The astronomer's role in the sixteenth century: A preliminary study

History of Science

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 1980, Pages 105-147

  Westman, Robert S ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 84965861917     PISSN: 00732753     EISSN: 17538564     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/007327538001800202     Document Type: Article

References (138)

1. See Turner R. Steven, “University reformers and professorial scholarship in Germany, 1760–1806”, in StoneL.,(ed.), The university in society, ii (Princeton, 1974), 495–531, pp. 510–11.
2. Farrar W. V., “Science and the German university system, 1790–1850”, in CroslandM.,(ed.), The emergence of science in Western Europe (New York. London, 1975). 179–192. p. 191.
3. Cf. Turner, op. cit. (ref. 1), 523.
4. See Eisenstein's Elizabeth recent book, The printing press as an agent of change (2 vols, Cambridge, 1978).
5. The sociological literature on role theory is complicated and beset with theoretical difficulties. As Bryan Heading has observed: “… ‘role’ is a core concept for the sociologist, one used explicitly or implicitly by those studying small groups or large organizations, and by those focusing on social conflict as well as by those who stress social consensus. It represents a link between individual personality and social structure, since the individual actor as role-player performs on the stage of the broader society. It is because the individual plays roles that there is a discipline of society at all…” (in M. Bradbury, B. Heading and M. Hollis, “The man and the mask: A discussion of role theory”, in JacksonJ. A.,(ed.), Role (Sociological studies 4, Cambridge, 1972), 41–64. p. 43). In spite of its excessive Whiggishness, Joseph Ben-David's work is rich in conceptualizations: “The scientist's role”, Minerva, iv (1965), 15–54, and the much longer and quite densely packed, The scientist's role in society: A comparative view (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971). As an outgrowth of the 1972 discussion of role theory cited above, Martin Hollis has published an exceptionally insightful analysis of the concept of role as normative expectation (Models of man: Philosophical thoughts on social action (Cambridge, 1977)). Some useful suggestions on the conceptualization of new disciplines are contained in the editorial introduction to Lemaine Gerard MacLeod Roy Mulkay Michael Weingart Peter (eds), Perspectives on the emergence of scientific disciplines (The Hague/Paris, 1976), 1–23.
6. These include: Thomas Digges and Thomas Hariot in England; Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei in Italy; Diego de Zufiiga in Spain; Simon Stevin in the Low Countries; and, in Germany, the largest group—Georg Joachim Rheticus, Michael Maestlin, Christopher Rothmann, and Johannes Kepler. The evidence for several other candidates, alleged by some historians to have been Copemicans, is weak or inconclusive: Giovanni Battista Benedetti, Gemma Frisius, Robert Recorde, Walenty Fontanus and two members of the Académie du Pléiade, Ronsard and Baïf. Why the first group, spanning three generations, adopted Copernican heliocentrism will be discussed quite fully in my forthcoming book.
7. Full evidence for this assertion cannot be presented here. It is based upon extensive examination of the printed works, lecture notes and annotated copies of De revolutionibus.
8. For a preliminary account, see Westman Robert S., “The Melanchthon circle, Rheticus and the Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory” Isis, lxvi (1975), 165–93.
9. Copernicus's formulation is as follows: “Every observed change of place is caused by a motion of either the observed object or the observer or, of course, by an unequal displacement of each … if any motion is ascribed to the Earth, in all things outside it the same motion will appear, but in the opposite direction, as though they were moving past it” (Nicholas Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Nuremberg, 1543), Book 1, ch. 5; I have used the new translation by Edward Rosen throughout: Nicholas Copernicus, On the revolutions, in: Copernicus Nicholas, Complete works, ii (Warsaw–Cracow, 1978; cited hereafter as De rev.), 11–12). Cf. Brahe Tycho: “Res enim redit eodem, sive Terram sive Solem moveri statuamus, et solis Physicis, non autem Mathematicus absurditas aliqua hinc suboritur” (Tycho Brahe opera omnia, DreyerI.L.E.,(ed.) (Hafniae, 1913–29; hereafter cited as TBOO), iv, 446). For an excellent discussion of the distinction between the conceptual analysis of coordinate transformations and historical-episodic analysis, see Palter Robert, “Some episodes in the history of Copernicanism”, in Beer Arthur Strand K. Aa. (eds), Vistas in astronomy, xvii (Copernicus, yesterday and today) (Oxford, 1975), 53–59.
10. Duhem P., To save the phenomena: An essay on the idea of physical theory from Plato to Galileo, trans. by Doland Edmund Maschler Chaninah (Chicago, 1969), 66–91 (first published in: Annales de philosophie chretienne (79/156), ser. 4, vi (1908)); for a recent interpretation of the problem, see Krafft Fritz, “Physikalische Realität oder mathematische Hypothese?: Andreas Osiander und die physikalische Erneuerung der antiken Astronomie durch Nicholas Copernicus”, Philosophia naturalis, xiv (1973), 243–75, and also his “Der Mathematikos und der Physikos. Bemerkungen zu der angeblichen Platonischen Aufgabe, die Phänomene zu retten”, Alte Probleme—Neue Ansätze. Drei Vorträge … (Wurzburg, 1964), 5–24.
