay between local knowledge, experimental practice, and epistemic self-representation, showing how wonders and singular phenomena could be investigated within the methodological framework of early modern natural philosophy.