Order of Knowledge, Selection and Bibliographical Tension in the 16th Century - Between Gesnerian Universality and Possevinian Anti-Heretism

Our work is guided by the construction of the genealogy of knowledge organization (KO).The plan of our discussion is that which is linked to the constitutive elements of modern bibliographical principles. In the history of cultural circulation, after the invention of the printed book, at least two interpretative models of the function of the culture and the representation of knowledge in society can be observed. On the one hand, the lay principle is developed according to which man finds his dignity in the rational search. The antagonistic side, on the other hand, develops the dogmatic view of those who consider themselves to be representatives of unshakable certainties that, from the point of view of a superior good, impede the freedom of choice of individuals. Among the first great representatives of these two models, we can see how Conrad Gesner, in his secular-minded compilation, incorporates a first proposal, while Antonio Possevino, on the other hand, pro- poses a bibliography rigidly configured to support the Catholic Counterreformation spirit (Serrai and Sabba 2005). From a historical-bibliographic approach intertwined with the ongoing debates in KO, the objective of this study is to promote a brief comparative formulation between the gesnerian Bibliotheca and the possevinian Bibliotheca, from the selection and the bibliographical tension under the aegis of universality and anti- heretism that delineate the order of knowledge in the 16th century. The study indicates that a proposal of theological and moral control in the access to knowledge, made through bibliographical control, finds in Pos- sevino one of its greatest representatives (Santoro and Orlandi 2006). In this context, knowledge is evaluated through the rejection filter of authors who do not adhere to Catholic dogmas, which is why the Index Librorum Prohibitorum is instituted, condemning authors such as Giordano Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo and own Gesner. On the other side of the reflection on knowledge and information between the 16th and 17th centuries is the view of authors whose roots lie in the more properly humanistic culture. Genealogically, in bibliograph- ical terms, it is Gesner and his work that heads this view, which tends to be delineated as lay knowledge. In comparative terms, as stated by Serrai (1993), while Conrad Gesner builds a Bibliotheca, which was Universalis, with Science, Nature and Theology as its main roads, Antonio Possevino draws his own Bibliotheca, which was Selecta, as a map of knowledge protected, guaranteed, without danger, by orthodoxy and morals. In Gesner there is absolute certainty in science and in Possevino reappearance a recurring anthropological skepticism and suspicion about the value and innocence of science. Indeed, the selection and the bibliographical tension between the two Bibliothecae, under the aegis of universality and anti-heritism, become the key not only to understanding but also to the delineation of the order of knowledge in the 16th century. In the long-term perspective, they are horizons that reveal the historical relations between knowledge, its control, its access and its organization.