11. Krafft, op. cit. (ref. 10); Lloyd G. E. R., “Saving the appearances”, Classical quarterly, n.s., xxviii (1978), 202–22.
12. See Heilbron John L., “Commentary: Duhem and Donahue”, The Copernican achievement, WestmanR. S.,(ed.) (UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies contributions, vii; Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1975), 276–84.
13. Westman, op. cit. (ref. 8); for an enlightening attempt to characterize the senses in which sixteenth century astronomy can be called ‘realist’, see Jardine Nicholas, “The forging of modern realism: Kepler and Clavius against the sceptics”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, x (1979), 141–73.
14. Krafft, “Physikalische Realität” (ref. 10), 245–248; Westman, op. cit. (ref. 8), 174; however, see my remarks in the public discussion following presentation of “The Wittenberg interpretation of the Copernican theory”. The origins of scientific discovery, Gingerich Owen,(ed.) (Washington, D.C., 1975), 449–50; for Osiander's life and work, see Wrightsman Bruce, “Andreas Osiander's contributions to the Copernican achievement”, The Copernican achievement (ref. 12), 213–43.
15. In: Three Copernican treatises, trans, by Rosen Edward, 3rd rev. ed. (New York, 1971), 24.
16. The letters are cited by Kepler in his unpublished Apologia Tychonis contra Ursum, published for the first time in 1858, in: Johannes Kepleri astronomi opera omnia, Frisch Ch.,(ed.) (Frankfurt/Erlangen, 1858), i, 246; Krafft, op. cit. (ref. 10, 1973), 246.
17. That is, Osiander does not present the same arguments as Buridan and Oresme in the fourteenth century, but rather: “Cum autem unus et euisdem motus, variae interdum hypotheses sese offerant (ut in motu Solis, eccentricitas, et epicyclium) Astronomus eam potissimum arripiet, quae compraehensu sit quam facillima” (De rev., Ad lectorem).
18. This is one of the most troublesome passages in Ad lectorem and it has been held to support readings from scepticism and probabilism to biblical literalism. The difficulty with attempting to ascribe (or force) a consistent epistemology onto Osiander is that it ignores the manifestly political context. To suggest that “divinely revealed” means “revealed through Holy Scripture literally interpreted” would condemn Copernicus, which Osiander clearly did not wish to do. As a controversial character in the eyes of both churches, Osiander kept religious criteria (deliberately?) ambiguous.
19. See Armstrong C. J. R., “The dialectical road to truth: The dialogue”, in Sharratt Peter,(ed.), French Renaissance studies, 1540–1570: Humanism and the encyclopedia (Edinburgh, 1976), 36–51, p. 42.
20. De rev., Preface, 5. The term ‘mathematician’ should be construed as someone skilled in the mathematical disciplines. I depart here from Rosen's translation of the word as ‘astronomer’ in order to stay closer to the Latin usage.
21. De rev., 5: Lines 37–44.
22. De rev., 7: 1, 7, 36–38.
23. See Rose Paul, The Italian renaissance of mathematics: Studies on humanists and mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo (Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 145; Geneva, 1975), 97 ff., 123ff.
24. De rev., Book 1. Introduction, 7. Copernicus adopts the moderate position of claiming that astronomy can reach certitude because of its subject matter rather than the stronger position of alleging it to have indubitable demonstrations.
25. De rev., Preface, 4: 10–12.
26. De rev., i, ch. 4, 10–11.
27. De rev., i, ch. 10, 18: 27–28.
28. De rev., Preface, 4: 42–45.
29. De rev., Preface, 5: 1–5.
30. For two recent attempts to reconstruct Copernicus's path to the heliocentric theory, see Swerdlow Noel M., “The derivation and first draft of Copernicus’ planetary theory: A translation of the Commentariolus with commentary”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Symposium on Copernicus, 20 April 1973), cxvii (1973), 423–512, pp. 467–78; and Wilson Curtis A., “Rheticus, Ravetz, and the ‘necessity’ of Copernicus’ innovation”, in The Copemican achievement (ref. 12), 17–39.
31. In Copernicus's notes to a letter from Lysis to Hipparchus, found in the original manuscript but deleted from the published version of De rev., the Pythagoreans are described as a secret brotherhood whose practice it was “not to commit the secrets of philosophy to writings nor to divulge them to everybody, but to entrust them only to faithful friends and kinsmen, and pass them on from hand to hand” (De rev., 25).
32. See Funkenstein Amos, “The dialectical preparation for scientific revolutions: On the role of hypothetical reasoning in the emergence of Copernican astronomy and Galilean mechanics”, in The Copernican achievement (ref. 12), 165–203.
