ABSTRACT
This contribution reconstructs the life of the itinerant lecturer Martin Berschitz (ca. 1740–after 1800). Berschitz was an instrument maker and toured parts of Central and Western Europe for about three decades. His public performances focused on electricity, and he also offered to erect lightning rods. Despite his problematic status as a ‘mere showman’, he contributed to the circulation of practical knowledge in natural philosophy though his lectures and instruments. Berschitz was involved in numerous controversies with other practitioners and municipal authorities. The reconstruction of these skirmishes elucidates how scientific expertise and authority were negotiated in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Itinerant lecturers such as Berschitz served as a contrast-foil for the persona of a ‘real’ natural philosopher.
