Abstract
The title of this study translates that of a note published by Antonio Favaro in 1918 in the transactions of the Accademia dei Lincei, wherein he presented his considered opinion of the value of Pierre Duhem’s researches into the ‘Parisian precursors of Galileo.’1 Earlier, in 1916, only a few years after the appearance of Duhem’s three-volume Études sur Léonard de Vinci, Favaro had reviewed the work in Scientia and had expressed some reservations about the thesis there advanced, which advocated a strong bond of continuity between medieval and modern science.2 In the 1918 note he returned to this topic and developed a number of arguments against the continuity thesis, some of which are strikingly similar to those offered in present-day debates. Since Favaro, as the editor of the National Edition of Galileo’s works, had a superlative knowledge of Galileo’s manuscripts — one that remains unequalled in extent and in detail to the present day — it will be profitable to review his arguments and evaluate them in the light of recent researches into the manuscript sources of Galileo’s early notebooks. Such is the intent of this essay.
Research on which this paper is based has been supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. SOC 75–14615), whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Apart from the earlier version presented at the Blacksburg Workshop on Galileo on October 26, 1975, portions of this essay have been presented at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., on October 20, 1975, and at meetings of the American Philosophical Association in New York on December 28, 1975, and of the History of Science Society in Atlanta on December 30, 1975. The author wishes particularly to acknowledge the comments, among many others, of Alistair Crombie, Stillman Drake, William F. Edwards, Paul O. Kristeller, Charles H. Lohr, Michael S. Mahoney, John E. Murdoch, Charles B. Schmitt, and Thomas B. Settle, which have aided him appreciably in successive revisions
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Notes
Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses’, Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei 27(1918), 3–14.
Léonard da Vinci a-t-il exercé une influence sur Galilée et son école?’ Scientia 20 (1916), 257–265.
The manuscript referred to here is contained in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Forence with the signature Manoscritti Galileiani 46 (= BNF/MS Gal 46). Its transcription is contained in Antonio Favaro (ed.), Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, 20 vols. in 21, G. Barbera Editore, Florence, 1890–1909, reprinted 1968, Vol. 1, pp. 15–177 (hereafter abbreviated as Opere 1:15–177). All manuscript material in this essay is reproduced with the kind permission of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, Italy. This permission is here gratefully acknowledged.
Études sur Léonard de Vinci, 3 vols., A. Hermann & Fils, Paris, 1913, Vol. 3, p. 583.
“...che lo sviluppo scientifico e soggetto alla legge di continuità; che le grandi scoperte sono quasi sempre il frutto d’una preparazione lenta e complicatà, proseguita attraverso i secoli; che in fine le dottrine, le quali i più insigni pensatori giunsero a professare, risultano da una moltitudine di sforzi accumulati da una folla di oscuri lavoratori.” — ‘Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses,’ p. 4 (translation here and hereafter by the writer).
“Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses,’ pp. 8–10.
“Senza dubbio alcuno, dunque, ciò scriveva Galileo durante Tanno 1584.” — Avvertimento, Opere 1:12.
“Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses,’ p. 10; cf. Avvertimento, Opere 1:12. The reference is to Francesco Buonamici, De motu libri decern... Apud Bartholomaeum Sermatellium, Florentiae, 1591.
‘Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses,’ p. 11; see also Opere 1:12–13 and 9:275–282.
Favaro reports this inscription in his Avvertimento, Opere 1:9, as “L’esame dell’opera d’Aristotele ‘De Caelo’ fatto da Galileo circa l’anno 1590.”
Thus, in Opere 1, at p. 122, line 10 (hereafter abbreviated as 122.10), Galileo makes the reference to “[ea] quae dicta sunt a nobis 6° Physicorum...,” an indication of a commentary on the eight books of the Physics, and at 137.14 he speaks of difficulties that will be solved “cum agam de elementis in particulari,” a common way of designating the subject matter of the Meteorology, of which he apparently planned to treat. There is also an implicit reference to notes on logic that probably preceded the notes on natural philosophy; this occurs at 18.17, where Galileo writes “... de singularibus non potest esse scientia, ut alibi ostendimus,” a possible indication of his having already explained this thesis from the Posterior Analytics. Other references to matter treated elsewhere occur at 77.18, 77.24, 113.13, 125.25–32, 127.30, 128.8, 129.24, 138.9, and 150.24–25.
All of these references to Aquinas and the Thomists have been analyzed by the writer in W. A. Wallace, ‘Galileo and the Thomists’, St. Thomas Aquinas Commemorative Studies 1274–1974 (ed. by A. Maurer), Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 1974, Vol. 2, pp. 293–330. At the time he wrote that article the writer accepted uncritically Favaro’s judgment that the notes contained in MS Gal 46 were Juvenilia; now, as will become clear in what follows, he seriously questions such a characterization of the notes.