33. De rev., Preface, 5: 13–19.
34. Strangely, the relationship between the role of the astronomer and the natural philosopher in the Middle Ages has not been studied adequately since Duhem. It is possible that the scholastic medieval. astronomer was more a philosophical disputer than his sixteenth century descendents. Consider, for example, Robert Anglicus's thirteenth century commentary on the Sphere of Sacrobosco: “As to these orbs, there is disagreement between the naturalists and mathematicians, because naturalists suppose that all the orbs are concentric, but the mathematicians do not” (in Lynn Thorndike, The Sphere of Sacrobosco and its commentators (Chicago, 1949), 203). In the text, the mathematician does not question whether solid orbs exist or not, but he does engage in a disquisition on the meaning of ‘solid’. Richard of Wallingford (1291 or 1292–1336), a highly skilled astronomer, generally eschewed all discussion of philosophical questions. For example, in his treatise Exafrenon pronosticationum temporis, he is mainly concerned with the techniques of astrological forecasting and leaves the description of the physical properties of the planets to Albumasar, the standard source. See North J. D. (ed. and trans.), Richard of Wallingford (3 vols, Oxford, 1976), i, 183–243.
35. De rev., 15: 26–27.
36. De rev., 15: 34–35.
37. De rev., 16: 7–8.
38. De rev., 16: 15–18.
39. De rev., 17: 15–18.
40. De rev., 17: 38–39.
41. The main articles are: Swerdlow, op. cit. (ref. 30); Rosen Edward, “Copernicus’ spheres and epicycles”, in Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxv (1975), 82–92; Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia copernicana: Or, enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths, mostly concerning spheres”, in Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xxvi (1976), 108–58, and Rosen's reply in the same volume, 301–4.
42. Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia” (ref. 41), 120.
43. Rosen, Three Copernican treatises (ref. 15), 11–12. Rosen recognized that Kepler had interpreted Copernicus as accepting the existence of solid spheres but followed the view of Kepler's nineteenth century editor, Christian Frisch, that “Copernicus himself nowhere in his work either explicitly asserts or explicitly denies the reality of the spheres” (see Frisch, Kepleri opera omnia (ref. 16), iii, 464).
44. Fol. 32. All citations are to the Wittenberg 1653 edition.
45. Reinhold, 27v: “Orbem Cicero et alij tantum etiam pro circulo dixerunt. Sed hoc loco significat sphaeram sic excauatam, ut intra se aliam redpiat contiguam. Cuius rei exemplum qualecunque uidere licet in partibus ovi, ubi primum crusta exterior includit omnia interiora, inde exigua vel tenuis seu membrana continet proximum liquorem, quem vocant albumen. In medio est vitellus tanquam terrea pars ovi. Martialis Candida si croceos circumfluit unda vitellos. Aliquod etiam exemplum interiores ac medio propriores sunt angustiores. Est autem Aristotelicum coelestia corpora lucida non ferri motu proprio seu progressionis, ut animalia, sed motu vectionis. Non enim ut pisces in aquis, vel aves in aere temere uagantur hue illuc, sed perpetua ac legitima aequabilitate ac intra certas metas circumferuntur. De qua reipsum Arist. legant studiosi libro 2. de coelo.”.
46. Reinhold, however, explicitly saw his commentary as a preparation for reading Ptolemy and Copernicus: “Deinceps Eccentrici hypothesin ex gaeometricis fundamentis explicabimus, ut studiosum ad Ptolemaei et Copernici lectionem praeparemus” (fol. 32). It is not known whether or not Reinhold knew the contents of De rev. at this time other than from Rheticus's Narratio prima.
47. Reinhold's copy of De rev. is located in the Crawford Library of the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Edinburgh. Reinhold's copious annotations initiated a tradition of interpreting De rev. which emphasized Copernicus's equantless models. The entire problem will be examined extensively by Professor Owen Gingerich and myself in forthcoming studies.
48. Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia” (ref. 41), 121.
49. Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia” (ref. 41), 130–8.
50. Ibid., 116, 148; in his earlier Commentariolus of Copernicus (ref. 30), Swerdlow is at pains to demonstrate a sharp demarcation between the ‘roles’ of astronomer and natural philosopher: “Copernicus … is under no obligation to dispute with Aristotelians …. Being an astronomer, not a natural philosopher, he knows, as Ptolemy knew before him, that astronomy is so much more sophisticated in its methods and precise in its results than the primitive state of physical science, that the astronomer is free to ignore the crude and, in Copernicus's time, nearly incomprehensible chatter of natural philosophers with regard to anything above the lunar sphere” (p. 440). My thesis is that Copernicus was attempting to define a new kind of relationship with natural philosophers in which the putatively more certain conclusions of mathematical astronomy would control the moves of physical theorists.
51. Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia” (ref. 41), 114–19.
52. Maestlin's copy of De rev. is located in the Stadtbibliothek of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The Aristotle passages cited below are from 288a 30–288b 8 (in Aristotle, On the heavens, trans, by Guthrie W. K. C. (London, 1960), 171, 173).
