Abstract
This chapter delineates a map of mutual dependencies between sovereign rulers, religious establishment, scientists, engineers as well as artists in the early modern Catholic world, circa 1550–1650. The juridical structure of sovereign states is the subject of the first section. The effect of military and economic pressures is discussed in the second section and the disciplining power of religion in the third. The fourth section shortly presents a case study that exemplifies the way traditional mechanical knowledge was transformed and also how it operated in the service of state and church.
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Change history
07 February 2019
The book was inadvertently published with few errors in chapter 6 “A Journey to the Center of the Earth: Cosmology and the Centrobaric Theory from Antiquity to the Renaissance”.
Notes
- 1.
This chapter is based on an earlier paper published in Il Caso Galileo: una rilettura storica, filosofica, teologica, eds. M. Bucciantini et al., 47–74. Florence: Olschki 2011.
- 2.
Author’s pagination. All translations from the Relazione have been done by the author: “…fu intimate la Congregazione per gli 5 Novembre, tempo quando La Citta’, e le Cittadine, e le Scolari suole essere ripiena” Relazione Parma (1614).
- 3.
“coltelli, forcine, cuchiari, boccali, bichieri, Lucerne, cattini per Le mani, vasi per l’acqua benedetta, insino la carta, penne, calamari, temperini, forbicette, et altro. Segno evidente dell’isquisitissima sua providenza,” Relazione Parma (1614).
- 4.
[Author’s pagination]: “…e con molto affetto si parlo’, monstrando quanta sia la stima che egli fa della Compagnia, quanto L’amore che le porta, quanto il contento di vederli congregate,” Relazione Parma (1614).
- 5.
“Li riceve’ con quella grandezza; e maiesta; colla quale suole ricevere gran Personaggi. Ardevano nelle Scalle, nelle Sale, e nelle Camere torchie, e candelle, che uguagliavano il chiaro del giorno” Relazione Parma (1614).
- 6.
Author’s pagination: “Il doppo pranzo, si attendeva alle dispense, che fuorono quarto di Teologia e una di Filosofia (per che un’altra si differi’ per la causa che abbasso si dira’) con grande frequenza di Letteratti, scolari, e Religiosi, molti de quail venero da alter Citta’ circonvicine, per intervenirvi, et argomentare. Si dimonsstrarono, anche due Problemi curiosissimi nella matematica/ L’uno per che quando il raggio del Sole, per buco di qualsivoglia figura, nel Luogo non dimeno ove termina, si mostra circolare; l’altro come qualunque opera fatta di metallie varij, oro, argento, bronzo, o’ altri restando intiera, si sappia quanto di ciaschedun metallo vi sia dentro,” Relazione Parma (1614).
- 7.
“Why is it that when the sun passes through quadrilaterals, as for instance in wickerwork, it does not produce a figure rectangular in shape but circular?” Aristotle (1936, 1:333).
- 8.
On the complex uses of the magic lantern, for example, see Vermeir (2005); on the use of projection in the theatre, see Gorman (2003). Particularly interesting is the following passage relying on the description of Jean Baptiste du Halde’s Description geographique, historique, chronologique, et physique de l’empire de la chine et de la Tartarie Chinoisie published in Paris in 1735, where he narrates how: “Claudio Filippo Grimaldi (1639–1712) entertained them [namely the emperor and his entourage] in the gardens of the summer residence, using convex lenses, camera obscura and cylindrical and pyramidal mirrors to cast shadows and project images from the outside world,” Gorman (2003, 14).
- 9.
The letter to the reader mentions Clavius and the good will he showed toward Ghetaldi: “Etenim cum Clauium, quod iam diu cupiebam, vidissem, nec minorem tanta scientia, & fama viri benignitatem comperissem ...” Ghetaldi (1603).
- 10.
For a thorough discussion of Ghetaldi’s work, see Napolitani (1988, 139–237).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
“Materiam abunde suppeditabit experientia; quae, ut gravissimae pugnae causa extitit, ita par est., primum ut ipsa locum in hac velitatione obtineat, militem ipsa cogat, armis instruat, ac praemijs invitet; quaeve ad fortiter pugnandum adhortata est., prima in acie, prima ipsa constituat” Bardi (1614, 6).
- 14.
A description of the hall with reproductions of the representations is in BBP, Ms. Parm. 1250, [Pietro Mazza] Gran sala d’armi e delle academie che esisteva nella parte dell’acntico edifizio del collegio de’ nobili di Parma... . See in Turrini (2006, 43).
- 15.
Pianta del collegio dei nobili di Parma. Il primo piano, Turrini (2006, 310).
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Feldhay, R. (2018). Preclassical Mechanics in Context: Practical and Theoretical Knowledge Between Sovereignty, Religion, and Science. In: Feldhay, R., Renn, J., Schemmel, M., Valleriani, M. (eds) Emergence and Expansion of Preclassical Mechanics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 270. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90345-3_2
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