For an account of the discoveries of Crombie and Carugo, see A. C. Crombie, ‘Sources of Galileo’s Early Natural Philosophy’, in Reason, Experiment, and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution (ed. by M. L. Righini Bonelli and W. R. Shea) Science History Publications, New York, 1975, pp. 157–175, 303–305. For the results of the author’s researches, apart from those reported in note 13 above, see W. A. Wallace, ‘Galileo and Reasoning Ex Suppositione: The Methodology of the Two New Sciences,’ in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXXII (Proceedings of the 1974 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 1974) (ed. by R. S. Cohen et al), Reidei, Dordrecht and Boston, 1976, pp. 79–104; note 3a of this paper, added in proof, clarifies matters relating to priorities of discovery.
The Latin text, also given below, is in Opere 1:38.4–9.
The relevant folios of MS Gal 46 are fol. 16v to fol. 26r, which duplicate matter found on pp. 42–46, 55–71, and 135–143 of the 1581 edition of Clavius’s Sphaera.
Galileo himself alludes to this fact in his third letter on sunspots to Mark Weiser, dated December 1, 1612; see Opere 5:190.2–7.
Galileo could have used the 1570 edition for portions of his work, but he incorporates material not found in that edition, and for this he must have used (directly or indirectly) either the 1581 or the 1585 edition, both of which were printed from the same type. For a complete listing of Clavius’s writings, see Carlos Sommervogel, S.J., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, Vol. II (Alphonse Picard, Paris, 1891) cols. 1212–1224; see also note 33 infra.
For the Latin text, see Opere 1:24.25–27. The reference to Pererius is apparently to his widely available De communibus omnium rerum naturalium principiis et affectionibus libri quindecim, printed at Rome in 1576 and often thereafter. It should be noted, however, that Sommervogel (Vol. VI, col. 499) lists an earlier work printed at Rome in 1562 with the title Physicorum, sive de principiis rerum naturalium libri XV; this is much rarer, and I have not yet been able to locate a copy. There are also manuscript versions of Pererius’s lectures on the Physics, as noted infra, p. 107.
Galileo’s reply is on fol. 14v; Pererius’s corresponding discussion is on p. 505 of the 1576 edition.
For details, see R. G. Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia di Gesù (1773). Analecta Gregoriana Vol. LXVI, Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1954, especially pp. 89–91 and 329–335.
See Favaro’s Avvertimento in Opere 9:279–282.
See Favaro’s Avvertimento in Opere 9:275–276, together with his transcription of the text and an indication of the corrections, ibid., 9:283–284.
For the Latin text, see Opere 1:27.
See Favaro’s Avvertimento in Opere 1:9 and 1:11–12; also ‘Galileo Galilei e i Doctores Parisienses,’ p. 8.
Rev. William Hales, D.D., A New Analysis of Chronology and Geography, History and Prophecy..., 4 vols., London: C. J. G. & F. Rivington, 1830, Vol. 1, p. 214.
Ibid., pp. 211–214.
In his researches the writer has uncovered only one book that does give Galileo’s figure. This is Ignatius Hyacinthus Amat de Graveson, O.P., Tractatus de vita, mysteriis, et annis Jesu Christi..., Venetiis: Apud Joannem Baptistam Recurti, 1727, pp. 251–252: “Christus Dominus anno aerae vulgaris vigesimo sexto, imperii proconsularis Tiberii decimo sexto, anno urbis Romae conditae 779, anno a creatione mundi 4164...” The date of publication of this work obviously would rule it out as a source; but see note 50 infra.
For details concerning Pererius’s Averroism and internal controversies at the Collegio, see M. Scaduto, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù in Italia. L’Epoca di Giacomo Lainez, 2 vols., Gregorian University Press, Rome, 1964, Vol. 2, p. 284.
Also R. G. Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano, pp. 52, 78ff, 329, and C. H. Lohr, ‘Jesuit Aristotelianism and Suarez’s Disputationes Metaphysicae,’ to appear in Paradosis: Studies in Memory of E. A. Quain (New York 1976).
Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano, p. 323.
Benedictus Pererius, Commentariorum in Danielem prophetam libri sexdecim... Romae: Apud Georgium Ferrarium, 1587
Benedictus Pererius Prior tomus commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim... Romae: Apud Georgium Ferrarium, 1589.
See Hales, A New Analysis of Chronology, p. 217.
See Opere 10:22; also Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano, pp. 194–199.