53. Quoted and translated in Swerdlow, “pseudodoxia” (ref. 41), 120.
54. De rev., 51: 15–18: “It makes no difference that they base their explanations on a motionless Earth and rotating universe, while I take the opposite position and accompany them to the same goal. For, mutually interrelated phenomena, it so happens, show a reversible agreement.”.
55. Apologia Tychonis (ref. 16), 247: “Verum in hoc jam differt Patricius ab astronomis vere philosophantibus….”.
56. See Kagan Richard L., “Universities in Castile, 1500–1810”, in Stone, op. cit. (ref. 1), 355–406, p. 373.
57. See Schmitt Charles, “The faculty of arts at Pisa at the time of Galileo”, Physis, xiv (1972), 248–255, and “Science in the Italian universities in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries”, in Crosland, op. cit. (ref. 2), 35–56, pp. 36–39.
58. Domenico Maria had himself been a pupil of Regiomontanus at Ferrara in the 1460s (see Rose, Italian renaissance of mathematics (ref. 23), 119–20.
59. On Maestlin's life, see Jarrell Richard A., “Mästlin's place in astronomy”, Physis, xvii (1975), 5–20, as well as the earlier Steiff Karl, “Der Tübinger Professor der Mathematik und Astronomie Michael Mästlin”, in Literarische Beilage des Staats-Anzeigers für Württemberg (1892), 49–64, 126–8.
60. I intend to provide exact figures for this claim in my forthcoming book; in the meantime, much useful evidence can be found in: Sudhoff Karl, “Iatromathematiker vornehmlich im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert”, in Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Medicin (Breslau, 1902), Heft ii, 39–85, and Smith David Eugene, “Medicine and mathematics in the sixteenth century”, Annals of medical history (April 1917), 125–40.
61. This is nicely established in a recent article by Kibre Pearl Siraisi Nancy: “The institutional setting: The universities”, in LindbergD. C.,(ed.), Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1978), 120–44.
62. See Sudhoff, op. cit. (ref. 61), 3–11.
63. See Birkenmajer Alexandre, “Lerle joué par les médecins et les naturalistes dans la reception d'Aristotle au xiic et xiiic siècle”, Etudes d'histoire des sciences et de la philosophie du moyen age (Studia Copernicana, i, Warsaw, 1970), 73–87; Schipperges H., “Einflusse Arabischer Medizin auf die Mikrokosmos Literatur des 12. Jahrhunderts”, Miscellanea medievalia (Berlin, 1962), i, 129–53; for an excellent study of the importance of the physician in medieval astrology, see Lipton Joshua, “The rational evaluation of astrology in the period of Arabo-Latin translation ca. 1128–1187 A.D.” (unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1978).
64. On the medieval Jewish physician, see Goitein S. D., A mediterranean society, ii (Berkeley, 1971), 240–5.
65. See Walker D. P., Spiritual and demonic magic from Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958), and Yates Frances, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (Chicago/London, 1964).
66. Walker, op. cit. (ref. 66); Yates, op. cit. (ref. 66); see also Westman R. S., “Magical reform and astronomical reform: The Yates thesis reconsidered”, in Hermeticism and the scientific revolution (Los Angeles, 1977), 5–91, pp. 5–6, 70–72.
67. See Sudhoff, op. cit. (ref. 61); also Zinner Ernst, Geschichte und Bibliographie der astronomischen Literatur in Deutschland zur Zeit der Renaissance (Leipzig, 1941), 72–74. As Zinner's figures show, this was the largest category of kinds of astronomical works published in Germany in the sixteenth century.
68. At the time of Luther, we find the following salaries: Theology, 200 guilders; Law, 100–200 guilders; Medicine, 80–150 guilders; Arts, 80 guilders. Occasionally, the Greek and Hebrew professors received 100 guilders (see Friedenberg Walter, Geschichte der Universität Wittenberg (Halle, 1917), 183). An excellent study of academic salaries at Helmstedt and Marburg is contained in Baumgart Peter, “Zur wirtschaftlichen Situation der deutschen Universitätsprofessoren am Ausgang des 16. Jahrhunderts: Das Beispiel Helmstedt”, Jahrbuch für Frankische Landesforschung, xxxiv–xxxv (1975), 957–74. The problem of establishing what counted as a ‘reasonable salary’ for a physician is explored by Erik Warburg. Warburg concludes as follows: “… around 1537, the salaries and income possibilities in Denmark were almost as they were in 1939, but in other countries a prominent physician and professor was able to earn 3–5 times as much, as was the case, too, before the last war” (“Was the university of Christian iii a twopenny university, or was the salary demanded by Leonhardt Fuchs unreasonable? The professors’ pay in the sixteenth century”, Centaurus, xv (1970), 72–106, p. 101).
