What is the value of returning, again and again, to the same periods, places, and stories? In this dissertation chapter, Ashley Gonik focuses on the diagrammatic structure of historical tables as a distinguishing characteristic of their historiographic purpose(s). On the one hand, prefatory texts explicitly endorse the use of such tables to reveal synchronicities across time and space, and the tabular form is well suited to this productive intellectual exercise. On the other hand, these editions ossified pretty early on in terms of their geographical and thematic scope—they barely extend beyond Europe and the Near East in most cases, and they retain strong emphases on biblical and ancient Roman history, even when they extend up to the date of publication. Tabular chronologies were not necessarily the sites of innovative historical work in early modern Europe, but their perseverance throughout the period suggests that they held cultural value for their authors, printers, and users.