For details, see Giuseppe Cosentino, ‘L’Insegnamento delle Matematiche nei Collegi Gesuitici nell’Italia settentrionale. Nota Introduttiva’, Physis 13 (1971), 205–217, and ‘Le mathematiche nella “Ratio Studiorum” della Compagnia di Gesù’, Miscellanea Storica Ligure (Istituto di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea, Università di Genova), II, 2(1970), 171–213.
See Charles B. Schmitt, ‘The Faculty of Arts at Pisa at the Time of Galileo’, Physis 14 (1972), 243–272, especially p. 260.
Schmitt, ‘The Faculty of Arts...,’ p. 256; also Ludovico Geymonat, Galileo Galilei (transl. by Stillman Drake), McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1965, pp. 10–11.
Opere 10:44–45. This letter and its contents are discussed by Crombie in his paper cited in note 14 supra, pp. 167–68.
Favaro speculates that Galileo might have had a hand in Guiducci’s Letter, cited in note 56 supra; see Opere 6:6. For other collaboration between Galileo and Guiducci, see William R. Shea, Galileo’s Intellectual Revolution. Middle Period, 1610–1632, Science History Publications, New York, 1972, pp. 75–76.
Opere 8:101.
See Schmitt, ‘The Faculty of Arts...,’ pp. 261–262.
Christophorus Clavius, Euclidis Elementorum Libri XV..., Romae: Apud Vincentium Accoltum, 1574; nunc iterum editi ac multarum rerum accessione locupletati, Romae: Apud Bartholomaeum Grassium, 1589. Galileo’s own interpretation of Euclid, however, would still derive from Tartaglia’s Italian translation, with which he was quite familiar, and which, as Stillman Drake has repeatedly argued, underlies his distinctive geometrical approach to the science of motion.
Schmitt, ‘The Faculty of Arts...,’ p. 262; also Opere 19:119–120; and Antonio Favaro, Galileo Galilei a Padova, Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1968, pp. 105–114, especially p. 108.
Four versions are listed by Favaro, Opere 2:206; Stillman Drake reports a fifth version, ‘An Unrecorded Manuscript Copy of Galileo’s Cosmography’, Physis 1 (1959), 294–306.
See Schmitt, ‘The Faculty of Arts...,’ p. 206.
The table is reproduced in Opere 2:244–245; compare this with the table on pp. 429–430 of the 1581 edition of Clavius’s Sphaera.
Opere 1:314.
Clavius, Sphaera (1581 edition), pp. 108–109.
For Duhem’s own views see his The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory (transl. by P. P. Wiener), The Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1954; for their historical justification, apart from Duhem’s monumental work on Le Système du Monde, see his To Save the Phenomena, ‘An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo’ (transl. by E. Doland and C. Maschler), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1969.
There are other flaws in Duhem’s historical arguments, of course, and these have been well detailed by Annaliese Maier in her studies on the natural philosophy of the late scholastics. Other scholars have contributed substantial information, since Duhem’s time, that support various aspects of his continuity thesis; among these should be mentioned Ernest A. Moody and Marshall Clagett and their disciples. In what follows, to the researches of these authors will be added a brief survey of sixteenth-century work that complements their findings but leads to slightly different philosophical conclusions than have heretofore been argued.
The last half of Duhem’s third volume on Leonardo da Vinci is in fact entitled ‘Dominique Soto et la Scolastique Parisienne,’ pp. 263–581, of which pp. 555–562 are devoted to Soto’s teachings. For a summary of Soto’s life and works, with bibliography, see the article on him by the writer in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 12, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1975, pp. 547–548.
Storia del Collegio Romano, pp. 60–61. Villoslada also calls attention to the professed Thomism of the theology faculty there, and to the tendency otherwise to imitate the academic styles then current at the Universities of Paris and Salamanca (p. 113).
Cited by Herman Shapiro, Motion, Time and Place According to William Ockham, Franciscan Institute Publications, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1957, p. 40.
Ibid., p. 53; see also William Ockham, Philosophical Writings: A selection (ed. by Philotheus Boehner), Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., Edinburgh, 1957, p. 156.
Subtilissime questiones super octo phisicorum libros Aristotelis, Lib. 3, q. 7, Parisiis: In edibus Dionisii Roce, 1509, fols. 50r–51r.
W. A. Wallace, ‘The Concept of Motion in the Sixteenth Century’, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 41 (1967), 184–195; and ‘The “Calculatores” in Early Sixteenth-Century Physics’, cited supra in note 14.
W. A. Wallace, ‘The Enigma of Domingo de Soto: Uniformi ter difformis and Falling Bodies in Late Medieval Physics’, Isis 59 (1968), 384–401.