69. An excellent example is provided by the career of Duncan Liddel (1561–1613), a Scot who received his education at Frankfurt am Oder, Rostock and Helmstedt, held the mathematics chair at Helmstedt from 1591 to 1603 while he earned a medical degree, and then assumed the chair of medicine from 1597 to 1607. In 1607, he returned to Scotland, endowed a Chair of Mathematics at Marischal College on his death in 1613, and left his books to the university which still form the core of a splendid collection of Renaissance scientific works (see Stuart John, A sketch of the life of Dr Duncan Liddel of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1790); Anderson P. L., Notes on academic theses with bibliography of Duncan Liddel (4th ed., Aberdeen, 1912)). 71. All of the following information is based on Gundlach Franz, Catalogus professorum academiae Marburgensis, 1527–1910 (Veröffentlichungen des Historischen Kommission für Hessen und Waldeck, xvii (Marburg, 1927)), 174–176.
70. Fol. Aiiij. For an interesting analysis of some sixteenth and seventeenth century Italian debates over the certitude of mathematics, see Giacobbe Giulio Cesare, “Il Commentarium de certitudine mathematicarum disciplinarum di Alessandro Piccolomini”, Physis, xiv (1972), 162–193; “Francesco Barozzi e la Quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum”, ibid., 359–74; and, “Epigoni nel seicento della ‘quaestio de certitudine de mathematicarum’: Giuseppe Biancini”, Physis, xviii (1976), 5–40.
71. On the great publishing programmes of Regiomontanus, Maurolycus and Commandino, see Rose Paul Lawrence, “Humanist culture and Renaissance mathematics: The Italian libraries of the Quattrocento”, in Studies in the Renaissance, xx (1973), 46–105, p. 47; also Rose, op. cit. (ref. 23), 104–5, 161, 194ff.
72. The idea is central to Aristotle's classification of the sciences according to which different subject genera require distinct principles or archai (see, for example, Posterior analytics, All 77a 35–77b 15). Ramus invokes the metaphor of farming in which different fruits are cultivated each in its own way but, in the end, they are taken back to the farmyard where they are assembled for a common purpose; similarly, in the “cultivation of the souls”, the “perfection of the soul” is to found in the common form of public life (Pro philosophica Parisensis disciplina oratio (Paris, 1551), 50–51; cf. Sharratt Peter, “Peter Ramus and the reform of the university: The divorce of philosophy and eloquence?”, in Sharratt, op. cit. (ref. 19), 4–20, p. 8). Melanchthon uses the metaphor of the integer artium chorus, the common goal of the sciences, whose purpose it is to enlighten the “natural light” in man and bring him close to God (Corpus reformatorum, BretschneiderC. G.,(ed.) (Halle, 1834), xi, 414).
73. For an excellent treatment of the educational programmes of the humanist reformers, see Garin Eugenio, L'educaxione in Europa (1400–1600): Problemi e programmi (Bari, 1957), 160–218; Curtis Mark, Oxford and Cambridge in transition (Oxford, 1959); Kearney Hugh, Scholars and gentlemen: Universities and society in pre-industrial Britain (London, 1970) (suggestive but scantily documented). For a detailed look at humanist curriculum in practice, see Jardine Lisa, “Humanism and the sixteenth century Cambridge arts course”, History of education, iv (1975), 16–31.
74. Hence, Lawrence Stone's assessment of humanism in England: “As the state bureaucracy grew and as the modern diplomacy took shape, the highest public offices went to those who had been trained to think clearly, could analyse a situation, draft a minute, know the technicalities of the law and speak a foreign language” (op. cit. (ref. I), 673); in Germany, the universities were patronized by the territorial princes (Benrath Gustav Adolf, “Die Universität der Reformationszeit”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, lvii (1966), 32–51).
75. Melanchthon, Corpus reformatorum (ref. 74), xiii, 200; Heerbrand Jacob, Compendium theologiae (Tübingen, 1573), 3. Heerbrand was a pupil of Melanchthon at Wittenberg and a teacher of Kepler at Tübingen.
76. “Sola etiam Ecclesia monstrat et explicat vera fundamenta doctrinae de natura rerum ac Medicae artis, refutatis Ethnicorura commends de mundi cxordio, de rerum principijs, de causis instabilitatis in materia Elementari et imbecillitatis atque confusionum in genere humano” (fol. A4r); Schonborn was dean of the philosophy faculty at Wittenberg when he delivered this oration; he had been a pupil of Erasmus Reinhold (fol. C3); cf. Siderocrates Samuel, De usu partium coeli oratio (Tübingen, 1563). 71–72.
77. Corpus reformatorum (ref. 74), xi, 297.
78. See Westman, “The Melanchthon circle” (ref. 8), 170–2.
79. The medieval patronage bases for astronomy have yet to be systematically investigated; some useful material is contained in a recent synthesis by Pearl Kibre and Nancy Siraisi, op. cit. (ref. 62); for a somewhat useful, although not always reliable, study, see Richard LeMay, “The teaching of astronomy in Medieval universities, principally at Paris in the fourteenth century”, Manuscripta, xx (1976), 197–217.
80. The best study in English is by Evans R. J. W., Rudolf II and his world: A study in intellectual history, 1576–1612 (Oxford, 1973).
