{"title":"Poésie et astronomie. De l’antiquité au romantism edited by Florian Barrière and Caroline Bertonèche","authors":"Barbara Bienias","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41823","url":null,"abstract":"This collection of essays edited by Florian Barrière and Caroline Bertonèche presents an anthropological and cultural approach to astronomical themes in poetic works from antiquity to the Romantic period (with emphasis on Latin literature and British Romantic poetry). Apart from the main subject, the framework spans myth, theater, natural philosophy, and musical composition. Although the reader can tell that the emphasis is on the philological aspects of works, it is done with much careful consideration of contemporary scientific and philosophical debate and a good knowledge of the critical literature.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136341513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Apuleius on the Heaven","authors":"Alan C. Bowen","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41806","url":null,"abstract":"Apuleius’ De mundo pr. 1–3.4 is a loose paraphrase in Latin of the Περὶ κόσμου 391a1–392b14, a treatise once thought to be by Aristotle. By focusing on differences between these two works, I aim to develop some working hypotheses that situate the De mundo in relation to critical disagreements in the second century AD about the heaven, what constitutes knowledge of it, and how this knowledge is to be gained.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136342912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Companion to Byzantine Science edited by Stavros Lazaris","authors":"Émilie Villey","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41826","url":null,"abstract":"A Companion to Byzantine Science est un volume composé de 13 chapitres, d’une introduction de Stavros Lazaris, d’une conclusion d’Anne Tihon et de trois index (index général, index des manuscrits et index des noms modernes) réalisés par Antonio Ricciardetto. Onze des 13 chapitres sont consacrés à un domaine spécifique de la science byzantine (sur les sciences mathématiques, l’optique, la météorologie et la physique, l’astronomie et l’astrologie, la géographie, la zoologie, la botanique, la médecine et la pharmacologie, la médecine vétérinaire, l’art militaire et enfin les sciences occultes (divination, astrologie, alchimie). Les deux premiers chapitres (« ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer’ Knowledge : The Debate between Faith and Reason in Late Antiquity » d’Hervé Inglebert et « Science Teaching and Learning Methods in Byzantium » d’Immaculada Pérez Martín et Divna Manolova) constituent une sorte d’introduction à l’ensemble des sujets abordés dans le volume. L’éditeur réussit son pari en offrant ici un véritable guide utile pour faciliter l’accès aux textes grecs byzantins traitant de sciences mathématiques et naturelles.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136343057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Walk through the Iranian Heavens: Spherical and NonSpherical Cosmographic Models in the Imagination of Ancient Iran and Its Neighbors by Antonio C. D. Panaino","authors":"Jeffrey Kotyk","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41819","url":null,"abstract":"A Walk through the Iranian Heavens is an innovative and focused study by the well-known scholar Antonio Panaino. This monograph looks at cosmography in ancient Iran and adjacent cultures, with attention to the problem of sphericity in antiquity. We might take for granted that the Greeks, after a point, operated with the model of a spherical Earth, but what about Iran, which had its own Mazdean mythology and worldview but was still influenced by Hellenic culture? At what point did ancient Iran become exposed to and/or adopt a spherical Earth as well as the model of a cosmic sphere? How did this model of the universe affect the Zoroastrian worldview? These are the questions that come to mind when approaching A Walk through the Iranian Heavens.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136341516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Set of Alfonsine Tables Underlying Giovanni Bianchini’s Planetary Tables","authors":"José Chabás, Bernard R. Goldstein","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41807","url":null,"abstract":"The analysis of astronomical tables has proven to be a powerful tool to understand the transmission of astronomical knowledge. Further, the study of the major sets of tables compiled or in circulation in the Middle Ages has contributed significantly to mapping the thousands of tables preserved in medieval manuscripts. The present paper focuses on the relationship between two specific sets of tables, both in the framework of Alfonsine astronomy: one of hitherto uncertain authorship and a much larger one compiled by the Ferrarese astronomer Giovanni Bianchini (d. after 1469).","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136341657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bloodletting in Babylonia Revisited","authors":"M. J. Geller","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41811","url":null,"abstract":"The question of bloodletting in Babylonia (and surgery in general) has hardly been studied, since evidence is sparse, while at the same time bloodletting in the Babylonian Talmud has been assumed to have been employed, although based upon questionable medieval interpretations of vague and doubtful terminology. However, when descriptions from cuneiform medicine are combined with evidence from Aramaic sources, a somewhat clearer picture emerges of a possible limited use of a bloodletting procedure in Babylonia, in both earlier and later periods.