L’ombre des archives dans les cultures du savoir du XVIIe siècle: les papiers de Samuel Hartlib (v. 1600-1662)

The notion of the «shadow of the archives » is important for understanding the history of European culture, and especially scientific correspondence in the seventeenth century. This archival imprint functions on various different levels. It may reflect the conceptual categories of contemporary philosophers, categories that must be distinguished from those that later archivists and librarians
imposed on their collections. Another shadow (or, better, penumbra) results from the irretrievable loss of some parts of the archive and the necessity of reconstituting other parts from traces left elsewhere, in other archives. This article investigates these different shadows by studying the papers of a London «intelligencer » , Samuel Hartlib.