{"title":"The Anatomy of Galileo’s Anagram","authors":"Eileen Reeves","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20240098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20240098","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This essay offers a new reading of Galileo’s most celebrated anagram, incorporating both the prehistory of his late-1610 disclosure concerning the moon-like phases of Venus, and the awkward “leftover letters,” <em>o</em> and <em>y</em>, of the eventual cypher. It argues for a sustained analogy between components of the optical instrument, musical instruments, and particular anatomical structures described by Galen and elaborated by early modern anatomists in Padua. It proposes, finally, the cypher as a calculated response to the Neapolitan magus and playwright Giambattista della Porta’s challenge to Galileo’s claims about the telescope itself.</p>","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140130156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Forbidden Books and Royal Horoscopes: the Practice and Censorship of Astrology in Early Modern Portugal","authors":"Luís Campos Ribeiro, Francisco Malta Romeiras","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20240096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20240096","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In sixteenth-century Lisbon, Aires Vaz and Manuel Rodrigues were summoned to the Inquisition on account of their astrological practices. Records of the trial of Vaz and Rodrigues provide valuable information regarding the training and practice of an astrologer in sixteenth-century Portugal. Prior to this study, however, our knowledge on these matters was scarce and mostly indirect. In this article, we argue that the study of these trial records is crucial to understanding both the practice and the regulation of astrology. Studies on the censorship of astrology usually emphasize the importance of the Roman Index, the Tridentine Rules, and the papal bulls against astrology. By looking at these two trials, this article sheds new light on the application of the Roman rules and allows us to trace the general profile of an astrologer in early modern Portugal.</p>","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140130159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Newly Identified Treatise on the Tables of Marseilles (Twelfth Century) and Its Non-Ptolemaic Planetary Theory","authors":"C. Philipp E. Nothaft","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230090","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Two Latin manuscripts in Oxford and Florence preserve diverging recensions of a previously unnoticed astronomical treatise beginning <em>Infra signiferi poli regionem</em> (Oxford recension) or <em>Circulorum alius est sub quo</em> (Florence recension). It can be shown that this anonymous text was originally intended to accompany the Tables of Marseilles in Raymond of Marseilles’s twelfth-century <em>Liber cursuum planetarum</em> (ca. 1141). While the core tables for planetary longitudes in this set were founded on Ptolemy’s kinematic models, as known from the <em>Almagest</em>, this new source frequently deviates from the Ptolemaic norm, for instance by explicitly rejecting an epicyclic explanation of planetary stations and retrogradations. In place of the latter, it argues in favour of a heliodynamic theory inspired by Roman sources such as Pliny, which underwent certain developments in the works of twelfth-century Latin writers such as William of Conches. Rather than being wholly exceptional, these features are indicative of a degree of disconnect between planetary theory and computational practice in twelfth-century Latin astronomy, which is also detectable in other sources from this period.</p>","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138544829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Health and Healing in the Early Modern Iberian World: A Gendered Perspective, edited by Margaret E. Boyle and Sarah E. Cowens","authors":"Michele L. Clouse","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230093","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138595878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gendered Touch: Women, Men, and Knowledge-Making in Early Modern Europe, edited by Francesca Antonelli, Antonella Romano, and Paolo Savoia","authors":"Viktoria von Hoffmann","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230092","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138595461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intensity Meters: New Notes and Discoveries on the Invention of Early Modern Precision Instruments","authors":"Fabrizio Bigotti","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230088","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article sheds light on the invention of early modern precision instruments and their application in medicine, by analysing a neglected work by one of the Italian pupils of the physician Santorio Santori (1561–1636). This source provides vital information on Santorio’s experimental sample, and on the practical use and dimensions of instruments such as thermometers, hygrometers, pulsimeters and precision scales, showing that they also had a normative purpose: regulating the environmental factors affecting human health. The article first establishes the derivative nature of the source from Santorio’s teachings, and then contextualises the invention of precision instruments with regard to Santorio’s published and unpublished output. In the conclusions, I argue that the new instruments were meant to address the shortcomings of the traditional diagnostic rationale and are best conceptualised as ‘intensity meters’ meant to assess ‘the magnitude’ (<em>magnitudo</em>) of a patient’s illness in degrees.</p>","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138544647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance, written by Leah DeVun","authors":"Alessandra Foscati","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230091","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138594874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jerónimo Muñoz’s Reception of Proclus’ In Euclidem: Philosophy of Mathematics and an Attempt to Prove the Parallel Postulate","authors":"Álvaro José Campillo Bo","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230089","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The goal of this paper is to show – by way of a case study – how the contents of Proclus’ <em>Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements</em> were incorporated into university teaching in the sixteenth century. I analyse the impact of Proclus on the works of the Spanish mathematician and university professor Jerónimo Muñoz (ca. 1520–1591). In order to do so, I examine two manuscripts: <em>Adnotationes in commentaria Procli super Euclidem</em> (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">MS</span> Vat. Lat. 6996), and <em>Astrologicarum et geographicarum institutionum libri sex</em> (<span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">MS</span> Vat. Lat. 6998). I show that the contents of Proclus’ commentary pervade Muñoz’s mathematical writings and influence his mathematical ontology, his classification of mathematical disciplines, and the history and terminology of geometry that he adopts. Moreover, I expound on how Proclus’ text inspired Muñoz to maintain that the fifth postulate was a theorem, leading him to attempt a demonstration of it which pre-dates knowledge in the Latin West of Naṣīr ad-Dīn’s (1201–1274) previous attempt.</p>","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138544650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Memory a Matter of Complexion? On Memory Disorders in the Latin Commentaries on De memoria (1250–1300)","authors":"Véronique Decaix","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230082","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the use of the theory of complexions made by medieval commentators to explain the pathologies or dysfunctions of memory as outlined by Aristotle in his treatise on <jats:italic>Memory and Reminiscence</jats:italic>. More particularly, it focuses on the Aristotelian issues of the young and the old, the slow- and quick-witted, condensed in the Latin commentaries into an aporia that we will call the “aporia of the opposites” and into the aporia of the melancholics, questioning the influence that complexions can exert on memory. We examine three contrasting solutions, as given by Albert the Great (1200–1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), and Radulphus Brito (d. 1320/21), to shed light on their use and interpretation of theories of complexion within their accounts on memory. The main question that arises in the midst of these interpretations is about which complexion is the most appropriate to memory.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138438787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Complexion of the Members, Complexion of the Body, in Late-Medieval Scholastic Medicine","authors":"Joël Chandelier","doi":"10.1163/15733823-20230079","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-20230079","url":null,"abstract":"According to the medical theory of the Middle Ages, every individual had a general complexion for its whole body, but at the same time each organ had a specific complexion, determined by its anatomy, its function, and, of course, the individual. The problem of the relationship between those two types of complexion was, therefore, crucial for the medical practitioner: could a shift in the complexion of the body have an effect on a single organ? Could a change in the complexion of one member alter the general functioning of the body? And what were the interactions between the separate complexions of the various organs? All these questions, which had only briefly been tackled by Galen in his <jats:italic>Tegni</jats:italic>, began to be systematically addressed by physicians at the end of the thirteenth century. Some thinkers started to write specific treatises on the subject, often called <jats:italic>De resistentiis</jats:italic>, dealing with the “resistance” (or “counter-operations”) of particular complexions between them. The present paper deals with the origins of this debate, highlighting the role of Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348), and shows how the discussion evolved in the following century. Thus, the aim is to present an overlooked medical debate on complexion while proposing a reflection on the way in which scientific problems can come into being and how they can evolve.","PeriodicalId":49081,"journal":{"name":"Early Science and Medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138438788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}