81. See Lacey Richard, The life and times of Henry VIII (London, 1972), 26–27; for Lorenzo de Medici as a composer, see Rubsamen Walter H., “The music for ‘Quant’é bella giovinezza’ and other carnival songs by Lorenzo de Medici”, in Art, science and history in the Renaissance, Singleton Charles,(ed.) (Johns Hopkins seminar, iii; Baltimore, 1967), 163–84; cf. also Peter Burke's superb study of patron-client relations in Italian art, music, architecture and literature (but not science) where the often conflicting goals of artist and patron are discussed (Culture and society in Renaissance Italy, 1420–1540 (London, 1972), 34–111).
82. On Tycho Brahe, Dreyer's older study is still serviceable (Tycho Brahe: A picture of scientific life and work in the sixteenth century (New York, 1890; repr., 1963), but a great wealth of new material is contained in Wilhelm Norlind's Tycho Brahe: en levnadsteckning med nya bidrag belysande hans liv och verk (Skansk senmedeltid och Rënassans, skriftserie utgiven av Vetenskaps-Societeten, i (Lund, 1970)); a forthcoming monograph by Professor Victor Thoren of Indiana University will provide much needed analysis of technical aspects of Tycho's work not contained in either Dreyer or Norlind; an excellent shorter summary is Krafft Fritz, “Tycho Brahe”, in Die Grossen der Weltgeschichte, Fassman Kurt, etal(ed.) (Zurich, 1974), v. 229–345. For Wilhelm, the important articles by Sticker Bernhard (“Die wissenschaftlichen Bestrebungen des Landgrafen Wilhelm iv”, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde, lxvii (1956), 130–7, and “Landgraf Wilhelm iv und die Anfänge der Modernen astronomischen Messkunst”, Sudhoffs Archiv, xl (1956), 15–25) are now complemented by a major new study by Moran Bruce T.: “Science at the court of Hesse-Kassel: Informal communication, collaboration and the role of the prince-practitioner in the sixteenth century” (unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, at Los Angeles, 1978).
83. See Moran Bruce T., “Princes, machines and the valuation of precision in the sixteenth century”, Sudhoffs Archiv, lxi (1977), 209–28.
84. See Dreyer. Tycho Brahe (ret. 85), 13 ff.
85. Besides the University of Copenhagen, where he conducted his first studies, Tycho spent time at the universities in Leipzig, Wittenberg, Rostock, Ingolstadt, and Basel; in Augsburg, he met Peter Ramus in 1570; in 1575, he stayed with Wilhelm iv in Cassel and, in the same year, met and formed an important friendship with the imperial physician, Thaddeus Hagecius, at Ratisbon (Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 13–37, 78–84).
86. TBOO (ref. 9), i, 145–73.
87. The Savile manuscript is in the Bodleian Library, Ms Savile 29, fols 2–28.
88. Like Copernicus, Tycho attempts to legitimate astronomy's claims to certitude by reference to its ancient ancestry (TBOO (ref. 9), i, 146–9); he defends the value of mathematics for physicians on the grounds that good medicine cannot be practised without a knowledge of the principles which link higher forces to lower ones. Erastus and Paracelsus are cited as choice examples (ibid., 166–7).
89. TBOO (ref. 9), i, 146.
90. Tycho to the Rector of the university, 21 May 1577, TBOO (ref. 9), vii, 44. 95. TBOO (ref. 9), 8 December 1576, vii, 43.
91. TBOO (ref. 9), vi, 183, 198; the incident is referred to casually by Dreyer in a footnote (Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 127).
92. Apologetica responsio ad Craigum Scotum de cometis, in TBOO (ref. 9), iv, 419.
93. lbid., 472.
94. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 87.
95. Norlind has conducted a census of the extant copies of De mundi as well as constructing a list of individuals to whom Tycho sent his book and who are mentioned in his correspondence. Together, these offer us some picture of Tycho's reference group, those whose appraisals he most valued. The group includes seven mathematics professors at German universities—Liddel (Helmstedt), Maestlin (Tübingen), Praetorius (Altdorf), Peucer (Wittenberg), Scultetus (Leipzig), Brucaeus (Rostock) and Limnaeus (Jena)—and one Italian professor of mathematics, G. Magini in Bologna. Outside the universities, Tycho numbered amongst his valued friends various court astronomers, physicians, and political officials with strong interests in astronomy. These include: Wackher von Wackenfels, and Hagecius (Prague), Christopher Rothmann and Wilhelm iv (Hesse Cassel), Heinrich Rantzov (Holstein), Jacob Monau and Andreas Dudith (Breslau), Vincenzo Pinelli (Padua), John Dee and Thomas Savile (England), John Craig (Edinburgh, but taught at Frankfurt am Oder), J. Herwart von Hohenburg (Munich), J. Camerarius the Younger and Joachim Pomerius (Nuremberg), and Helisaeus Roslin (Alsace). See Norlind, op. cit. (ref. 85), 122–7. I intend to supplement Norlind's census elsewhere with the conclusions of my own survey conducted over the past few years.
