“Today I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which for good reasons is called Ventosum, guided only by the desire to see the extraordinary altitude of the place”. Petrarch's ascent of the Mont Ventoux in 1336, or rather his account of it, established the mountain as a distinctive place for experiencing and understanding nature and self. Since then, the mountain has been sought out in increasing numbers by those pursuing spiritual elevation, bodily exertion, and/or scientific investigation. (...) To this day, a pilgrimage church, several hotels, and an observatory are characteristically perched atop Mont Ventoux. And it is famous among cyclists as a legendarily difficultétapeof the Tour de France. (shrink)

ArgumentThe discovery of the Alps in the second half of the eighteenth century spawned an aesthetics of sublimity that enabled overwhelmed beholders of mountains to overcome their confusion symbolically by transforming initial speechlessness into pictures and words. When travelers ceased to be content with beholding mountains, however, and began climbing them, the sublime shudder turned into something else. In the snowy heights, all attempts to master symbolically the challenging landscape was thwarted by vertigo, somnolence, and fatigue. After 1850, physiologists intervened, (...) using the Alpine terrain as a laboratory landscape that was ideally suited to examine one of the most threatening concerns offin de siècleindustrial societies: fatigue. This essay examines how the picturesque voyage turned into an experimental physiology of fatigue, and how the “wordless subjectivity” of romantic travelers turned into the “wordless objectivity” of life scientists. (shrink)