Matter

The third chapter, “Matter”, is dedicated to the way in which the Athenian Mercury functionalises discourses of materiality, reflecting on their potential to mediate truthfulness. This includes interpellating readers as fellow virtuosi capable of moving through virtual exhibition spaces, exploring the persuasiveness radiated by corporeality—manifested in accounts of bodies, spectres and handwriting—and the purposeful evocation of tangibility which fuels the fantasy that the objects described by the Athenians can actually be approached or even interacted with via textual descriptions. Far from offering consistent judgements, several moments of slippage illustrate how credibility and truth are more often than not products of a specific ideological context instead of being immutable quantities. This includes the periodical’s purposeful appropriation of both scientifc practice as well as religious and/or supernatural discourses to argue its case.