96. There are good accounts of the dispute in: Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 183–5, 272–6; Jones Christine, “The geoheliocentric planetary system: Its development and influence in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1964), 116–45.
97. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 183–5.
98. Ibid., 289–305; while away from his position in Graz visiting Tycho in Prague, he was informed that Graz could apparently live well without him and that perhaps he ought to seek something more useful than astronomical speculation, namely medical training in Italy (see Sutter Berthold, “Kepler in Graz”, in Kepler: Four hundred years, Beer Arthur Beer Peter (eds) (Vistas in astronomy, xviii (Oxford, 1975)), 141).
99. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 294–5.
100. Jardine N., op. cit. (ref. 13).
101. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (ref. 85), 304.
102. See Westman R. S., “Kepler's theory of hypothesis and the ‘realist dilemma’”, Internationales Kepler-Symposium Weil der Stadt 1971, Krafft F. Meyer K. Sticker B. (eds) (Hildesheim, 1972), 29–54.
103. The terra ‘office’ comes very close to our word ‘role’. Robert Ainsworth's Latin dictionary of 1736 gives the following usages: “(1) Business proper to one's condition, imployment. (2) The part of, that which befitteth, or is to be expected from me. (4) Moral duty. (14) An office, or public imployment. (16) Performance” (Thesaurus linguae Latinae compendiarius: Or, a compendious dictionary of the Latin tongue designed for the use of the British nations (London, 1736), “Officium”).
104. “Neque hie sine exceptione verum dicit. Nam etsi hoc, quod dicit, astronomi primarium est officium, non est tamen astronomus e coetu philosophorum, qui de rerum natura quaerunt, excludendus. Bene fungitur officio astronomi, qui quam proxime motus et situs stellarum praedicit: Melius tamen facit et majori laude dignus habetur, qui praeter hoc etiam veras de mundi forma sententias adhibet. Ille nempe verum quoad visum concludit: Hie non tantum visui concludens satisfacit, sed etiam naturae penitissimam formam concludendo amplectitur, ut supra fuit explicatum” (Apologia Tychonis (ref. 16), 242; I gratefully acknowledge use of an unpublished translation of chapter 1 of the Apologia by N. Jardine).
105. On Maestlin's cross-disciplinary cautiousness, see Westman R. S., “Three responses to the Copernican theory: Johannes Praetorius, Tycho Brahe and Michael Maestlin”, in The Copernican achievement (ref. 12), 329–37.
106. On the conditions at Charles University and Kepler's decision to turn down the chair offered him, see Evans, op. cit. (ref. 82), 134–6; for Kepler's negotiations with Wittenberg, see Kepler Johannes, Gesammelte Werk (Munich, 1938–), x, 349–50. The mathematics chair at Wittenberg went to Ambrosius Rhodius.
107. Ramus Peter, Scholarum mathematicarum (Basel, 1569), ii, 49–50.
108. Ibid., 50: “At in posteris fabula est longè absurdissima, naturalium rerum veritatem per falsas causas demonstrare.”.
109. University of Aberdeen, 5102 LaR Sl.
110. TBOO (ret. 9), vi, 88.
111. Kepler, op. cit. (ref. 116). iii, 6.
112. He mentions the following professors of mathematics: Milichius, Reinhold, Peucer (Wittenberg), Gemma Frisius (Louvain), Ph. Apianus (Ingolstadt), Stöffer, Scheubel, Siderocrates (Tübingen), Münster and Wurstisius (Basel), Schreckenfuchs (Freiburg), Tagaud (Geneva), Naibod (Cologne), Herlinus and Dasypodius (Strasbourg), Engelhardt (Erfurt), Rheticus and Homelius (Leipzig), and Virdungus (Heidelberg). In Scholarum (ref. 117), ii, 66–67.
113. Between 1600 and 1620, mathematics chairs were founded at the following Jesuit colleges: Avignon, Tournon, Lyon, Pont-à-Mousson, Dole, Toulouse, Paris, Reims, and La Flèche (see François de Dainville, S.J., “L'enseignement des mathématiques dans les Collèges Jesuits de France du xive au xviiie siècle”, Revue d'histoire des sciences et de leurs applications, vii (1954), 6–21. 109–23. See esp. pp. 7–9).
114. See Vollgraff J. A., “Pierre de la Ramée (1515–1572) et Willebrord Snel van Royen (1580–1626)”, Janus, xviii (1913), 595–625, p. 610; cf. Dibon P., “L'influence de Ramus aux universités Néerlandes du 17e siècle”, in Actes du XIème congrès international de philosophie, Bruxelles 20–26 Aoüt 1953 (Amsterdam/Louvain, 1953), xiv (Volume complémentaire et communications du colloque logique), 307–11.
115. Volgraff, op. cit. (ref. 124), 615–25.
116. For an excellent analysis of the Cambridge arts curriculum as focused primarily on the art of effective discourse, see Jardine Lisa, “The place of dialectic teaching in sixteenth-century Cambridge”, Studies in the Renaissance, xxi (1974), 31–62; see also Curtis Mark, op. cit. (ref. 75).
