1 The ‘Transnationalism’ of the Dutch Learned World

One of the victims of nationalist historiography has been the intrinsically transnational culture of learning that was so vibrant in the United Provinces that this country was deemed a focal point of the international world of scholarship and science already in the early modern period. The history of the Republic of Letters promises to offer a fruitful alternative to nation-based history, precisely because of its apparent transnationalism, the mobility of its citizens and the internationalism of the early modern book trade. But whereas there is consensus that the United Provinces were a major scene in the Republic of Letters, the extent to which this learned culture here was ‘international’ remains to be established. Speaking of ‘extent’ suggests that the question at stake is of a quantitative nature. Accordingly, in this article we will attempt to quantify the Dutch learned world’s ‘international’ orientation and practices by focussing on the geography of the epistolary communication. Before turning to our quantitative methodology and its results, we will first rehearse the state of affairs in the historiography of the Dutch province of the Republic of Letters.

中文翻译：

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国际文学共和国中的荷兰共和国“省”

1 荷兰学术世界的“跨国主义”

民族主义史学的牺牲品之一是本质上的跨国学习文化，这种文化在联合省非常活跃，以至于这个国家在近代早期就被认为是国际学术和科学世界的焦点。正是由于其明显的跨国主义、公民的流动性和早期现代图书贸易的国际主义，文人共和国的历史有望为民族历史提供富有成果的替代品。但是，尽管有共识认为联合省是文人共和国的主要场景，但这种学术文化在这里“国际化”的程度仍有待确定。说到“程度”，意味着所涉及的问题是定量的。因此，在本文中，我们将尝试通过关注书信传播的地理来量化荷兰学习世界的“国际”取向和实践。在转向我们的定量方法及其结果之前，我们将首先排练荷兰文学共和国省史学的状况。