Ivano Dal Prete

Scholarship on the Questio de aqua et terra has recently moved from problems of attribution toward a better understanding of its cultural and historical context. Building upon this trend, this chapter focuses on the largely misunderstood doctrine the author of the Questio intends to refute: namely, that the surface of the sphere of water would be in part of its circumference higher than the sphere of earth. This theory has always been dismissed as an absurd construct, that defied basic common sense and rightly spurred Dante’s outrage. On the contrary, I argue that it represented a sophisticated and plausible solution to one of the most debated issues in medieval science, finding widespread diffusion even in vernacular encyclopedias and didactic works. In fact, evidence suggests that the author of the Questio ignored or failed to grasp crucial aspects of the theory he set out to disprove and that he might have been unfamiliar with some of the most significant literature on the topic.

This edited collection explores Dante Alighieri’s contribution to medical, scientific, and spiritual thought in medieval and early modern times. The chapters address how Dante shaped an understanding of the human body and mind, his relationship with medical and scientific thought in his literary and philosophical production, and his legacy which continued into the following centuries. Each chapter questions Dante’s contribution to these issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, thus putting medieval literatures in conversation with the history of medicine and science, politics, theology, and philosophy. Covering questions on the body, soul, matter, politics, and physics, this valuable book presents an overview of Dante’s relationship with medical thought and the medieval sciences.

In the last two centuries, science has been regarded as the most important agent of change and progress in our society. The narrative of how and why it came to be such a commanding force contributed powerfully to this perception. The rise of modern science has long been portrayed as the triumph of human reason over superstition and authority; its history, a gallery adorned with the images of heroes like Copernicus, Galileo or Darwin who upheld self-evident facts against the prejudices of their times; experimental results and the laws of nature, the only objective “truths” that human beings could attain and agree upon. This narrative still largely informs popular views of the scientific enterprise; yet, the image of science as a disinterested pursuit of truth has come increasingly under question during the last decades, to the point that mistrust of science as a source of objectivie knowledge is considered a defining feature of postmodernity. The history of science as an academic discipline has long participated in this trend,1 but it was not until the 1980s that it ceased to identify with the development of ideas and theories, as formulated by the most illustrious scientists. In their influential 1985 book Leviathan and the Air Pump, Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer argued that experimental results ultimately represent no more than social constructions, negotiated according to the conventions that regulate the acknowledgement of authority and credibility.2 A few years later, Mario Biagioli sought to explain part of Galileo’s scientific activity (and even his trial) in terms of the courtly culture and values of his time.3.

Scholarship on the early modern period assumes that the Creation story of Genesis and its chronology were the only narratives openly available in Renaissance Europe. This essay revisits the topic by exploring a wide range of literature on the age and nature of the Earth in early modern Italy. It suggests that, contrary to received notions, in the early 1500s an Aristotelian ancient world characterized by slow geological change was a common assumption in discourse on the Earth. These notions were freely disseminated by popularizations and didactic literature in the vernacular, which made them available to a large readership. Counter-Reformation cultural policies eventually called for a tighter integration of theology and natural philosophy; however, the essay argues that even then the creation of the world was usually placed in a remote and undetermined past, not necessarily tied to the short timescales of contemporary chronology.

This paper explores the interactions between scientific travel, politics, instrument making and the epistemology of scientific instruments in Napoleon's Europe. In the early 1800s, the German astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach toured Italy and Southern France with instruments made by G. Reichenbach in his newly-established Bavarian workshop. I argue that von Zach acted as a broker for German technology and science and that travel, personal contacts and direct demonstrations were crucial in establishing Reichenbach's reputation and in conquering new markets. The rise of German instrument making highlights the complexity of the scientific relationship between the centre and the peripheries in Napoleon's empire, and reveals the existence of diverging views on the role of instruments and of their makers. In von Zach's view, Reichenbach's instruments could not penetrate the French market because Parisian astronomers focused on mathematical astronomy and, for both political and epistemological reasons, dismissed instruments and material innovations from the peripheries. The German astronomer and his Italian colleagues, on the contrary, regarded Reichenbach's technical achievements as outstanding contributions to astronomy, and considered the political and cultural hegemony of the capital as a hindrance to the advancement of science