117. This section incorporates the conclusions of my paper read at the xvth International Congress of the History of Science, Edinburgh, August 1977: “Pedagogical vs. research functions of an Early Modern university: Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622) at Oxford”. A full study of Savile's life and works is very much needed.
118. Jonas Mountague of Merton College, later of Eton (in Wood Anthony, Athenae Oxoniensis, BlissP.,(ed.) (London, 1815), 395).
119. Ms Savile 29–32, Bodleian Library.
120. See Westman, op. cit. (ref. 115).
121. See Costil Pierre, André Dudith, humaniste hongrois (Paris, 1935), 304 ff.; Evans, op. cit. (ref. 82), 105–10.
122. The best study of Dudith is Costil, op. cit. (ref. 131).
123. See Faludi J., André Dudith et les humanistes français (Szeged, 1927), 61–62; for Dudith's connections with Ronsard and the Pléiade, see de Nolhac M., Ronsard et l'humanisme (Paris, 1921).
124. 20 February 1580, cited in Costil, op. cit. (ref. 131), 195. Plans to found a Collegium Duditianum at the University of Wittenburg, especially for Hungarian, Croatian and Slavic students, were drawn up in 1585. Dudith's book collection was to have formed the core of a new library. Thanks to the negligence of his executors, however, none of this happened (see Costil, 208). As an institutional form, the humanist circle was unstable.
125. 7 August 1581, Wroclaw University Library, Cod. Rhed. 253, no. 19; cited also in Costil, op. cit. (ref. 131), 443.
126. Wittich's important interactions with Dudith, Tycho and other astronomers will be shown in a forthcoming article in Centaurus by Owen Gingerich and myself.
127. Statuta antiqua Universitatis Oxoniensis, Strickland, Gibson,(ed.) (Oxford, 1931), 528–9: “De utriusque professoris munere et officio”.
128. Ibid., 529–30: “Et ad hanc rem spero universitatem omnem opem et operam prolixe collaturam, cum haec sola sit vera via astronomiae veteris vel affirmandae vel emendandae.” The professorships of geometry and astronomy at Gresham College may have suggested the institutional model for Savile but the distinctly humanist content prescribed by him is much closer in spirit to the Dudith group.
129. See Kaltenbrunner Ferdinand, “Die Vorgeschichte der Gregorianischen Kalenderreform”, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Classe, lxxxvii (1876), 289–414; also “Die Polemik über die Gregorianische Kalendarreform”, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Classe, lxxxvii (1877), 485–586.
130. Jesuits, Monumenta paedagogica Societatis Jesu quae primum rationem studiorum, anno 1586 editam, praecessere, Rodeies C. Gomer, (eds), in Monumenta historica Societatis Jesu, fasc. xciii (Matriti, 1901), 471–3. The full text and translation of the relevant passages is given conveniently in A. C. Crombie's valuable article, “Mathematics and platonism in the sixteenth century Italian universities and in Jesuit educational policy”, PRISMATA: Naturwissenschaftsgeschichtliche Studien (Festschrift für Willy Hartner), Maeyama Y. Saltzer W. G. (eds) (Wiesbaden, 1977), 63–94, pp. 65–66; and there is an excellent earlier discussion by Giuseppe Cosentino (“L'insegnamento delle matematiche nei collegi gesuitici nell'Italia settentrionale. Nota introduttiva”, Physis, xiii (fasc 2, 1971), 205–17).
131. Quoted in Dainville, op. cit. (ref. 123), 7, from Jerome Nadel's Epistolae (Madrid, 1898), ii, 550, in Monumenta historica (ref. 140). Nadel made an extensive survey of Jesuit views and attitudes toward their vocations and activities between 1561 and 1568, collecting replies from more than 1250 Jesuits.
132. Quoted and translated in Crombie, op. cit. (ref. 140), 65–67.
133. Dainville, op. cit. (ref. 123), 7–9.
134. Crombie, op. cit. (ref. 140), 72 ff.
135. The principle of Scriptura humane loquitur has rabbinic origins in the rule dibra tora kileshon bne‘adam (see Funkenstein, op. cit. (ref. 32), 197). Rheticus's treatise purporting to reconcile the Copernican theory with Scripture has been presumed by historians to be lost. However, Professor R. Hooykaas informed me privately that he has found Rheticus's treatise and expects to publish the text with English translation shortly.
136. Rohault's system of natural philosophy, illustrated with Dr. Samuel Clarke's notes taken mostly out of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. With additions, Clarke John (trans.) (2 vols, London, 1723), fol. bl of “The Author's Preface”.
137. Loss and change (Reports of the Institute of Community Studies) (London, 1974), 11.
138. Kuhn makes a similar point about shared values (“Objectivity, value judgment and theory choice”, in Kuhn Thomas S., The essential tension (Chicago. 1977). 320–379).