Abstract
This paper asks in which different ways knowledge of space about ,ancient Germania‘ is transformed in early modern historiographic and geographic texts. Using the Commentarii Rerum Germanicarum, an example of the Res-Germanicae-literature in the Early Modern Period, the author of this paper tries to describe the modes of transformation of several ancient traditions concerning ‚ancient Germania‘ in the given text. The Commentarii Rerum Germanicarum (written 1616 by the geographer, theologian and professor in Leiden, Petrus Bertius) with their three books and their compilistic and antiquarian character give an adequate example for the specific handling of (geographical) areas in texts from the early 17th century. The paper focuses on the first book, that deals with traditional, also ancient, topoi of ‚Germania‘. After a literary and historical classification of the Commentarii Rerum Germanicarum, the author of this paper combines key ideas from the concept of transformation (established by the ‚SFB 644: Transformationen der Antike‘ of the Humboldt- University) and considerations on space as an entity principally designed by human practices. Thus, the paper tries to achieve an understanding of the complex transformation processes found in the Comentarii Rerum Germanicarum, a text that reaccesses ancient sources in order to provide insights into ‚Germania‘ as an ‚ancient‘ as well as ‚present‘ space in the 17th century.