Under the Sign: John Bargrave as Collector, Traveler, and Witness.

Stephen Bann. (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. 30 pls. + x + 152 pp. $34.50. ISBN: n.a.

Although John Bargrave's name may not be recognized by most readers, this somewhat obscure mid-seventeenth-century Kentish gentleman, traveler, and vice-Dean of Canterbury Cathedral has warranted a book-length study of his life almost by historical accident: Bargrave's Cabinet of Curiosities, assembled during his Cromwellian-era travels on the continent, remains one of the few such collections to have survived largely intact. Yet despite its unique status, still preserved and catalogued in Canterbury Cathedral, Bargrave's holdings have earned little critical notice. As Bann points out, Bargrave's life and works are significant because they traverse both the history of collecting, with its link to the origins of Western European museums, and the practice of early modern travel, particularly the relation of travel to exile during the Civil War period.

Heavily influenced by the theoretical work of Krzysztof Pomian and Stephen Greenblatt, Bann's study examines the ways that Bargrave offers an example of "the special phenomenon of 'living symbolically'" (viii). The consummate "semiophore-man," in Pomian's terms, Bargrave uses travel and collecting as often-compensatory strategies of self-representation. Bann's first chapter, "Rise and Fall of the House of Bargrave," examines Bargrave's family background and early life. The most historically-orientated section of Bann's argument, this chapter contains some of the most interesting details of the book; ironically, Bann's discussion is at its liveliest when directed at figures other than Bargrave himself, like Bargrave's father John, who campaigned for a "patriarchal" management of the Virginia Colony, or his uncle Isaac, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral during the Laudian era. Also, Bann's heavily-theoretical attention to minutiae often detracts from these intriguing details, as when he discusses the ideological import of orthographical changes to the Bargrave name, and the etymology of the family's country home ("Bifrons"), or his labored reading of the inscription on a family monument that the younger Bargrave placed in the parish church of Patrixbourne. This section is more successful when it examines the significance of family links to key sites of power and patronage, like university, church, and local politics - a fascinating look at the background of two generations of an extended Kentish Royalist family on the eve of the Civil War.

Bann's argument gains strength in its final two chapters, particularly in its association of Bargrave's practice of collecting to relevant theoretical models, like Foucault's concept of the "author-function," Freud's theory of mourning, or Adorno's comments on Benjamin's own similar "lack of system." Bann is less successful in providing evidence for the symbolic import of Bargrave's collection as a whole; the fact that Bargrave received many of these items as gifts, and that his efforts at collecting were hampered by his inability to afford or transport many desired objects, does little to support Bann's contention that Bargrave's collection represents a concerted effort and coherent pattern of self-representation. Bann's final chapter, "The Witness of History," provides a fascinating examination of Bargrave's College of Cardinals, an annotated manuscript collection of portraits of Catholic leaders. One wishes that Bann had further explored these issues of religious politics and controversy. Although Bann's book often frustrates its reader with its concern for minutiae over comprehensiveness, this study will serve a valuable purpose if k directs further critical attention to the early modern cultural practices of travel and collecting.

MARK NETZLOFF University of Delaware