The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution

481 Pages·2011·4.59 MB·English

by  James Hannam

the genesis of
scie nce
the genesis of
scie nce
the genesis of
scie nce
How tHe CHristian Middle ages
launCHed tHe sCientifiC revolution
james hannam
Copyright © 2011 by James Hannam
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ISBN 978-1-59698-155-3
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To Vanessa

contents
List of Illustrations: ix
Map of medieval Europe: x–xi
Introduction: The Truth about Science in the Middle Ages xiii

Chapter 1: After the Fall of Rome: Progress in the
Early Middle Ages 1
Chapter 2: The Mathematical Pope 17
Chapter 3: The Rise of Reason 35
Chapter 4: The Twelfth-Century Renaissance 53
Chapter 5: Heresy and Reason 69
Chapter 6: How Pagan Science Was Christianized 83
Chapter 7: B loody Failure: Magic and Medicine
in the Middle Ages 101
Chapter 8: The Secret Arts of Alchemy and Astrology 113
Chapter 9: Roger Bacon and the Science of Light 129
Chapter 10: The Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford 147
Chapter 11: The Merton Calculators 161
Chapter 12: The Apogee of Medieval Science 177
Chapter 13: New Horizons 193
Chapter 14: Humanism and the Reformation 209
Chapter 15: The Polymaths of the Sixteenth Century 229
Chapter 16: The Workings of Man: Medicine and Anatomy 247
Chapter 17: Humanist Astronomy and Nicolaus Copernicus 267
Chapter 18: Reforming the Heavens 283
Chapter 19: Galileo and Giordano Bruno 303
Chapter 20: Galileo and the New Astronomy 317
Chapter 21: The Trial and Triumph of Galileo 329
Conclusion: A Scientific Revolution? 345
Suggestions for Further Reading 353
Timeline 357
List of Key Characters 361
Notes 373
Bibliography of Works Cited 411
Acknowledgements 439
Index 441
List of iLLustrations
1. Ottoman astrolabe from the Musée de l’Institut du Monde Arabe,
Paris, 21
2. Map from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae (Augsburg: Günther Zainer,
1472), 29
3. Diagram of the universe from Peter Apian, Cosmographia (Antwerp:
Arnold Berckmann, 1539), 32
4. Manuscript illumination by Laurentius de Voltolina from the Kupfer-
stichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 45
5. Manuscript illumination from Bible Moralisee, Vienna, Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek, MS Codex Vindobonensis 2554, 59
6. Manuscript initial from Johannitius, Isagoge, Bethesda MA, National
Library of Medicine, MS DeRicci [78], 107
7. Photograph of a large trebuchet, 132
8. Eastern and western Arabic numerals compared to modern western
numerals, 153
9. Diagram from Nicole Oresme’s De configurationibus qualitatum, Flor-
ence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Conv. Soppr. J. IX. 26, 184
10. A map of the world from Ptolemy, Geographia (Ulm: Leonard Hol,
1482), 198
11. Woodcut from Johannes de Ketham, Fasiculo de medicina (Venice: Zuane
& Gregorio di Gregorii, 1494), 254
12. Woodcut of a standing flayed figure from the studio of Titian in
Andreas Vesalius, De fabrica corporis humanis (Basle: Joannes Oporinus,
1543), 257
13. A woodcut of a uterus from Vesalius, De fabrica, 259
14. Model of the universe from Johannes Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicam
(Tübingen: Georgius Gruppenbachius, 1596), 293
15. A diagram from Galileo Galilei, trans. Henry Carew and Alfonso de
Salvio, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (New York: Macmillan,
1914), 337
16. A diagram from William Heytesbury, Regule solvendi sophismata
(Venice: Bonetus Locatellus, 1494), 339