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136342914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aristotle’s Μετεωρολογικά: Meteorology Then and Now by Anastasios A. Tsonis and Christos Zerefos","authors":"Daniel w. Graham","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41822","url":null,"abstract":"Aristotle’s Meteorologica is one of the least studied of Aristotle’s major works, and scholars who do study it often concentrate on its logical and theoretical aspects rather than on the empirical science contained in it. The two authors of this study are professional meteorologists from Greece: Anastasios Tsonis, emeritus distinguished professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Christos Zerefos, head of the Research Centre for Atmospheric Physics and Climatology at the Academy of Athens and professor of atmospheric physics at the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki. They are interested in Aristotle’s work as a contribution to science and not just as an essay in the logic of scientific inquiry. This book thus fills a gap in the resources available for the study of Aristotle’s Meteorologica. I shall provide an overview of the book and then offer a critical assessment of it.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136342918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Babylonian House Numbers and Squares of Zodiacal Signs","authors":"Lis Brack-Bernsen","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41816","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41816","url":null,"abstract":"The texts BM 36628+ and BM 45720 contain number schemes, which in their first four columns list consecutive lines of Calendar Texts. These texts add six more columns (columns 5–10) to the classic Calendar Text. Therefore, we shall call them expanded Calendar Texts. The additional column 10 lists house numbers j, while column 9 contains four signs (labeled i) over four consecutive lines, one of which equals a j-value. As we shall see, the i-values are chosen so that they always form the zodiacal squares with j as one of the corners. I investigate the system behind the schemes by analyzing their number columns. We thus find a structure similar to that of the circular tablet BM 47762, which I presented in Part I [Aestimatio ns 2.2 (2021) 43–58]. This tablet lists the dates of first half, full, second half, and black Moon, where the zodiacal position of these special lunar phases joins to a square in the zodiacal circle. I investigate the connection between the two systems.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136342920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Science and Myth of Galileo between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Europe by Massimo Bucciantini","authors":"Paolo Palmieri","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41818","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41818","url":null,"abstract":"This volume contains the proceedings of an international conference held in Florence at the Museo Galileo, 29–31 January 2020. There are 31 essays, including the editor’s preface. Although the subtitle indicates that the conference was “international”, the vast majority of essays are by Italian scholars. This puzzling fact is not just an item of information concerning the statistics of the volume but is important in that it may help the reader contextualize the overarching ideological and political project that gave birth to the conference. It was, in fact, a collaborative undertaking shared by five Italian universities and the Museo Galileo, which was sponsored by the Italian government (defined as a Progetto di ricerca di interesse nazionale [viii]). In the remainder of the review, I will selectively discuss some of questions raised by the essays and highlight what I see as the major strengths and weaknesses of this collective volume. I am a historian and philosopher of science. Hence, my review will be concerned mostly with historical and philosophical aspects of the science and myth of Galileo.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136343048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes: 2. Translations and Acculturations edited by Dragos Calma","authors":"Michele Abbate","doi":"10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33137/aestimatio.v3i1.41824","url":null,"abstract":"The reception of Proclus’ Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes is certainly one of the most significant and complex themes for understanding the influence of Neoplatonic thought from the sixth century to the modern age. This volume is the second of three edited by Dragos Calma, in which the proceedings of the Parisian conference (12–13 February 2016) dedicated to the reception of the Elements of Theology and the Book of Causes are published. It gathers 18 contributions (12 in English, 5 in French, and 1 in German) by various scholars who have addressed the topic in question by focusing on specific aspects of the reception of these two texts between the sixth and 16th centuries in very different periods and cultural contexts. For this reason, the weighty volume is divided into five sections according to the cultural and geographical areas examined:(1) Byzantium,(2) The Caucasus,(3) The Lands of Islam,(4) The Latin West, and(5) The Hebrew Tradition.In view of the breadth and richness of the themes dealt with, I will limit myself to some brief and summary remarks on the main topics addressed in each essay.","PeriodicalId":30096,"journal":{"name":"Aestimatio Critical Reviews in the History of Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136343198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}