17th Century Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Mathematical Disquisitions – The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo

Book 176 pages Level: high school and above This 2017 book by Christopher M. Graney is the first complete English translation of an astronomical text written by scientists who stood opposite Galileo in the debate on the question of Earth’s motion. Galileo painted a very unfavorable portrait of Mathematical Disquisitions and its Jesuit authors, but the book itself turns out to be a competent scientific work and not much like Galileo’s portrayal of it. From the publisher, the University of Notre Dame Press: Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo offers a new English translation of the 1614 Disquisitiones Mathematicae, which Johann Georg Locher wrote under the guidance of the German Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner. The booklet, an anti-Copernican astronomical work, is of interest in large part because Galileo Galilei, who came into conflict with Scheiner over the discovery of sunspots, devoted numerous pages within his famous 1632 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems—Ptolemaic and Copernican to ridiculing Disquisitiones. The brief text (the … Continue reading →

Teaching sunspots: Disciplinary identity and scholarly practice in the Collegio Romano

Article 24 pages Level: university This 2014 by Renee Raphael, published in the journal History of Science, discusses how the subject of sunspots was addressed by professors at the Jesuit Roman College during the seventeenth century, when the nature of sunspots was a matter of controversy: Abstract: This article examines how Jesuit Gabriele Beati (1607-1673) taught the subject of sunspots in two textbooks commemorating his teaching of natural philosophy and mathematics at the Collegio Romano. Whereas Beati defended the incorruptibility of the heavens in his natural philosophical course, he argued that sunspots were located on the face of the sun itself and generated and corrupted like terrestrial clouds in his mathematical one. While it may be tempting to attribute these different presentations to censorship practices within the Jesuit Order, they are best understood as the result of disciplinary distinctions and scholarly practices shared widely by scholars across Europe. Click here to access this article via Ebscohost (available through many libraries). … Continue reading →

Kepler and the Laws of Nature

Article 6 pages Level: high school and above Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian of science with Harvard University, discusses Johannes Kepler and the idea of “Laws of Nature” in this 2011 article published in the journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith: Kepler is famous for his three laws of planetary motion, but he never assigned a special status to them or called them laws. More than a century and a half passed before they were singled out and ordered in a group of three. Nevertheless, he believed in an underlying, God-given rationale to the universe, something akin to laws of nature, and as he matured he began to use the word archetype for this concept. Most physicists today have, quite independently of religious values, a feeling that deep down the universe is ultimately comprehensible and lawful. Such ultimate laws are here called ontological laws of nature. In contrast, what we have (including Kepler’s third law, for example) are … Continue reading →

The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius who Discovered a New History of the Earth

Book 228 pages Level: high school and above The Seashell on the Mountaintop is a 2003 book by Alan Cutler, published by Dutton/Penguin, about the seventeenth century scientist and bishop Nicholaus Steno. From the dust jacket: It was an ancient puzzle that stymied history’s greatest minds: How did the fossils of seashells find their way far inland, sometimes high up into the mountains? Fossils only made sense in a world old enough to form them, and in the seventeenth century, few people could imagine such a thing. Texts no less authoritative than the Old Testament laid out very clearly the timescale of Earth’s past; in fact one Anglican archbishop went so far as to calculate the exact date of Creation…October 23, 4004, B.C. A revolution was in the making, however, and it was started by the brilliant and enigmatic Nicholaus Steno, the man whom Stephen Jay Gould called “the founder of geology.” Steno explored beyond the pages of the Bible, … Continue reading →

How many great minds does it take to invent a telescope?

Article 1300 words Level: all audiences An article published in Aeon in 2017 by Thony Christie, discusses the people who contributed to the development of the reflecting telescope, including the Jesuit astronomer Niccolò Zucchi. Christie is the author of The Renaissance Mathematicus. Click here to access this article directly from Aeon. On 11 January 1672, the Fellows of the British Royal Society were treated to a demonstration of Isaac Newton’s reflecting telescope, which formed images with mirrors rather than with the lenses that had been used since the time of Galileo. Afterward, the fellows hailed Newton as the inventor of this marvellous new instrument, an attribution that sticks to the present. However, this linear historical account obscures a far more interesting, convoluted story. Newton’s claim was immediately challenged on behalf of two other contenders, James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain. More confounding, the earliest known concept of using a curved mirror to focus light predated Newton by more than 1,500 years; the … Continue reading →