The text of that paper, written around 1586, is cited by Cosentino, ‘Le matematiche nella “Ratio Studiorum”...,’ p. 203, as follows: “Senza le matematichi ‘physicam... recte percipi non potest, praesertim quod ad illam partem attinet, ubi agitur de numero et motu orbium coelestium, de multitudine intelligentiarum, de effectibus astrorum, qui pendent ex varus coniunctionibus, oppositionibus et reliquis distantiis inter sese, de divisione quantitatis continuae in infinitum, de fluxu et refluxu maris, de ventis, de cometis, iride, halone et aliis rebus meteorologicis, de proportione motuum, qualitatum, actionum, passionum et reactionum, etc., de quibus multa scribunt Calculatores.’”
Latin text cited above, note 30.
In this letter, dated April 12, 1615, Bellarmine commended Foscarini and Galileo for being prudent in contenting themselves to speak hypothetically and not absolutely when presenting the Copernican system, thus considering it merely as a mathematical hypothesis (Opere 12:171–172). Galileo, of course, quickly disavowed that such was his intent (Opere 5:349–370, especially p. 360).
Latin text in Clavius, Sphaera, 1581 edition, p. 605. An English translation of this and surrounding passages is to be found in R. Harré, The Philosophies of Science: An Introductory Survey, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1972, pp. 84–86.
Crombie, ‘Sources...,’ and W. A. Wallace, ‘Galileo and Reasoning Ex Suppositions..,’ both cited in note 14 above.
L. M. De Rijk, ‘The Development of Suppositio naturalis in Medieval Logic’, Vivarium 11 (1973), 43–79, especially p. 54.
Other expositions of Ockham’s theory of demonstration are E. A. Moody, The Logic of William of Ockham, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1935
Damascene Webering, Theory of Demonstration According to William Ockham, Franciscan Institute Publications, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1953.
In metaphysicen Aristotelis quaestiones..., Lib. 2, q. 1, Parisiis: Venundantur Badio, 1518, fol. 9r; Quaestiones super decern libros ethicorum Aristotelis, Lib. 6, q. 6, Parisiis: Venundantur Ponceto le Preux, 1513, fols. 121v–123r. For a discussion of the first of these texts, and a critique of Ernest Moody’s reading of it, see W. A. Wallace, ‘Buridan, Ockham, Aquinas: Science in the Middle Ages,’ The Thomist 40 (1976), pp. 475–483.
For the precise texts see Opere 5:357.22, 7:462.18, 8:197.9, 8:273.30, 17:90.74, and 18:12.52. The first of these uses the Italian equivalent (supposizioni naturali) but the remainder employ the Latin ex suppositione even when the surrounding text is in Italian.
Respondeo: scientiam subalternatam tamquam imperfectam non habere perfectas demonstrationes, cum prima principia supponat in superiori probata, ideoque gignat scientiam ex suppositione et secundum quid... — MS Gal 27, fol. 20v. This reading is quoted from the transcription of this manuscript kindly made available to me by Adriano Carugo; for a brief preliminary analysis of the place of this work in Galileo’s thought, see Crombie, ‘Sources...,’ (note 14 above), pp. 171–174.
For a good account of the Aristotelian revival in the late sixteenth century, which locates the work of the Collegio Romano in the larger context of European universities generally, see Charles B. Schmitt, ‘Philosophy and Science in Sixteenth-Century Universities: Some Preliminary Comments’, in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning (ed. by J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla), Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XXVI, Reidel, Dordrecht and Boston, 1975, pp. 485–537.
Thus some of the claims made by Heiko A. Oberman, ‘Reformation and Revolution: Copernicus’s Discovery in an Era of Change’, in The Cultural Context... (note 90), pp. 397–435
E. A. Moody in his Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science and Logic, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1975, pp. 287–304 and passim, with regard to the role of nominalism in the Scientific Revolution, would seem to require revision in light of the findings reported in this paper.
See John E. Murdoch, ‘The Development of a Critical Temper: New Approaches and Modes of Analysis in Fourteenth-Century Philosophy, Science, and Theology,’ being readied for publication; also his ‘From Social into Intellectual Factors: An Aspect of the Unitary Character of Late Medieval Learning,’ in The Cultural Context... (note 90), pp. 271–384, and ‘Philosophy and the Enterprise of Science in the Later Middle Ages,’ in The Interaction Between Science and Philosophy (ed. by Y. Elkana), Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1974, pp. 51–74.
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Wallace, W.A. (1978). Galileo Galilei and the Doctores Parisienses . In: Butts, R.E., Pitt, J.C. (eds) New Perspectives on Galileo. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9799-8_3
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