Péter Bod (1712-1769) şi începutul ştiinţelor auxiliare în Transilvania preiluministă
Péter Bod (1712-1769) and the beginning of auxiliary sciences of history in pre-Enlightenment Transylvania

Summary/Abstract: The eighteenth century witnessed the specialization of sciences in general and their separation from the theology, jurisprudence and medicine, the common sciences of late humanist period. History underwent a similar track of specialization under the influence of European Enlightenment leading to the emergence of those sciences called by the Transylvanian intelectual Péter Bod, ”delicate sciences.” The attraction of the auxiliary sciences became irrezistible, as history developed its main branches. This development led to the extensive use of auxiliary sciences by specialists but at the same time they constituted a serious hindrance for the amateurs who wished to pursue private investigations in history. The emergence and development of paleography, heraldry, literary history, cartography, archival science, library science, lexicography, and genealogy was influenced by the desire for developing the historical science and by a stringent need of the historical research influenced by the philosophy of Descartes and Leibnitz. Before this stage, the Renaissance and the admiration of Antiquity promoted by humanists have yielded the expected results in the Transylvanian historical writing. István Szamosközy, the reprezentative historian of Transylvanian humanism, published the Roman inscriptions from Dacia in Analecta lapidum. A similar achievement was accomplished by Johannes Honterus in his map of Transylvania. Gradually, modernity emerged in the great debate of the noble genealogical titles triggered by the Baroque inflation of aristocratic titles. A breakthrough was the work of the scholar and professor from Aiud, with his volume on Transylvanian heraldry, in which be demonstrate the public usefulness of this auxiliary science. Péter Bod made his entrance in the world of auxiliary sciences at the moment of their definition as independent sciences. In his works he has made use of all of them timidly, steadily, and being conscious of his limits. In his references Bod acknowledged his powerlessness in front of paleography, but he used assiduously the document collections transcribed and published by the Jesuits in the Habsburg Empire or by the Lutheran historians intersted in the state history. The quality of paper, esthetic of writing, the shape and integrity of the handwritten document signal the profound respect that Peter Bod showed for paleography. Heraldry was of limited interest to Bod, who was concerned with in as much as it could give clues about the social origin of the possessor of a coat of arms. Bod is the founding father of the history of literature par excellence. Trusting the value of cartography, Bod was among the first Transylvanians to use cartography for supporting written historical argumentation. He had a considerable contribution to the development of the history of printing and of library science in Transylvania through the publication of catalogues which improved the accessibility of early printed books.

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