The History of Wonders in the Renaissance

The treatment of wonders in the renaissance, whatever we mean by renaissance, and what we sometimes call the early modern period. Aurora borealis is a good example. The academicians would scour their sources from antiquity on to try and find other occurrences in mediaeval chronicles or ancient medical so that they had the beginnings of an inductive generalization. So it was both, it was both eye witness reports, but then immediately an attempt to situate the eye witness report in a historical series of similar events and new developments.