The scientific exploration of the sea in the early modern period was closely tied to military concerns as nations jostled to gain and maintain maritime hegemony and as captains armed their ships against pirates on the high seas. During this time, most of what was known about the sea had to do with navigating the surface of the oceans or with understanding life in the seas – i.e. resources such as whale oil or fish – rather than the sea itself. Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), a military general turned “virtuoso” naturalist, was one of the few investigators who focused his scientific inquiry on ocean geography and its plants. In his Histoire Physique de la Mer [Physical History of the Sea] published in Amsterdam in 1725, Marsili discussed the geography of the ocean basin, the composition of salt water, his measurements of currents, and a variety of marine plants. Marsili’s oceanographic work was deeply informed by his career as an officer in the Hapsburg army. Drawing on my research on eighteenth-century military drill diagrams, I will discuss graphic conventions in Marsili’s publication which were connected to Enlightenment understandings of the natural world and to the reshaping of society.
