11 Renaissance Natural Philosophy

Siraisi

Albala

“Renaissance science” ca. 1480 – ca. 1600

Recovery of ancient texts:

  • 12th-13th centuries (universities): but not all scientific texts
  • humanist movement: late phase includes scientific texts

Translation; assimilation; innovation

When experience and text do not match:

  • manuscript  errors
  • changes in phenomenon over time
  • deformities in particular object
  • new phenomenon unknown to ancients
  • finally: perhaps ancients were in error

Galen and anatomy

Andrea Vesalius (1514-64)

at Paris: professors inclued Johann Winter von Andernach (1505-74)

  • published works included translations of 5 of Galen’s works 1529-39
  • Vesalius assisted in editing work

On the use of the parts known since 14th c. (pub. 1528)

Natural Faculties translated by Linacre 1523

Anatomical Procedures tr. by Vesalius’ teacher Johann Winter 1531

Greek edition of Galen opera omnia 1525 (Venice: Aldus Manutius)

Vesalius: De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body)  1543

Led to a great increase in use of dissection for research, instruction

Career success:

became physician to Charles V, Philip II

an error of Galen: the rete mirabile

  • Identifies error: a structure that is not there
  • Identifies likely causes of error: structure is present in other mammals; ancient limits on dissections

BBC on Vesalius with Prof. Sachiko Kusukawa

Galen, De alimentorum facultatibus translated, published 1530

Pliny: Natural History

Gaius Plinius Secundus  (CE 23/24–79)   Historia Naturalis

Always accessible, read

Pliny in the Renaissance (1470-1600 ca)

  • Interest in Pliny as writer and person not just contents
  • Textual accuracy
  • use of Greek terms
  • Use of and references to many (lost) authors
  • Innovations in the study of nature

Print: 1470 Venice and Rome (Sweynheim)

1472 printing of Pliny’s Natural History

ornamented for the Medici

1476: Jenson, Venice sponsored by Strozzi family (Florence). Trans. Cristoforo Landino.

 

Book XX. A garden.

 

The “Errors of Pliny” debate

  • 1492: Niccolo Leoniceno (1428-1524) De Plinii et plurium aliorum medicorum in medicina: professor of medicine, Ferrara
  • inaccuracies in terms Greek-Latin-modern

natural sympathies as explanation of effects

Qualities (“virtues”)

Antiquarian interest: mid 16th century

 

Botany

Study of pharmacy at universities

“De Materia Medica” by Dioscorides

Dioscorides (d. 90 CE), Materia medica (Spanish), Antwerp 1555

chairs  at Italian universities by 1530s, 1540s, then across Europe

Botanical gardens: Pisa, Padua 1544  Plan of the Botanical Garden, Florence, 1545-6

  1. Field trips
  2. New World finds
  3. Herbaria; Natural history museums.
  4. Efforts at classification

Leonhart Fuchs, 1501-1566. Laebliche abbildung und contrafaytung aller kreuter. Basel: Durch Michel [sic] Isingrin, 1545. [266]-267.    (UW-Madison)

 

Codevigo

Loggia and Odeo Cornaro