Jesuits: Savants

Article (book chapter) 46 pages Level: university This article by Mordechai Feingold is the introductory chapter to the 2003 book Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, edited by Feingold and published by The MIT Press. Feingold provides an overview of Jesuit scientists and of the advantages and disadvantages (from a scientific point of view) of doing science within the Jesuit order—an organization whose mission was not scientific but spiritual. Feingold writes: The aim of this introductory chapter is to get past the stereotypes that surrounded the Society of Jesus during the first 200 years of its existence and evaluate the scientific dimension of its intellectual contribution, independent of its religious mission. It is my contention that, by and large, the scholarly activities and aspirations of Jesuits were indistinguishable from those of other contemporary savants, secular or ordained, irrespective of denomination. True, constraints on the pursuit of secular learning were more stringent among Jesuits, as were the mechanisms regulating their … Continue reading →

Scientific Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum

Article (book chapter) 60 pages Level: university This article by Paula Findlen is a chapter in the 2003 book Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters, edited by Mordechai Feingold and published by The MIT Press. Findlen discusses the museum constructed by Fr. Athanasius Kircher, S. J., in the seventeenth century—a museum filled with everything from demonstrations of optical illusions and magnetic clocks, to lodestones and asbestos, to artifacts from the cultures of Egypt and China. Findlen writes: Kircher’s story not only sheds light on his own circumstances and on the formation of a remarkable museum; it also illuminates the importance of his religious order to early modern scientific culture. The Jesuits are one of the most important and understudied groups of scholars active during the scientific revolution. Through their vast networks and proliferation of education institutions, the Jesuits rightfully may claim to have developed one of the largest and most influential scientific communities in early modern Europe. Kircher certainly … Continue reading →

The earliest telescope preserved in Japan

Article 10 pages Level: university This 2008 article, written by Tsuko Nakamura and published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, features abundant full-color illustrations of the (Jesuit-influenced) telescope that is the subject of the article. Abstract: This paper describes the antique telescope owned by one of Japan’s major feudal warlords, Tokugawa Yoshinao. As he died in 1650, this means that this telescope was produced in or before that year. Our recent investigation of the telescope revealed that it is of Schyrlean type, consisting of four convex lenses, so that it gives erect images with a measured magnifying power of 3.9 (± 0.2-0.3). This also implies that Yoshinao’s telescope could be one of the earliest Schyrlean telescopes ever. The design, fabrication technique, and the surface decoration of the telescopic tube and caps all suggest that it is not a Western make at all, but was produced probably under the guidance of a Chinese Jesuit missionary or by the Chinese, in Suzhou or … Continue reading →

Exploring the first scientific observations of lunar eclipses made in Siam

Article 20 pages Level: high school and above A heavily illustrated 2016 article by Wayne Orchiston, Darunee Lingling Orchiston, Martin George and Boonrucksar Soonthornthum, published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage: Abstract: The first great ruler to encourage the adoption of Western culture and technology throughout Siam (present-day Thailand) was King Narai, who also had a passion for astronomy. He showed this by encouraging French and other Jesuit missionaries, some with astronomical interests and training, to settle in Siam from the early 1660s. One of these was Father Antoine Thomas, and he was the first European known to have carried out scientific astronomical observations from Siam when he determined the latitude of Ayutthaya in 1681 and the following year observed the total lunar eclipse of 22 February. A later lunar eclipse also has an important place in the history of Thai astronomy. In 1685 a delegation of French missionary-astronomers settled in Ayutthaya, and on 10-11 December 1685 they … Continue reading →

French astronomers in India during the 17th – 19th centuries

Article 6 pages Level: high school and above A 1991 article by R. K. Kochhar, published in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association: Abstract: The contributions made by French astronomers from India are reviewed. The French were more successful on the scientific front than on the colonial. The first telescopic discovery from India was made by a French Jesuit priest, Father Jean Richaud (1689). Surprisingly the first ever modern worthwhile map of India was prepared in France by D’Anville (1752). All Indian maps until 1905 used the value of Madras longitude derived by a Frenchman, John Warren (1807). And finally, the first ever discovery from India – and of singular importance – in the then new field of astrophysics, was also due to a visiting Frenchman, Janssen (1868). Click here to access this article via NASA ADS. Click here to download a PDF of this article from NASA ADS.

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Category Archives: 17th Century