Silver Material Transformations

Silver transformed and convulsed the early modern world. Silver, even more than gold, occupied a deeply charged intersection of forces and dynamics — philosophical, religious, material, telluric, economic, colonialist, social, cultural, and courtly — that traversed and profoundly altered the world. Silver from the so-called 'New World' bankrolled and justified the Spanish monarchy in its landgrab, wars, and empire building in both the Americas and in Europe. The great mountain of fabulously rich silver, Cerro Ricco in Potosí, relentlessly exploited by the Spanish invaders from 1545, irrevocably changed power relations, empires, and entire social and environmental ecologies across the globe. Accelerating global commerce and the growth of capitalism, trade in silver intensified the accumulation of capital and uneven trade balances, and enhanced the wealth of northern Europe at the expense of the Global South, particularly of Latin America. This wealth helped jump start the Industrial Revolution a century later.

Silver: Transformational Matter draws together essays by leading anthropologists, art historians, and historians to rethink silver across diverse fields and bring into context mining, trade, the Spanish empire and colonialism, Indigenous expertise, high-end Islamic and European silver artifacts, philosophical and alchemical erudition, and the shimmer of silver in textiles and moonlight. The emphasis in this collection is on early modern silver (ca.1545-ca.1700), since that was the crux and highpoint of its economic, artistic, and colonialist triumph, but any notion of a homogeneous historical 'period' is strongly resisted. Time and place were splintered by silver, as well as brought into relation by it.

Helen Hills, Professor Emerita, University of York

Helen Hills is Professor Emerita at the University of York, where she became the first woman Professor of History of Art in 2008. She has published widely on Italian baroque art and architecture, gender and architecture, and has particular interests in the inter-relationships amongst religious practices, architecture, social class, gender, and sexuality. Her work seeks to push the boundaries of the discipline.

List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Introduction: Forging Silver Connections by Helen Hills Helen Hills
Part I: Silver: Mining, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonialism
1. Gold, Silver, Power, and Abuse: 'The Incorporation and Erasure of Indigenous Knowledges in Spanish Colonial Metalwork', ALLISON MARGARET BIGELOW
2. The Atocha's Silver ca.1622: Ingots, Aquillas, and the Intersection of Values, THOMAS B. F. CUMMINS
3. Flowing Silver and Ephemeral Cities: Working the Ruins of Colonial Silver Mines, MAGGIE BOLTON
Part II: Silver and the Moon
4. Silver, the Lunar Metal, SPIKE BUCKLOW
5. How the World Shines Silver in the Moonlight, TIM INGOLD
Part III: Silver Profits: Trade, Trust, and Trickery
6. Between Early Modern Technology and Moral Agenda: Silver Counterfeiting and Assaying in Sixteenth-century Europe, SERGIUS KODERA
7. Mutant Money: The Globe-trotting Career of Seventeenth-century Silver Cash, KRIS LANE
Part IV: Exquisite Effects
8. Fidda (Silver): On the Active Life of Matter, AVINOAM SHALEM
9. Weaving Silver: Brilliance and Sheen in Colonial Andean Textiles, ELENA PHIPPS
10. Adam van Vianen and Ghosts of Silver in the Late-Renaissance World, RICHARD CHECKETTS
Index